00:27:07.700right in history if you're going to do historical fiction come up with
00:27:17.460okay if you're going to do historical fiction come up with people that didn't exist put them
00:27:22.820in historical context and then make up your story but yeah and it like grossly
00:27:31.060slandered and it it was just horrible with its history one of the difference here is you've got
00:27:38.740tales that come down from you know even at the time ancient things in a society that doesn't
00:27:46.500have wikipedia so in far off scandinavia when you hear people writing about attila it's very
00:27:57.460very loosely based on you know legends that have made it down to you
00:28:07.780you know 500 at least years after the fact so don't overly
00:28:17.540the point of that that's interesting and these aren't meant to be historic that's one of the
00:28:23.620things is you have things like beowulf and stuff that might have some historical connectivity
00:28:33.140but they're not written the same way and they're not the same as sagas that are recorded as history
00:28:43.220these are you know this is epic poetry about you know epic quasi supernatural things and it's
00:28:52.180important to know the authors knew that going in there's no dishonesty here with the with the stuff
00:29:02.420that they're they're presenting i also want to say that we just got a uh wayne sheehan bought us
00:29:11.380three coffees it's a 15 donation i appreciate that so much thank you it's accompanied by
00:29:17.220thanks for all the hard work and dedication i listen to victory never sleeps as i sleep and
00:29:22.500also at the gym it's very good to have authentic folk teaching and actually living true hail the
00:29:28.740afa hail the icier and hail victory wayne thank you so much for saying so i appreciate the kind
00:29:37.620words i appreciate that you enjoy the program and i also appreciate your generosity so thank you very
00:29:44.020much that hypes me up to know that someone's uh listening to us while just pressing steel
00:29:51.300and getting stronger that's that's awesome all right so svan are you ready to take us
00:29:59.060into the text of the evening uh yes absolutely so this is the the song um or the the the poem of
00:30:09.620of um Helge Hundingsbane part two is kind of how it's it's referred to um
00:30:22.340so again it starts off flat and it is giving the audience an immediate context and that's
00:30:33.800lends us to understand that this is these were probably separate stories told and were told
00:30:43.320perhaps there was even more we don't quite know but the construction of the poetics were
00:30:52.760a huge part of the presentation of the story it is truly a cultural phenomena for our ancestors
00:31:02.120to hear the poetic structure and stanza, particularly in upper courts.
00:31:10.920This might have been told in a layman's terms amongst free men and semi-powerful people.
00:31:23.580They might have heard a kind of story version.
00:31:26.240But certainly in the Jarl's courts, this would have been spoken in poetic format.
00:31:33.180And 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.
00:31:47.480Um, 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.
00:32:12.000and you will again meant they'll there be mention of of sigmund sigurd the dragon slayer's father
00:32:19.220um there will also be mentioning of the ilvings and the ilvings most likely but i cannot say with
00:32:27.720absolute um sense is that they are the same as the wolflings that are mentioned in beowulf
00:32:35.440um in denmark where the danes ended up warring with the wolflings and ultimately the their fate
00:32:45.580was that they were pushed out of denmark and that they moved as a people to what is now poland and
00:32:53.260then went down the volga river um and eventually settled in the black sea for a moment and
00:33:01.520established the city of Kiev, which may have been under a different name by that, or at that time,
00:33:08.700but was later named Kiev. And they probably joined the Gothic or Gutanish tribes, which were
00:33:19.260multiple peoples the scary the rugi um etc so uh so this is before that mass exodus um
00:33:30.780king sigmund the son of volsung had a wife named borghild from brauland they named their son helgi
00:33:44.300after helgi your father son hegel or hail was helgi's foster father hunting the name the name
00:33:55.980of a powerful king and hundlund is the name from him he was a mighty warrior and he had many sons
00:34:04.460with him on his campaigns there was an enmity i always get that wrong and strife uh between these
00:34:14.620two king hunding and king sigmund and each slew each other's kinsmen king sigmund and his family
00:34:23.900were of the volsung and the ilvings helgi was a spy to the home of uh home of king hunding in
00:34:34.700disguise celebrities who ruined their careers getting some background noise there um hyming
00:34:43.980a son of king hundings was at home when helgi went forth then he met a young herdsman and said
00:34:52.300So 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.
00:35:08.300Um, 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.
00:35:35.300and then he walks out of the wedding and everyone tries to pull the sword out and finally Sigmund
00:35:43.800pulls and then from that moment on is the rise of his power well I like to think of these as again
00:35:50.640kind of running parallel to that that has the sword of power and yet there is also King Hunding
00:36:00.260and this is a lot of their rivalry just like in the the past poems that we were talking about where
00:36:06.400the sons of King Hunding get revenge on the son of Sigmund Helgi um they get revenge on him for
00:36:15.580killing Hunding and that's the general idea if anybody needs to know but it's always a little
00:36:22.960different in each one of the stories how that all goes about um and then i think it's also
00:36:30.480interesting to know that um in this one here helgi is seen as a spy so um
00:36:39.440you know in the poems before helgi clearly is sigmund's son in this case it's still the same
00:36:45.120but he's unknown and not bright of fame perhaps uh maybe one of the youngest of the children
00:36:54.480um as it would might be placed out there i think um everybody in our ancestral time knew
00:37:01.040uh the first child the first male um usually had the best stakes to inheritance and every child
00:37:08.320thereafter it just got harder and harder for them you know they had to make sure that they claimed
00:37:16.080they had no birthright to claim they had to claim their own fame and so in that case this would kind
00:37:21.920of lend to the idea that helgi is one of the youngest of the children and so he manages to
00:37:29.520slip into his father's enemies or rival king's court without being noticed which would be
00:37:38.240really strange for a prince to be able to do that unless of course he was the youngest and
00:37:44.000just kind of not known or just not really focused upon so um
00:37:50.720um so let's see Helgi was went as a spy to the home of King Hunding in disguise hyming
00:38:02.540a son of King Hunding was home Helgi went forth but he met a young herdsman along the way and
00:38:10.460again this is another um Nordic or Germanic trope that we will find consistently within stories
00:38:18.320The Skirnir goes to Gerðr's hall, and he meets a herdsman on the hill before he presses forward.
00:38:30.760Lord Odin, in the guise or disguise of Bolvurk, the bale worker, he goes to try to find Sutung's mountain.
00:38:43.180he goes in the form of a vagabond and he stops at the the farm hands but again this idea that
00:38:52.940the land is being worked on around the central place and the care the main character comes in
00:39:00.360in disguise and is kind of you know getting the lay of the land and kind of prodding his way into
00:39:06.740understanding what's going on um is a consistent uh story framework um
00:39:20.020say to hate say to haming that helgi knows whom the heroes in armor hid
00:39:27.780a gray wolf had they within their hall whom king hunding hamel fought
00:39:34.100so at this point um helgi is is uh speaking to the the herdsman saying that
00:39:45.220he should go and speak to the prince and let him know that this traveler he uh who you know as he
00:39:56.680is knows of you know the hidden threat um that presides within their their uh hall which is a
00:40:06.440bold move to be a spy but say like to come in and say i know where the hidden threats are in your
00:40:12.840kingdom being the hidden threat. So Hamal was the name of Hael's son. King Hunding sent men to Hael
00:40:27.480to seek Helgi, and Helgi could not save himself in any other way, so he put on the clothes
00:40:33.140of a bond woman and set to work in the mill. They sought Helgi, but found him not.
00:40:42.180So at this point, Helgi is discovered and he hides himself in the mill in women's clothes.
00:40:55.580and uh that's not a good start and remember too like this these first uh five stanzas
00:41:05.180are going to roll as they do and then there's suddenly there's going to kind of be a disjointed
00:41:09.320switch um so most scholars believe that these are fragmented poems and we're not going to get
00:41:46.560The millstones break, the boards are shattered.
