Asatru Folk Assembly - 6⧸11⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 153 - Völsunga Saga, Part VII

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

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

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

00:02:30.000 Thank you.

00:03:00.000 Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:12.680 We had to change it up on you guys a little bit tonight.

00:03:15.880 Our regularly scheduled episode was going to be Michigan folk builder Chris Savage talking to us about our Gothic heroes

00:03:29.340 and their very important struggle against Christianity.

00:03:37.380 I was very excited for that episode, and we will bring that to you down the road.

00:03:41.160 We want to find exactly when we can, but for the best of reasons.

00:03:44.360 So we want to congratulate folk builder Chris Savage and his lovely wife

00:03:49.480 on the birth of their daughter.

00:03:51.540 So they're getting acquainted with and getting settled in with their new daughter right now.

00:03:57.860 She is about a day old.

00:04:00.100 So instead, I'm going to have to settle with me and Svon tonight.

00:04:06.400 We were planning on doing this next week, but tonight we are going to conclude our seven-part series on the Volsunga saga.

00:04:14.700 um taking a little bit longer than i thought it was going to but i think it has um

00:04:24.700 like sparked really interesting conversation and really interesting discussion uh the topics that

00:04:32.460 have come up during it i think have been really good and i've certainly had a great time doing it

00:04:36.460 i hope you guys have enjoyed it as well um but we will move on and go back into the eddas here

00:04:46.700 the next time we have spawn on again we're gonna have to figure out our our lineup for

00:04:51.020 upcoming shows a little bit so we'll let you know uh when that's when that's the thing um

00:04:58.220 we have the big summer event season is upon us here very soon we have midsummer in at odenshoff

00:05:15.480 in brownsville california it's going to be the 27th through the 29th of this month if you are

00:05:21.600 able to make it we would love to see you there this will be our big 30th anniversary celebration

00:05:27.620 um the hof is very special to us uh this fall we will have had that hof for 10 years now

00:05:37.720 um it's kind of amazing to see how fast that's gone by doesn't seem like it's been a decade but

00:05:45.360 come this fall it will have been so we would love to show off uh and share that amazing first half

00:05:53.320 the Alistair Folk Assembly to everybody so we invite you guys to join us for that.

00:05:57.880 The following month in Jackson County, Tennessee at Sigurheim we are celebrating Sigur Bloat.

00:06:05.640 We'd invite everyone to come celebrate victory with us. A very special property, the property

00:06:13.320 that we will build Tiershoff on in the coming years and that will serve as the capital of the

00:06:18.760 the Astro Folk Assembly. A number of AFA families are going to be moving to that county to really 0.95

00:06:25.180 build community there. We would invite you guys to join us, and we would invite you guys to join us

00:06:30.260 at Sickerbloat. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys there. Svahn and myself and our producer

00:06:36.580 Nick will all three be in attendance for that, so yeah, we'd love to see you guys there if you can

00:06:42.000 make it. And then the following month, in August, we will be celebrating Freyfaxi at Baldershof on

00:06:51.460 August 22nd through the 24th. That is in Murdoch, Minnesota, if you guys can make it out. It's a

00:06:58.980 very special place. It's a beautiful hof, amazing people. I will be there. I would love to meet you 1.00

00:07:05.960 guys there. So anybody who can attend any of these or all of them, we would love to see you guys

00:07:12.320 there. Reach out to your local folk builder and get you all sorted out. Other things, we have paid

00:07:20.920 off Njordshof due to overwhelming generosity. Thank you guys, everybody who helped us make that happen.

00:07:28.180 and we are in full swing on scouting a location for Frazehoff. We're very excited about that.