00:41:52.460The hero has a doom full hard that barely now, barely or barely now he needs, or barley now he needs must grind.
00:42:07.740Better befits his hands to feel the hilt of a sword than a millstone's handle.
00:42:13.720hale answered and said small is the wonder if boards are splintered again boards are um shields
00:42:27.800um small is the wonder if boards are splintered by a monarch's daughter the mill is turned
00:42:34.600once through clouds she was want to ride and battles fought like fighting men
00:42:40.280So 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.
00:43:09.040so she is the daughter of a king she is the woman of a tribe um
00:43:14.440Helgi escaped and went to a fighting ship he slew King Hunding and thenceforth was called
00:43:26.440Helgi Hundingsbane so it see here I just in this sense of the way that there is a stanza and then
00:43:35.860is kind of descriptive paragraphs and then a stanza again kind of shows that there's an attempt
00:43:43.300to join these verses together perhaps three verses survive in one place
00:43:50.740you know five or six in another and these descriptors are kind of used to jointed to um
00:43:58.420um help the reader kind of understand what's going on um but it's it's it's very very brief
00:44:09.220so something to point out that's worth noting I mentioned before that there's
00:44:17.620like a mythological time of Heroes and then there's overtly historical saga work
00:44:25.840and something to note in aryan religiosity in general um and it's funny because the thing
00:44:35.480that comes to mind is the intro to hercules from when i was a kid but so this is a tale of a time
00:44:42.440long ago the ancient gods were petty and cruel and plagued mankind with suffering so there was
00:44:48.280this thing and there was this period of time and i don't know if we want to call it a golden age
00:44:56.200or what we'd like to refer to it as where the gods and men interacted in a more
00:45:06.120closely knit way where you have the frequent occurrence of gods taking shape and interacting
00:45:14.600of man and you have these you know ascendant beings like uh like valkyries
00:45:27.480in mortal settings or half mortal or in these kind of situations and you see a blending of
00:45:44.180it'll come to me here in a second I'll get it but of these
00:45:54.100intermediary forces that aren't quite gods but aren't quite demigods aren't quite gods aren't
00:46:03.400quite men but are something ascendant and something other and you see those interplays
00:46:09.000here when we talked earlier about the swan maidens um in in one of our previous stories
00:46:16.440in these kind of heroic cycles you see that reflections of that time you see that in um
00:46:24.600the greco-roman world i'm sure that you probably see that similarly in other myth cycles
00:46:30.520so keep in mind that's the kind of mythic antiquity that this takes place in is in that age where it
00:46:41.560was a much less rare occurrence for both of them to appear among men and to speak to kings and to
00:46:49.000do things in a in a physical way in in the in the telling of it
00:47:01.160oh and while i got the floor uh tyler m bought us a coffee thank you tyler we appreciate that
00:47:06.680uh it's a five dollar donation and it's very much appreciated
00:47:09.720um i could see the audience our audience going wow that was just like a lot of speech with
00:47:20.040no direction whatsoever um but the best way that i could kind of explain it is that the poem is
00:47:26.300hurriedly trying to show that helgi is this is the the son of sigmund that he is again from the
00:47:35.340all sung the line um that hunding is an opposing king that helgi goes amongst
00:47:46.140hunding's kingdom under the name hamal um or haumal and he is you know undermining
00:47:58.140finding information etc um he tells them i know where the wolf is and maybe i was i might have
00:48:06.380actually been incorrect that he wasn't trying to gain or garner attention by saying you know i know
00:48:11.980where the bad stuff is but instead was relinquishing his identity as a kind of a
00:48:18.940a tip to the hat like i've been here the whole time because immediately um king hunting sends
00:48:27.820um uh hail to get halmal who is helgi very confusing totally understand that um and and
00:48:38.620you know then when he does come to get him he runs off and hides as um a miller maid um to kind of
00:48:48.540escape uh persecution or getting caught and then it immediately shifts to
00:48:57.820The Valkyrie figure who is Sigrun, and Sigrun is the reincarnation, the return of the soul of Svalva from the first Helgi Hundingsbane.
00:49:14.640And 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.
00:49:33.920even though they could have very well have been understood as incident or different interpretations
00:49:40.560of um they make note to say that after um svalva and and he are killed or i mean um pass that they
00:49:54.000return one as a elevated valkyrie or um i would argue too that the valkyrie were seen as a
00:50:03.760form of dsir so she returns as a dsir but a living embodiment and that helgi returns but is helgi
00:50:14.960again and this is a note worth making so to stop in here because um
00:50:24.880croatian war master uh says something over in the comments he said he used to listen to a
00:50:30.400or he listened to a sanatana dharma teacher who said that the world used to be way fuller of
00:50:36.480these kind of ascended beings and i think that's that's true like i don't dispute the truth of
00:50:47.520the events of the story but i think it still becomes a it's not told as history like the
00:50:55.120sagas but it does speak of that heroic age where there was much less of a gap or it's not even the
00:51:06.720right word i guess the the veil between worlds was thinner you had more interaction between
00:51:14.640the divine and the mortal and you had these kind of occurrences and i think it's worth noting here
00:51:20.640because you know swan and i have spoken on here before a little bit about reincarnation
00:51:25.520thoughts on it a lot of people are grumpy at me that i don't um buy into the one for one
00:51:33.760reincarnation you know ah i'm so and so reborn as a general rule what i've always said and i think
00:51:42.240this is the the counterpoint to what i was saying is but sometimes it is possible and it has happened
00:51:50.320I don't forego it happening sometimes, but every Tom, Dick, and Harry didn't used to be Napoleon.
00:51:58.420Like, that is a modern phenomenon that wasn't understood by our ancestors.
00:52:04.900The common thing wasn't because you name your kid after your grandpa that he is your grandpa.
00:52:10.120but if you do that rightly if you're inspired to do so if you see something if you think of
00:52:18.520something reminiscent or if you want to stack the odds for them to get a maximal inheritance
00:52:23.560they would get a piece of that and in some cases and certainly in this poetic cycle
00:52:29.700on an exceptional thing you get a great personage reborn in a one-for-one much more full way and even
00:52:41.960that i wonder how 100 it is or if it's not some kind of a mixture of the new life with a heavy
00:52:54.200overlay coexisting of the old life where you have two things existing simultaneous but you have
00:53:01.720examples of very great people sometimes with extraordinary things occurring and i don't ever
00:53:10.600preclude that that can happen that just is a an extreme rarity in a miraculous circumstance when
00:53:19.480it does happen i i did want to say too one thing that we we've never really pointed it out uh
00:53:28.760outside of the reincarnation part of the soul complex we've talked about that at length but
00:53:35.560again a lot of folks well i wouldn't say a lot that's that's misspeaking i have run into people
00:53:43.160who have either wondered why the also true folk assembly believes in ascendancy after death and
00:53:53.480um and i think we i have rambled on about that quite at length but without truly focusing or
00:54:00.440putting it in framework and here is another example of that ascendancy where svalva passes
00:54:08.520and then she returns as sigrun and sigrun is a mortal character but also a divine
00:54:18.760character uh and in this case spoken of as a valkyrie um and we see that with skirner
00:54:26.360and we've spoken about that in um ale saga we see these the the the soul complex being allowed
00:54:36.680to ride the route up from uh and that the gods you know place the soul into the minutia of order
00:54:48.840whether it's in a hall or whether it's as you know as a servant in their hall um
00:54:56.120you know it i i think that it's pretty clear it's just simply not you know laid out you know
00:55:03.880know, Ausatru paint by numbers kind of thing. But you can, you can clearly follow the point
00:55:10.140A to point B. And this is another example of it. Though I think it's a little bit more
00:55:16.020dramatic. You know, having her as a, a Deezer, but alive, um, and a Valkyrie, uh, determiner
00:55:26.780of 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
00:55:36.940um heroes attaining through the divine feminine much like we see with the gods if we see lord
00:55:45.100odin going into certain's mountain and gaining from the feminine horn bearer that's clearly seen
00:55:51.820in the divine realm this is now brought into the mortal realm but mimics the divine so swan when
00:55:59.260you talk about posthumous ascension when are these people wondering about the idea of ascendant
00:56:08.140mortals or about the idea that after they are dead they can like out like years after they are dead
00:56:18.860that they can achieve something i think it's a combination of both i think the i've had and
00:56:25.500again these are questions that thor saw that usually come up during our classes um but the
00:56:32.140idea that like is this a new thing like why am i suddenly understanding now that the uh the also
00:56:39.900true folk assembly austria's religion believes in in post-mortal ascension and then it's almost
00:56:47.740like it hits them in a in a new way but that's really because the context is being plainly laid
00:56:54.380out as opposed to the poetics of it you know in all of these stories um and i think that
00:57:04.700they asked predominantly about the um the rising up or being anointed by or being again reordered
00:57:16.380in the system by the gods not so much about how or why again through fame of deed um clearly
00:57:25.580because the gods and the ancestors see the deeds um and we as mortals are kind of separated by our
00:57:33.100own perceptions so we may only gain the understanding over time but um yeah i think
00:57:43.500it's more uh in the in the first part of that is is is why or how or in what indications would we
00:57:51.580come to that and i i would say firstly we point to the lore um there are multiple points in which
00:57:59.660um the beings that exist amongst the gods and the beings that exist amongst mortals
00:58:05.660whether they are alvar or desir um are you know like a dark alva is you know someone who
00:58:15.800had once been mortal had once held blood but now was placed within the world in a different way
00:58:22.940uh presiding over a battlefield presiding over a burial mound um presiding over a weapon and
00:58:30.340a desir of course either coming in the form of a valkyrie like in this case or uh as a uh a matron
00:58:37.380a matroni of the tribe um so i think that part is not so much i would say shocking but just
00:58:48.420oh yeah i never well yeah i never saw it that way but then there's also the understanding that
00:58:55.940you know uh the ascension from fame from deed uh and that that movement into place i think
00:59:10.260yeah it's just interesting because i wonder i always wonder
00:59:12.900you know where the question is or or or whatever so it can get explained a little bit better um
00:59:18.580It's interesting. The concept of sainthood is like literal idolatry and goes against all of Judaism.
00:59:36.240Like 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.
00:59:55.900even if the context is not pleasant to people that aren't familiar with the development of medieval Catholicism.
01:00:03.560But 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.
01:00:16.220and you see that like relics magical relics and reliquaries are overtly pagan and shockingly pagan
01:00:26.460to any of the critics of the catholic church because they are and that's why they're the
01:00:32.240you know again all the pagan stuff is the cool stuff about catholicism um
01:00:37.400but yes saint the cult of saints is a you know front and center example of it but you see it
01:00:47.000you see it in a lot of other aryan practices you certainly see it in rome in the you know
01:00:53.540cult of emperors and the deification of ancestors um so you see that ascension but something
01:01:00.340that's interesting in sainthood, and I don't
01:01:16.540in the saint tradition, the saint just doesn't
01:01:20.880ascend and become a saint at the moment. There are some saints that are
01:01:24.340celebrated as such by just universal acclaim at the time
01:01:28.540of death but in general there's a process and sometimes you know you'll find centuries later
01:01:34.700the vatican choosing to you know canonize a saint after amount of time in a way a lot of that is
01:01:44.620building fame after death to your fame after death is so overwhelming that it's recognized and
01:01:51.340acknowledged and i do think the tradition of that is a holdover i don't think we know
01:01:58.380how that process looked to our ancestors or what signs they saw that indicated to them
01:02:05.500that a hero or an ancestor had achieved ascension but it's important
01:02:14.140if we know that it happens and that it's a thing it's also important to always acknowledge that
01:02:19.900our gods are mighty and they have broad sweeping powers and discretion to do the things they want
01:02:28.700to do very often we have a tendency to and i don't think this is done intentionally or in bad faith
01:02:39.180but it's like we try to force our gods to abide by the rules and preconceptions we have in our head
01:02:47.980about how stuff works and they have zero obligation to conform to that they're gods and
01:03:00.460they you know it if they want to do something it doesn't matter if it conflicts with our
01:03:07.660understanding of things they're gods and they have dominion to do to do things and to enact
01:03:13.980their will and that does include you know elevating mortals or inviting those mortals
01:03:20.300to their halls or visiting morals or you know choosing to
01:03:27.420you know choosing to help help in that ascension um putting it out there
01:03:33.900so swan has disappeared i'm not sure if he's taking a break for a second
01:03:37.180i'm chasing i have to put my son to bed okay he keeps coming down no that's fine um i'll be right
01:03:49.220back i'll tackle a couple questions while you're doing that uh some of these i'm going to save
01:03:55.900because i'd like spawns um input on them uh sarah asks uh good evening i'll share your goethian
01:04:07.980witness fawn coming up march 9th is a day of remembrance for olgar of egg and how do each of
01:04:15.580you plan to honor him on that day and i appreciate you mentioning that um on the topic of ascension
01:04:22.940and heroes those that don't know the astro folk assembly has men and women who we celebrate as
01:04:30.140ascended heroes we honor them with days of remembrance and oh there's one of those folks
01:04:41.820it's a good question on what that day falls on and how i'm going to honor him on that day
01:04:48.860i'm certainly going to try to spread the word to our folk as best i could to make sure
01:04:55.340people are engaging in that one of the cool ways that folks do is have you know have a family meal
01:05:01.500where they celebrate them and tell their story around the dinner table to you know to those
01:05:07.980gathered many of us who are having gatherings um having my may end up honoring him a day early at
01:05:20.060my uh dinner that i host at my home that's coming up this saturday but yeah speaking their name and
01:05:27.420sharing their story is a really important way to honor them it's also a special thing to you know
01:05:32.060light a candle and maybe offer some incense or you know a libation uh in front of the altar and
01:05:40.060to reach out to them and to tell them of your appreciation and your admiration for their deeds
01:05:46.780swan has returned to us it's fun we have taken a long time away from the text
01:05:52.060let's go back and get a little bit more of the text in okay yeah and i i just i i heard the
01:05:57.980question as i was running up the stairs um i did want to say to oliver of ecquier is one of my
01:06:06.140most favorite heroes of celebration because of his persistent faith um and he wasn't he wasn't
01:06:16.140i'm not saying he wasn't a warrior but the context in which he became a hero of our faith was not
01:06:22.460based on um his prowess in battle or his willingness to to stand up against opposition
01:06:29.660but the fact that he was in the service of his folk he was you know gathering hoftoller
01:06:37.580from the folk and building surplus for um for bloat and you know directly under the shadow of
01:06:45.980the cross as um you know the the the royals of the nordic people were taken to um start employing
01:06:56.540their tactics and utilizing the money that they were gaining by you know converting and
01:07:02.620the land that they were getting and all the kind of shenanigans that they were doing um
01:07:07.580Oliver and his other fellow Godi gather together and to help the folk continue their traditions.
01:07:19.840And 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.
01:07:45.340And 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.
01:08:06.520So, anyways, let me get back to the text.