00:07:37.000 I spoke to Witten Erickson for at length today, as well as our law speaker about planning and

00:07:44.380 preparing for that and properties and checking things out. So we are all into that. It's part

00:07:52.900 of part of the theme here victory never sleeps as soon as we accomplish something we want to

00:07:58.280 immediately be focused on on the next step the next phase the next uh the next goal in front of

00:08:05.520 us we don't ever want to get stagnant rest on our laurels on things we want to forever try to push

00:08:12.500 forward and achieve and bigger better stronger faster smarter um closer to our potential and

00:08:22.580 closer to the perfection that's worthy of our gods so i appreciate everybody and i appreciate

00:08:33.520 you guys um being with us on this epic journey of

00:08:39.340 building ausitru in our modern world and uh reforging the trough between our folk and our

00:08:49.560 gods. We've made tremendous strides in that over the past, you know, past 30 years this year with

00:08:58.580 the Ask True Folk Assembly. You guys are all a part of that. This show is a part of that. We

00:09:03.460 appreciate you guys' participation. As always, GW Farnsworth started us off tonight, giving us

00:09:09.600 $30 towards the cause. Thank you. We appreciate you. Your example of consistent generosity is

00:09:16.860 inspirational and very much appreciated. Also, John from Virginia is in our chat room right now.

00:09:28.460 Appreciate you joining us and being here. He donated $50 earlier today to help an AFA family

00:09:36.180 who is in need and $25 to Baldershoff as well as $10 to this program. So thank you very much,

00:09:44.940 John. We appreciate it. And welcome back. And look me up. I'm in Virginia as well.

00:09:51.580 Look this man up. He's in Virginia Beach. We got moots and depending on what side of Virginia

00:09:59.100 you're on. Look him up either way. Right. Or Apprentice Folk Builder Annika.

00:10:07.500 She takes the western half of our state. 0.96

00:10:14.220 Absolutely. 0.78

00:10:15.980 I think we have anything else off the top.

00:10:23.080 We have a decent amount of material to cover tonight.

00:10:27.500 I did promise that we would get to the end of it, the end of this particular piece tonight.

00:10:34.340 So we're going to do that.

00:10:36.160 But John offers that he is in Arlington, so he is on your side of the state.

00:10:43.140 Oh, yes.

00:10:44.660 Yeah, he's just –

00:10:45.760 Yeah, I think this is good.

00:10:50.460 We might need to look at Fredericksburg area as a kind of a commonality.

00:10:57.260 We've been up there before.

00:10:58.320 But, yeah, I'm down in the Lower East in the seven cities.

00:11:02.380 So it's not that, it's not that big of a state north to south.

00:11:07.020 So those are some old dominion problems.

00:11:10.620 We'd love to see you guys get together.

00:11:12.960 Also worth acknowledging the guy that took us over the line by $40,000 is in the chat today.

00:11:27.940 Matthew Bean, thank you very much.

00:11:29.960 and he will be in attendance at Midsummer at Odenshoff.

00:11:34.800 We're excited to see you there and we're glad you joined us tonight.

00:11:37.960 And, you know, once again, and it's going to get old, but we can't do it enough.

00:11:42.820 Thank you.

00:11:43.820 Thank you.

00:11:45.900 All right, guys, with that, Svon, will you take us back into the text?

00:11:50.180 Do you recall where we left off?

00:11:54.020 Unfortunately, I think I was reading ahead and it really threw me off.

00:11:59.960 um because and i think people don't know this um so you and i have both read these but i've read

00:12:10.040 like i've read them in a different format and then on top of that it's been many many

00:12:16.040 years since i've read the volsung saga from beginning to end so i remember all you know

00:12:23.160 just parts bits and pieces important things and i would go back and reference so like even last week

00:12:31.480 i made a big snafu where i was kind of like thinking that the dialogue was going one direction

00:12:37.560 and then i was completely wrong and it was going in another direction and that's really the the

00:12:42.200 big thing i think that folks need to understand is that um we are coming from a religious perspective

00:12:50.760 into the lore um and truth be told the lore isn't just religious it's historical there's

00:13:00.840 inclinations by the authors and to try to make them um shine like the iliad of the odyssey so