01:08:09.740um okay so we kind of place that understanding of um being in disguise then being found out and
01:08:23.980um it swiftly moves and by stanza five and four uh or excuse me by five we um we see a shift
01:08:36.700in the poem there's a brief sense helgi escapes the situation he goes to a fighting ship there
01:08:43.520he fights and kills king hunding so very fast and then um it immediately shifts over into
01:08:53.500what most likely is a fragment of or a surviving fragment of another poem and they're just kind
01:09:00.960of conjoined here, by the annotator in the 12th century, even though these poems most likely
01:09:07.680were from the 10th century, and that's why only fragments of them had survived.
01:09:15.340So, he lay with his host in Brunnawager,
01:09:21.760um and they had their strand slaughtering and ate the flesh raw hogni was the name of a king
01:09:34.680his daughter was sigrun she was a valkyrie who rode air and water she was svalva reborn
01:09:44.880So, Sugrun rode to Helgi's ship and said,
01:09:51.880Who rules the ship by the shore so steep?
01:10:11.880So, again, that first part of the poem is about him undercover and escaping and then killing King Winding.
01:10:21.020And 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.
01:10:36.660um and she challenges them and this is again where we see that connection that will abide
01:10:45.380between Helgi and Sigrun and we saw this in the previous um poems as well but there is really
01:10:53.380like such a swift and kind of it's welded together and it's not welded smoothly um
01:11:00.900helgi speaks to her hamals the ship by the shore so steep our home is lazy do we have
01:11:13.980for fair wind bide we in brunnebauer eastward the way that we wish to try so he's he simply states
01:11:23.360the um his name in hidden sense homo um and he says that uh
01:11:30.720and and this is an interesting thing i wonder if he's stating this or that the person who
01:11:40.800annotated the poems is making connections to the first stanzas of his hidden name but
01:11:49.480But 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.
01:12:10.540And they are from Hlisi, the island of Hlör. And that's really, again, another poetic nod of their connection to the Jotun Eier.
01:12:31.540So in essence, it would be very similar to Helgi giving his false name and saying that they hail from Davy Jones' locker.
01:12:44.000like hlesi is that the origin point of ayur and ayur and raun are seen as the jotuns
01:12:55.480they are the jotuns but in this in the lore they are seen as that that the jotuns of the primordial
01:13:01.880ocean and uh that the gods you know have placed their dominion upon them through oath and that's
01:13:09.540where the cauldron is and there the gods you know step out of the heavenly realm and come down into
01:13:17.120the oceanic realm and i you know i've spoken a bit about the metaphysics of this the i the the
01:13:24.220point of the gods of order coming down into the most primordial part of the earth where all of
01:13:31.480the truly the power of the of the jotens here that manifest within orlog here from storms and
01:13:40.000you know tremors of the earth there they they they've tried to place dominion upon them and
01:13:49.360for the most part they do but i think our ancestors saw it as when the gods are there
01:13:54.440i and round play according to the rules but when the gods are not there and you have to be
01:14:01.120careful especially as a sailor maritime sense that suddenly and quickly ayur would raise storms
01:14:10.160raise waves and that brown was always waiting to snatch souls and drag them into and back to hlisi
01:14:22.160um but i just i find it it's kind of comparable to that is he's he's saying that uh our home is
01:14:30.080davy jones locker um and and then immediately he says you know do we have fair wind do we have um
01:14:38.720friendship and the ability to pass by through this way and they're heading east
01:14:46.320um in seven sigrin speaks now again bear in mind too for those who are reading this
01:14:53.200you can see the difference between verses one through four and then there's a little bit of a
01:14:58.560joiner gap and now we have this dialogue poem being spoken um and it's written very cleanly
01:15:07.120and very neatly in its stanzas and that's why most scholars believe that these might be
01:15:13.440incidences from two separate stories um sigrin speaks where has thou warrior battle wakened
01:15:23.200or gorged the birds of the sisters of Guth?
01:15:28.620Why is thy bernie spattered with blood?
01:15:32.260Why helmed dost feast on food uncooked?
01:15:48.960um not before i say that i guess i would have to there is multiple lists and mentionings of
01:16:00.640the valkyria there's kind of the core list that we would know skogel you know spear shaker and
01:16:08.400and what have you but the birds of the sisters of good is in essence ravens and you know you have fed
01:16:20.440them um there is one thing that i'm wondering here when they're talking about the gorging um
01:16:29.940in which they eat raw food and they're um and again this is something that you know reading these
01:16:42.860stories um again after many many years or just glancing over some of them i i would love to say
01:16:50.780that i've read every bit of lore with an extensive mind and that would be a lie and in essence i have
01:16:58.520glanced over i've looked into things and like one of the things that escaped me here is the mentioning
01:17:06.200of um the the the consumption of the raw and
01:17:17.320okay i'm writing that down because i want to go look into that but i don't want to hold up
01:17:25.500the rest of what we're doing so um she asks you know what battle have you done why is your
01:17:34.780your birni uh splattered with blood why do you feed the ravens um or in essence what is going on
01:17:42.000um and helgi speaks latest of all the ilving sun on the western sea if no that wilt captured bears
01:17:53.240in braugeland and fed the eagles with edge of sword so he is saying you know that he is the
01:18:01.960son of sigmund and of the volsung line and of the ilving line and that they have fed eagles by edge
01:18:09.880of sword. And now it is shown, he says, why our shirts are bloody and little our food
01:18:24.120with fire is cooked. So they're basically camping in hurriedness because they just followed
01:18:34.560battle. Um, and there's not a lot of time to prep. They're just simply eating and they're
01:18:42.440covered in blood and they haven't made themselves presentable in any way. And Sigrun asks, why are
01:18:49.020they covered in blood? We just came from battle. Um, and we just fed the Eagles. Um, but now,
01:18:55.980you know why uh we're just under prepped for um anything else we've just walked out of battle
01:19:04.880and sigrin says of battle thou tellest and there was bent hunting the king before helgi down
01:19:12.400there was carnage when thou didst avenge thy kin and blood flowed fast on the blade of the sword
01:19:21.300So 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.
01:19:42.000um and specifically with dist avenge thy kin um
01:19:51.120so you know i and it's it's not really brought up anymore in that regards um
01:19:58.720and also it's another thing to know like where uh helgi is from is also a fictitional place
01:20:09.740Brauglund and it's in Bellows he translated as Bragi's land but more likely because the usage
01:20:22.160of the word Bragi even though or Brai is clearly associated with Lord Brai the lord of poetry
01:20:31.960I think that just like with the word Yard and the holy Ostvenir, who is Yard, there is context of differences.
01:20:44.700And in this case, it would be more befitting to look at it as Braugeland is kind of like the land of high renown.
01:20:56.900It was known by the audience to be not a place.
01:21:00.780but that it was a place of high renown it was a place utilized in in the story um quite clearly
01:23:28.240that now our kin maiden wise we all we have well avenged so he's hiding the name of the ship
01:23:37.220Hummel um he's not letting it out and yet she knows that Helgi just killed King Hunding and that
01:23:47.080the avenge of his kin has been has been reached so now he's asking like how do you know about this
01:23:55.360what word or perhaps what sight do you have? Many there are of the sons of the mighty who share
01:24:04.560alike our lofty race. This here is, he's speaking of the Volsungs, he's speaking of his father
01:24:12.460Sigmund, and he says, you know, many of his sons of our line, how did you know that Killing King
01:24:19.620avenged and she speaks in 12 not far was i from the lord of the folk yester morn when the monarch
01:24:31.580was slain though crafty the son of sigmund me thinks when he speaks of the fight in slaughter
01:24:40.140runes um so she tells him i was not far during the battle but watching and that would make sense
01:24:50.780if we look at it clearly in the valkyria sense that she is always on the edge of battle um but
01:25:00.780the uh the lord of the folk the monarch is king hunting um but she says the crafty son of sigmund
01:25:09.900so that either the whole ruse is up she knows that this is healthy she knows that by slay or
01:25:17.180that his purpose for slaying king hundi is is hunting is uh is revenge um but i think it's
01:25:24.540also really uh interesting she's alluding to the fact that he is crafty uh obviously that's also
01:25:31.980mentioned when he hides as a mill maid to get away but and also here that he knows
01:25:38.780runes and the the translation errors is air so vowel runes not battle runes but runes
01:25:52.700they translate as slaughter but the chosen could also be vowel is also
01:25:59.660um could be utilized as chosen in translation so the the the runes of lord ovin of of battle
01:26:12.460of twisting battles fate um perhaps is you know she's accusing him of knowing magics um far beyond
01:26:24.300what he just lets out in front um and then she continues to speak in 13 she says on the long
01:26:36.140ship once i saw thee well when in the blood stained bow that was and round the icy waves
01:26:45.100were raging now would the hero hide from me but to hogni's daughter is helgi known
01:26:52.940or is helgi known so she says you know you were brave in battle and now you're trying to hide
01:26:58.380your name uh and pretend use cunningness and craftiness saying this is someone or another name
01:27:06.780title ship but she knows so it's like you're brave to fight in the in the bow of the ship
01:27:14.940against your enemies but you hide from me and she's like but it's of no use i know who you are
01:27:22.220So 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.
01:27:45.720And 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.
01:28:06.140so that they they would show that they could they understood meter um so that's how
01:28:13.180the possibility that these little fragmented stanzas survived and it it didn't matter to
01:28:22.400snori or saimander um they wanted to get them all and they would fill and connect later
01:28:30.580um so now we see it just kind of suddenly jump grandma was the name of a mighty king
01:28:41.080who dwelt in Svaurin's hill he had many sons one's one was named Hothbrod another
01:50:12.000so if i could lay my head upon your chest helgi is what she says
01:50:22.280then safely without their their um protests they would still be alive that's all she wanted
01:50:31.260is in essence what she's saying and helgi took sigrin to wife and they had sons helgi did not
01:50:40.780reach old age. Dag, the son of Hogni, offered sacrifices to Odin to be avenged for his father's
01:50:50.460death. Odin gave Dag his spear, and Dag found Helgi, his brother-in-law, at a place which is
01:50:59.700called Fjortland. He thrust the spear through Helgi's body. Then Helgi fell, and Dag rode to
01:51:09.260Svea Fjol and told Sigurd in the Tidings. Now, anybody that's familiar with the Volsunga Saga,
01:51:14.800this is clearly a connection, but instead of Sigurd, it's Helgi. What I think this is, is again,
01:51:23.000there are heroic tropes that are formulated in these stories, and where Sigurd and the Volsunga
01:51:34.120saga are complete and relatively clean helgi's stories are choppy but there's clearly that they
01:51:41.800were utilizing almost the same things in the stories uh to pass on and this is one of them
01:51:53.160um as in the volsung saga sigmund is slain by odin spear and this could be analogous for fighting
01:52:02.680in battle and dying in battle being chosen by lord odin um or it it could be in the sense a literal
01:52:13.080sense that that um they is he prays to lord odin to get vengeance because he was spared at the
01:52:21.880battle and wants to slay helgi and i think our ancestors would have viewed this as here's the
01:52:31.720this one the youngest son who gets spared he prays to lord odin and lord odin wants helgi
01:52:41.480in his hall so he accommodates that in order to ensure that the soul of helgi comes to him
01:52:50.280um that was also another common understanding um sigmund sigurd's father um his wife is full
01:53:01.060of child he's a great king he's he's conquering and then lord odin comes and stabs him with a
01:53:08.420spear in the middle of the battle and sigmund tries to break the haft of gungnir and it shatters
01:53:14.940into three pieces and before he dies he tells his wife reforge this sword for my son who is now in
01:53:20.780your belly it's i mean it's just so rich with um all of these you know motifs that are in uh
01:53:32.620germanic and germanic arian stories um that we can again see that being placed here um
01:53:39.900um Sigurd is slayed by um uh his his brother-in-law through the back stabbed by a spear a
01:53:52.380spear but in this case they say no no it's Helgi is stabbed by Lord Odin's spear who who receives
01:53:59.760it from Lord I mean from Lord Odin they receives the spear and then commits to sending him to Valhall
01:54:06.540Then he returns to tell his sister, Sigrun, Helgi's wife, the deed that has been done in 30.
01:54:22.240Sad 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.
01:54:36.540And his heel he set on the hero's neck.
01:54:43.840Again, pretty, you know, gruesome, but yet complimentary.
02:00:55.800offering up lands um in compensation for deed he's you take these to these places
02:01:10.500um and for your children helgi's sons and go this will you know i'm not leaving you in
02:01:20.340destitution i'm not coming to kill his sons but i needed to avenge the death of my father take
02:01:26.240these lands and um i think it's also very interesting here that one of the um mentions
02:01:33.760vandalsve vandalsve means the temple of the vandals and i think that that's really another
02:01:42.680nod to the fact that this is even pre-danish history that this goes way back into the migration
02:01:48.580periods um and it would certainly place uh this story way outside of denmark you know farther
02:01:58.820south in central um europe so it you know it's i've speculated too that a lot of these stories
02:02:06.360may have um been known by different name or under um different assumptions and that they were simply
02:02:16.060um placed in the nordic time for the audience but that they could have very well it just like the
02:02:25.020transfer between tristan and his old to romeo and juliet um they're very similar perhaps the
02:02:31.500names have changed but the framework is still the same um but the fact that it's specifically called
02:02:36.620vandals way is interesting and then he also mentions uh big dollar and another reason why
02:02:46.780the translation of heim dollar um i know that in the predominant sense the translation is seen as
02:02:54.540the home dale but um or excuse me the uh the light of the world or or like deling detler um
02:03:03.340but i've also said too that heimdall could mean the home valley um and here we see it again
02:03:10.780linguistically but she says you know you are still of wealth you still have your sons i needed
02:03:16.940to complete my vengeance and you're crazy if you think that lord othen didn't see
02:03:23.660that you beckoned helgi to kill your own kin
02:03:26.860end. And then Sigrun speaks in return. Oh, I think, oh no, I've been reading this poem
02:03:41.500for so long. And I wonder if I've been dropped from the thing. Let me see. Nick, are you
02:03:51.940still there you're good sir no worries okay all right i'm sorry i just i wanted to make sure
02:03:58.320because i've been focusing on the writing that i you know didn't want to miss miss out on if i had
02:04:05.600been kicked off um you're good we're live all's well okay so sigrin then speaks to her brother
02:04:15.100again she says i shall sit not happy in svea early or late my life to love if the light cannot show
02:04:24.460in the leader's band uh blyard bearing him back to his home the golden bitted i shall greet him
02:04:36.780never so the the bleier the the battle breather um she's speaking about helgi's horse the golden
02:04:51.580bitted um she's lamenting the loss of her love she says i you know i shall not sit happy early
02:05:03.980or late the love of my life if the light cannot show in that leader's um band um
02:05:14.380where his horse bears him back to his home
02:05:20.380and so he it's it's gone it's it's too far gone he's already passed
02:05:27.020she's just speaking of the joy of seeing him come home on his horse and now that is not the case
02:05:33.980And 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.
02:05:47.780So 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.
02:06:07.020And 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.