00:13:09.240 there's classical literature kind of sprinkled in there's some christian um overtone sprinkled in

00:13:15.880 and all of these things kind of playing out. So when they do that on top of translational

00:13:23.500 differences, the one that I read did not translate like this at all. Um, yeah, it ends up creating

00:13:31.800 these conversational switches on me that are a little bit, and I like to come clean when,

00:13:37.120 when i um kind of make a and mess up on this um so i was trying to read ahead in order to

00:13:48.080 kind of not let that happen again and so i so that said i believe we are starting

00:13:56.240 and uh producer nick check me on this if you have a different um recollection i think we are

00:14:05.040 starting chapter 33. Okay, so yes, the death of Brynhild just happens. So I want to say this

00:14:16.860 to start as well. We are, and everybody can find this while I yap at you here, we are looking at

00:14:23.540 veluspau.org. That's where we're getting our text from. And it's really cool, the translators of

00:14:30.380 this particular version interspersed a number of edict poems in here as well that are part of the

00:14:37.880 story to kind of flesh it out. So they took kind of a, I think, very appropriate artistic liberty

00:14:44.160 in combining pieces of the lore into the narrative. I think that makes some of our job in the next few

00:14:52.260 poems Svon and I are going to cover or we're planning on covering. I think that pieces those

00:14:59.040 all together very well. So that's going on. Something to kind of remind you guys on. There

00:15:05.120 are pieces of our lore that as Gothar, Svan and myself, you know, go back to all of the time for

00:15:13.420 different little, for different big cosmological things, for different little nuggets, if we

00:15:22.380 remember a piece here or there. But when you first get involved in Ausatru, there is a perception

00:15:29.640 that there's this endless, you know, lore horde of material for you to go through. And I think

00:15:38.440 of the things that we consider like the primary pieces of lore,

00:15:46.900 you're surprised if you really go at it voraciously, how fast you go through those.

00:15:52.380 Now, I think if you start broadening your circles on what counts, then yes, to inform yourself and be a wise person in the beliefs and ways of our gods, our folk, and our ancestors, you should always be studying.

00:16:06.760 But it means there's pieces of lore, there's obscure poems and stories and sagas that, you know, there are some that Svon and I probably haven't read in their entirety in 20 years.

00:16:21.020 there's more than it's you know maybe been 15 or so there's a lot that we go back and read little

00:16:28.420 snippets of but one of the things that i really really like about doing these lore episodes

00:16:33.520 is i'm getting to uh getting to reread material that i haven't read in a long time and that when

00:16:42.920 i read it was a very different season of my life i read a lot of this material when i was

00:16:48.480 in my early 20s, and two decades of life adds a perspective and caused me to look at it from

00:17:00.360 a different angle. So it's really nice to go through this stuff again with you guys and with

00:17:06.480 my friends Fawn. And that's the other thing. It's cool to go through this with my friends Fawn as

00:17:13.420 well as with my colleague Svon. So it's neat to, it's neat to do this and to get to share that

00:17:20.140 whole process with everybody here. So I appreciate you guys going along with us on this because

00:17:24.480 you know, I'm sure Svon feels the same, but I get a lot out of it. It's really,

00:17:29.740 you know, it's a special opportunity. Yeah, I think the colleague side is,

00:17:34.080 it would be interesting, only friends, how many strange and funny jokes we would be getting

00:17:41.300 out of um a lot of this but um yeah and just to give a brief recap is that Brynhild the original

00:17:52.200 source of love and inspiration for Sigurd and the one that he is uh there is a spell cast upon him

00:18:01.940 so that he forgets Sigurd and or excuse me uh forgets Brynhild and marries Gudrun

00:18:10.020 And then Gudrun's brother, again, uses magic to dress Sigurd up to pretend that he is him. And it's very, very convoluted, but it's coming to an end. Sigurd has passed.

00:18:31.600 And now Brynhild has passed, and there's an interesting point of this is they lay the pyre out, and Sigurd is there with his three-year-old child, and that child was killed because Brynhild allowed it, encouraged it.