02:06:32.380and that's kind of what these poetic points would be as the warriors were listening um
02:06:38.920and she says you know his enemies his foes they felt fear just as um like a male goat a ram
02:06:49.420uh with with rage and terror would flee away the scouring you know skinny uh flea-bitten
02:06:59.440wolves and i think it's worth understanding that not all the times were wolves seen as
02:07:07.180um you know glorious creatures but it let more or less seen as like you know ribbed bony uh
02:07:16.320skeething creatures that were constantly trying to break into um society and so she's saying
02:07:25.820helgi was like a ram who would stand up against um you know these foul ever-present um
02:07:39.020creatures and i was looking to translation um 37. they're not oh yes it's ulvi ulvi
02:07:50.780older um okay yeah so yeah he he defends with majesticness while there are these kind of lurking
02:08:00.840and craven um skulking wolves she then says helgi rose above heroes all like the lofty ash above
02:08:15.240lowly thorns where the noble stag with dew besprinkled bearing in his head above all
02:08:22.060beasts and his horns gleam bright to heaven itself again the audience would just be like wow
02:08:28.780this this is you know being remembered and loved by your your betrothed by your wife at this level
02:08:38.300You know, she says he was above the scouring wolves. He stood above the thorns and brambles as an ash would.
02:08:51.280And 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.
02:09:10.180And his horns would gleam bright to heaven itself.
02:09:14.540this is really good poetic um things considering the first half of the poem being so so um
02:09:24.700fragmentary uh i also like translations wise i think a lot of people might know
02:09:32.860that the word deer day or in anglo-saxon means beasts or animals um
02:09:39.260um but here the reference is deer calver like deer calf um or i think more or less that it's
02:09:53.340the young the youthful you know stag with with a crown of um antler
02:10:03.760yeah you were absolutely right when you were talking about earlier that the
02:10:09.260The 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.
02:10:25.780and expression of thought and value that's at the very core of Al-Satru and Al-Satru values
02:10:45.240And it's definitely heroic in tone in a really special way that I think even a modern audience
02:10:54.780can't appreciate so i think it's very well done that way and the linguistics too because as we're
02:11:02.760learning more and more icelandic like uh in the part where you know the the translation is above
02:11:09.520all heroes the word is hildingum and hildingum the um part is context for the word the word is
02:11:18.280hildinger which is hild is battle ingrid is men so he rose above the battlemen um like no other and
02:11:30.200he stood like a deer a deer calver but yet later uh in the sentence it says bearing his head above
02:11:39.480all beasts and the word is birum so deer calver is utilized to specifically speak of a heart
02:11:48.280And 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.
02:12:09.140um but here we see in old norse dear calver and dirham um
02:12:17.540in designation to that so if you're into linguistics too these poems have lots of value
02:12:23.620you just kind of have to get through the way that they're pieced and batched together
02:12:29.700and then it goes again um with reference to lord odin
02:12:34.100as it's connected a hill was made in Helgi's memory and when he came to Valhall
02:12:43.560then Odin bade him rule over everything with himself so clearly he goes to Valhall he dies
02:12:54.080and you know by by blade because Lord Odin gave they the the spear in order to ensure that he goes
02:13:02.560there um but on top of this it is spoken that he he is given regency by lord odin to rule there as
02:13:18.160well just pretty pretty heavy stuff there um so now helgi is in valhall he's in the afterlife
02:13:40.240um chosen by lord othen and helgi says in 39
02:13:44.800a thou shalt hunding of every hero wash the feet and kindle the fire
02:13:52.720tie up dogs and tend the horses and feed the swine air to sleep thou goest
02:13:59.680and then it immediately shifts to one of sigrin's maids went went one evening to helgi's hill and
02:14:08.180saw helgi rode to the hill with many men and the maiden said so before we get into that just
02:14:13.980there's this mention that he has rule in dominion and um he's speaking to hunding
02:14:20.800in the afterlife so this is an extra level of how much the the the grief or you know in reality i
02:14:33.620i it's fictional hero versus villain helgi says that hunding in valhall will wash the feet of
02:14:46.260every hero that walks in this is clearly a um a slight this is you know this is punishment
02:14:56.660but because he's such a great warrior lord odin gives him permission to dictate and he
02:15:02.740still goes after hunting and says no you're going to kindle the fire you're going to tie up the dogs
02:15:07.620you're going to tend the horses and feed the pigs as a as a thrall would even in valhall that's
02:15:15.700very brutal uh poetic things to be you know said after um and then it shifts
02:15:24.340um and here we see the hill dedicated to helgi in which he appears he he visits and he is not alone
02:15:35.860but with his host of men so one of sigrin's maidens which would generally be referred to as
02:15:42.500valkyria or valkyrie but could also again simply be a hand maiden of her um
02:15:51.080she's at the hill and helgi shows up riding to the hill with many men and the maiden speaks out
02:16:02.060and she says is this a dream that me thinks i see or the doom of the gods
02:16:10.240that dead men ride and hither spurring urge your steeds or is home coming now to the hero's
02:16:20.680granted now it's a my belief that these this is another fragment welded on because there's a little
02:16:31.320kind of uh sigrin's maidens now are at the hill this could have happened uh before ascension to
02:16:41.780or you know as in story placement but here they they welded in and say that you know he's shown
02:16:50.340up to the hill in his dedication um and another point worth noting in in stanza 40 is the express
02:16:59.780word of rock narak um you know i know it's the doom of the gods the the twilight of the gods but
02:17:10.340it as a combination word is specifically used to mean the end of times um and i don't know if a
02:17:18.740a lot of people have ever wondered like is that a commonality thing or is that was just something
02:17:23.280you specialized no it's it's the the end times it's it's very much like how christians use the
02:17:30.240the word for the battle of gidon that the the uh judahites or eudaites um referred to with
02:17:39.500armaghidon um our ancestors would look at the end of times under the word rakhnerak
02:28:10.400It'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.
02:28:31.940so in the notes here and i was wondering about that uh saugovnir hall crower is what
02:28:42.200that's translated to and this of course most likely is the reference to the cock that that
02:28:49.680or the the crowing cock at the end of ragnarok that sits upon valhall gulen combi um and this
02:28:58.960is another poetic name for him so he's going to return back to valhall um where
02:29:07.440the rooster sits upon the hall and will crow at ragnarok
02:29:12.800and he wakes the warrior throng the einherjar then helgi and his followers rode on their way
02:29:22.820and the woman went home to the dwelling another evening sigrun bade the maiden keep watch at the
02:29:29.320hill and at sunset when sigrid came to the hill she said now where he come if come he might
02:29:36.800sigmund's son from odin's seat hope grows dim of the hero's return when eagles sit on the ash
02:29:46.400trees bows and men are seeking the meeting of dreams so this is again more of a welding of
02:29:59.240other parts of the poems you the the this poetic segment has five lines that's another sign that
02:30:07.160this is very oddly placed but it's referencing clearly to the fact that he had visited the hill
02:30:13.880but she comes back and says no we must keep vigil he may return she's so forlorn of his death and
02:30:21.400desperate to be with him she's willing to set a watch in case his ghostly image comes back
02:30:33.960and the maiden says to her mad thou would it seem alone to seek daughter of heroes the house
02:30:41.880of the dead for mightier now at night are all the ghosts of the dead than when day is bright
02:30:49.960so you would seem crazy to be standing here or setting me to stand here in the darkness of the
02:30:57.000night when the strength of ghosts is higher than when the day burns bright um and the word that's
02:31:09.960used um uh for um ghosts of the dead is draugr house the the barrow mound um so i find that very
02:31:22.760very interesting um sigrin was early dead of sorrow and grief it was believed in olden times
02:31:34.280that people were born again but that is now called old wives folly of helgi and sigran it is said
02:31:44.600that they were born again he became helgi hading skati and she kara the daughter of halfdan
02:31:53.800as is told in the lay of cara and she was also a valkyrie so it leaves with kind of an
02:32:02.680an addendum note um by the annotator who says you know now that is seen as folly but in the olden
02:32:12.360times it was possible through great love or through great motivation you could in your soul
02:32:21.080be brought back and placed in the middle world especially when your fate was so entwined with
02:32:27.800the one you loved and i think that that's again placed less as a
02:32:36.120concrete religious theological idea but is placed out as a poetic ideal of love
02:32:45.080um i certainly don't think that it's not possible for the gods to edict order and bring forth
02:32:54.520perhaps whole soul of men um but certainly not you die and then you come back out again
02:33:02.360but this one is really emphasizing that that interconnection of love between helgi and sigrun
02:33:10.280or helgi and svalva or helgi and kata later on and and then the story continues
02:33:18.600um but that's it that's the there you have it i appreciate you reading the uh story for us tonight
02:33:28.440um we've got a few questions one of the questions is predated our broadcast it was like on
02:33:38.04010 minutes before before we started uh hail all looking forward to another great show as always
02:33:45.720appreciate that since show is partially question driven i came up with a couple one
02:33:53.640a few shows back spawn talked about how lady freya participated in sexual magic slash ritual
02:34:01.640can't remember how it was phrased to gain a gift from the dwarves i believe is sexual magic an
02:34:08.760actual thing when i hear that term i think of two people putting on masks going to the beach or a
02:34:16.600cave and doing their thing and summoning some kind of spirit or something but is there an actual
02:34:24.680legitimate use of this kind of thing in our belief system sorry uh it's a bit off color
02:34:32.440i mean that's part one we'll get to part two here in a second but swan you mentioned it so
02:34:41.100take first crack at that well again when we speak about the divine when the divine get married when
02:34:50.680the divine battle when the divine um have the this sexual relation with dwarves this is allegoric
02:35:00.200This is not, again, the unification, or in reality, especially in the feminine, Holy Freya takes from the four directions of the earth.
02:35:16.480She takes from the north, she takes from the south, or takes from the east, takes from the south, and takes from the west.
02:35:22.320So, 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.
02:35:42.440our ancestors knew you know pulling gold out of the mountain the veins of the mountain and and
02:35:49.880the precious metals and and stones that come out of the mountain the realm of the dwarves
02:35:55.880um so by her doing that she's attaining by going all four directions because directionality it was
02:36:04.440important to our ancestors the idea of proclaiming that you know of holding your blade or holding
02:36:10.680your horn to the north and to the east and to the south and to the west that was a proclamation of
02:36:18.120all um you know it's not some like just some wiccan thing of watchtowers or what have you
02:36:27.640we have lots of these um you know kind of signs of the importance of this and again the dwarves
02:36:36.440four specifically that is clearly alluding to the the four being the foundational number of
02:36:46.680the entirety of so she draws within her this power of the earth of the base elements and she
02:36:57.640in turn gains brzingomen which isn't an actual literal real necklace but is the symbol of her
02:37:08.940mastery over and her dispense or dominion over possession beauty and power so as far as the
02:37:18.640story goes i i it's i do not see that literal um as far as
02:37:27.520uh say sex magic i know you said it was off color but um i've read quite a few books um especially
02:37:34.800uh freighter uds germanic sex magic there's a couple of others um i think there's a lot of
02:37:41.840hellenic influence when it comes to things of that nature but um for them to be expressed
02:37:51.200in our lore you'll find it very rarely uh and it's often only just little glimpses of
02:37:59.200um certain things like uh the witches in the barn i forgot the uh story right off the top
02:38:06.720of my head but it was spoken of that they had a wand that was phallic and um that they were casting
02:38:12.960spells uh in a sexual nature to bit like build up and and do that and that was kind of seen as like
02:38:20.640very very uh it was right in on taboo um it was meant to kind of make the audience go
02:38:32.400you know what were they doing or even the menstruation of the jotun filling the river
02:38:38.560trying to drown lord thor any time that we've ever seen these kind of mentions of like
02:38:44.400either sexual magic or magic associated with um the sexual body um is always seen as kind of very
02:38:56.320poignant very drastic um and either about dispensing or receiving um the powers that be um
02:39:11.680but in the late nordic period and even earlier i don't think you find much
02:39:16.160i think that you see most of that stuff starting to crop in post-christianity i think that um
02:39:22.640perhaps the the concept of sexual magic was far more taboo after christianity and so you find a
02:39:32.160lot of that formulation happening you see that with the accusations towards witches having you
02:39:38.160know sex with satan slash goats um or that uh the witches including men who are also burned because
02:39:48.240ice i think iceland was the one country where during the witch burning more men were burned
02:39:54.000than women but all of them had heavy sexual allegations thrown at them um i think you see
02:40:00.720a lot more of that uh present post-christianity and we don't find any real super concrete
02:40:10.080um things referring to that so in the details of it there's not a lot to go on you find most of that
02:40:19.440later the little that we do have is clearly very poignant and when we speak about the holy freya
02:40:26.880gaining or letting in the powers from the four directions of the earth that has bigger meaning
02:40:33.940than you know she simply had um sex with dwarves
02:40:42.260so the question i'm honing in on is you know is there an actual legitimate use of this kind of
02:40:51.380thing in our belief system no i don't think you're going to find um ancient lore detailing like
02:41:01.300the right of sex magic and there's not like an afa sex magic manual or something that said um
02:41:13.700a couple of things to to consider on it
02:41:23.940one of the reasons i think it was demonized by christianity as much as it was sexuality
02:41:30.260in general is it is in fact magical and powerful um sex in itself is magic it literally is the only
02:41:41.380way we make offspring and anybody who's ever had children it is extremely magical that
02:41:49.860all of a sudden there's this life growing inside of a woman that becomes your child and
02:41:59.620It's also magical in the sense that we've talked earlier, and it doesn't have to be.
02:42:08.080People can just go, you know, it can be completely base and vulgar and whatever, like many things.
02:42:15.880But you can ritualize a great many things to add intention and context to what they're done for.
02:42:26.740In 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.
02:42:56.740energy. And you see that a lot. And again, you can read a lot of
02:43:04.900books that are kooky to one degree or another about sex magic that are
02:43:10.840salacious and whatever. One that was kind of an interesting expression of it
02:43:18.320was The Metaphysics of Sex by Julius Evola was an interesting book altogether. It doesn't just
02:43:25.860talk about the sex act but about gender as it relates to magic as well um but yeah i think so
02:43:37.620much of magic is about generating extreme focus extreme energy and then directing that energy
02:43:48.660intentionally at an extreme at a purpose the intensity of the sexual congress is
02:43:58.260useful magically in that context now what you want to make of that or do with that
02:44:05.760uh you know that's not really something we're advising on here but yes there could be legitimate
02:44:15.900use of it depending on what, you know, what the intent is and, you know, the devil's in the
02:44:22.120details. But no, I wouldn't write it off as something that's completely BS because I don't
02:44:27.280think that it is. And the second question, in your opinion, do you think those of us who go to
02:44:34.780the ancestors or to the hall of a god is given a physical form? Those that feast and fight with
02:44:42.500gods perhaps if so any opinion on what that physical form might be like swan thoughts
02:44:51.460um i really think when it comes to dealing with
02:44:58.420Alvar, Dísir, our ancestors, the gods, we have to, I think our brains
02:45:10.900formulate or project image onto. I don't think that they exist this way.
02:45:21.820I 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.
02:45:49.820rules i think the laws and rules of the worlds outside of ours are different
02:45:56.620but that when we interact we clearly see image do they exist like that when we are not perceiving
02:46:07.500them in the material that i don't know i would assume no that perhaps that understanding is first
02:46:16.220for you know i can't speak and say with with authority i think that's something beyond that
02:46:22.460we we understand beyond death it's it's it's almost like if you're asking me
02:46:30.060how does our consciousness work post-mortem as opposed to how it works now and the only reason
02:46:38.060why i state that i think that these spiritual beings do take form when we interact with them
02:46:43.500in the material is because of the stories in which say someone has lost a loved one and that loved
02:46:50.700one it returns but perhaps they're shrouded in death or they're you know there's something wrong
02:46:58.140with them that indicates that the consciousness of the person seeing them clearly knows that they
02:47:03.580have traversed through they're covered in battle wounds or or what have you um i believe that the
02:47:11.420spirit of the being is is that is is non-biological and is affected by the perception of the folk when
02:47:22.780they enter the realm of the material our middle world but what they look like outside of our
02:47:29.340perception as mortals i don't know i've often wondered and speculated but i guess i won't know
02:49:50.400your idealized self yeah so i think kind of a default position of your afterlife self
02:50:01.260is you at the best version of yourself you at the height of your physical beauty of your physical
02:50:12.360prowess you at your best i think that's what that tends to look like with also gravitas worth more
02:50:26.440than the sum of its parts i think there also is a presence and an element of feeling associated with
02:50:34.040that but what we also see when people experience interaction with visions of glimpses of loved ones
02:50:46.040that have passed i've heard things where they appear as a much younger person than you ever
02:50:53.720knew them and you only find out later that you recognize who it was through sharing the experience
02:51:00.440with you know your parents or your grandparents or somebody who knew them at that time but i also
02:51:09.160there are people that appear just as they were the last time you knew them or you know
02:51:16.440there have been instances of people you know different members of the family interacting
02:51:21.960with a similar departed loved one at different stages of that person's life based on when
02:51:29.480that member of the family knew though um i think when you get when you get into that realm if
02:51:36.760there's the power enough to manifest physically and or visually i think that you can kind of do
02:51:46.680what you want that way or so i did that doesn't express a quite quite right that can be done
02:51:53.960differently based on purpose and that really does seem to be the case um you know if they exist in
02:52:01.320the realm of the gods the gods don't exist in a physical human form as physical you know humanoid
02:52:09.640looking creatures the way that we understand it to our understanding but we have time and again
02:52:15.880where they appear in disguise as humans doing things um so i don't think we have the firmest
02:52:24.200of answers to the question but i do think that uh our loved ones can you know in this poem we see
02:52:32.520that in this poem we see him come back and make a visit in a physical form to where he's damp and
02:52:38.680and wet from the grave um but then he goes back into the realm beyond physicality so
02:52:51.000situationally but i don't think that's their standard state on the other side of the veil
02:52:57.240again we will all find out one day uh our next question i recently bought uh the tolkien book
02:53:06.680the legend of sigurd and goodwin um in hopes to better learn uh the new lung and lead and richard
02:53:16.200wagner's uh ring cycle any pro tips on tolkien's book to get the most out of it i have never read
02:53:24.760tolkien's rendition so i don't have anything to offer what about you swan um yeah i would say
02:53:31.960one thing to consider is it the the the writing is way more relatable because it's not being
02:53:39.080translated it is in english the other thing is we spoke uh in one of the verses tonight
02:53:50.360the mentioning of sin filthy sin filthy is mentioned in beowulf and of course he's mentioned
02:53:55.640in the volsunga saga um you know he uh
02:54:03.800he is said to be the incestuous child between sigmund sigurd's father and he unknowingly uh
02:54:16.520has a child with his sister not knowing that that's his sister um in in um
02:54:25.640In 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.
02:54:52.980um but that the tragedy of it is the great joke of it is is that he later finds out that's his
02:54:58.880sister but it wasn't his sister at all in Tolkien's version it was an elf that had an expressed desire
02:55:04.940to hurt Sigmund um so there's little things that are tweaked but the overall sense I mean Sigurd
02:55:14.500is there um i mean there's just so much in connection to the two that i i really do think
02:55:23.620it's it's worth um reading and then he adds um so much with of the lore but again he expresses it
02:55:35.780in in english so there's a little bit more of a of a connection to it's less poetic and more
02:55:42.500story based he speaks of of you know the wolves the the wolves of giantesses and all of these
02:55:50.100things it's it's all it there's reference to um uh with the earliest part of the volsung saga
02:56:01.460where the gods um meet and you know kill otter and then try to cover his skin with with gold
02:56:09.460and there's fafner and ray in but it's a little less about them being they're not captured it's
02:56:15.700that loki does it unto his own um so there again you just have to be careful there are things that
02:56:24.740he takes liberty at but then also at the same time he really holds true and blends and welds
02:56:35.300these different parts of the stories all together very very well so i i enjoyed it
02:56:44.420but um you just have to be mindful and don't take it uh to be the written and translated lore
02:56:52.420but instead somebody who's very well versed in that lore kind of almost congruently putting
02:57:00.100everything together um almost seamlessly but just by shifting certain things like uh
02:57:11.620and ovin and loki aren't captured by um fafnir's father but instead loki's there and he's the one
02:57:20.500that kills otter um and grabs andvari the uh the dwarf out of the uh water and you know puts the
02:57:29.060ring down the other gods aren't even i think they're in that whole um altercation but it
02:57:35.060then it still continues on i don't know it's really good i think it's worth reading for sure
02:57:41.060do you have it yeah uh adrian i apologize uh while back i just saw this now while back adrian
02:57:50.580donated 20 to the bns fund thank you so much adrian uh both of you are amazing in your knowledge
02:57:58.100and dedication never miss a show greatly appreciate the information and your time
02:58:03.700we're very glad that you um appreciate the compliment and we're very glad that you're
02:58:09.380you know paying attention and enjoying the show
02:58:16.340question from matt and svawn do you think ash wednesday has any pagan roots to it
02:58:21.380i've heard more protestant branches of christianity make this accusation
02:58:26.580but i wonder if there is any truth to it swan do you have thoughts on this
02:58:32.420oh okay i don't know i i looked into this a little while ago maybe a couple years ago
02:58:41.860that perhaps there might be some ceremonial connection that the ash upon the head may be
02:58:49.620remnants from the hellenic tradition of like a blessing of hestia um who was the hellenic arian
02:58:57.380goddess of the earth outside of that not not a lot um i do know that that lent is mentioned during
02:59:10.020the council of nicae so that puts it pretty far back um but the word lent and a lot of people think
02:59:18.100it's strictly a christian based word remember it it it's a word that means long uh it's the word
02:59:26.740or the time of year in which it's that thin stretch between winter and the the coming warmth
02:59:35.060so um a lot of times people interpret it to mean like to go without and again that's synonymous um
02:59:42.660with the timing because it is again you're at the bottom of the barrel your your food reserves are
02:59:47.860gone but the days are slowly getting longer and so it's that light at the end of the tunnel
02:59:54.500so the word lent is not exclusively christian the ash on the head i i can't be a hundred percent
03:00:03.860if i had time i might be a researcher but i i have read somewhere that it may be connected to
03:00:08.740like blessings of hestia um but outside of that you know the the emphasis of returning to dust
03:00:16.740is pretty Christian, born of the church by Saul of Tarsus
03:00:26.480and Shimon or Simon, who later is known as Peter.
03:00:32.480I think these guys were the ones that really started to establish that.
03:00:36.680See, I think this one's reaching a bit.
03:00:39.480There's a longstanding Jewish tradition,
03:00:43.480tradition an old testament tradition of supplication by wearing ashes and sackcloth
03:00:52.520and i think that there's even wearing ashes on the head so i think that this mark as a as a
03:00:59.720supplicant or as a you know penance for you know all of your jewish guilt thing
03:01:07.880is in keeping with long-standing Jewish tradition about ashes and such.
03:01:16.340But, I mean, they could have, it's, you know,
03:01:19.480baptism is absolutely a Christian thing in the,
03:01:23.640take them in the river and dunk them and whatever.
03:01:28.880Baptism in a baptismal font is applying that concept to,