00:18:57.340 But now he's laid there. His child is laid there. And then Brynhild is laid upon as well with a sword in between them, just like the night that they spent together when he was guised as Gudrun's brother.

00:19:24.700 And again, I think this is really important to note how the poems and stories abbreviate so much that you might not, why is this important?

00:19:37.560 And there must be or is some maybe either just kind of lost emphasis or a skipping over of why some of the folk around Sigurd and Brunhild know of their initial love and the secondary love where Sigurd was such a good man.

00:20:02.080 And he kept himself away from her because he was married and betrothed to Gudrun, emphasizing his chastity, or not chastity, but his loyal and lawful nature.

00:20:20.280 Sorry if there's the jets there.

00:20:23.600 So this is reemphasized again at the end.

00:20:27.740 and Sigurd Brynhild and Sigurd's son from Gudrun are buried on the pyre.

00:20:39.340 And it's mentioned here, too, the funerary practice is in the olden way.

00:20:48.040 Now, there's two ways that we can look at that.

00:20:50.100 the writers of this, between the 12th and the 14th century, would have definitely looked at

00:20:56.980 this as the older way because Christians do burials. Actually, Icelanders preferred burials

00:21:02.860 because wood was such a valuable commodity. However, burning and burials amongst our ancestors

00:21:14.140 has been a generational thing we have adapted um between the two for a very long time um and i you

00:21:26.460 know again i think even we are in an age of of burning or an age of funeral pyre um for our own

00:21:35.500 folk today but our our ancestors did move between and oftentimes it depended on migration it

00:21:43.840 depended on war. It depended on cult, the cult of, whether our folk were

00:21:51.840 giving honor to, say, like Lord Njordh or Lord Frey, or excuse me, the Holy Frey,

00:22:02.740 or whether they were honoring more in leagues with Lord Thor or Lord Odin in predominance.

00:22:10.540 that greatly affected funerary practices.

00:22:14.780 And that's a very interesting subject to look at,

00:22:17.760 but it's just worth noting.

00:22:19.480 And if somebody's out there thinking,

00:22:22.480 oh, I thought you only burned in a ship.

00:22:26.400 That's not the case.

00:22:27.980 Burning on a pyre, creating a barrow mound, 1.00

00:22:32.100 creating a kurgan, 1.00

00:22:34.640 all of that was part of our traditions.

00:22:39.040 and there was kind of an interesting overlap too sometimes so there's the idea of like a mound

00:22:46.800 construction over a an intact body and like a burial chamber and that happened but there was also um

00:22:59.760 funeral pyres that a mound is then erected over the ashes and over the spot you have spots you

00:23:06.240 have a crossover to where sometimes what you don't see a lot other than those kind of ship burial

00:23:14.080 on the water things which are not the norm is you know a dispersing of the ashes one of the things

00:23:23.200 that's interesting i think of our folk is the collection of the body whatever that whatever's

00:23:32.800 left into location and doing something special with that spot as a place to house that and

00:23:42.160 a place to serve as a point of contact with the deceased and a point of remembrance of

00:23:47.880 the deceased.

00:23:49.520 So we see, you know, elaborate urn culture is one of those, you know, very, very early

00:23:55.420 signs of our people's civilization that we talk about um or mound burial built over top

00:24:03.980 of cremation one of the reasons that cremation is particularly appealing

00:24:11.980 to us now as we reforge uh the trough between our folk and our gods is it was one of the things that

00:24:19.580 served as a marker of Ausitru in the day. So back in our ancestors' time, Christians buried, 0.94

00:24:29.500 and Ausitru did cremation. And so that was one of the things that distinguished us. And some of 0.77

00:24:39.020 the things that we... There's a lot of different ways that this goes, and certainly we shouldn't

00:24:46.940 let um like counter signaling has its place but we want to define ourselves independently

00:24:56.700 and i don't think that it was done initially as a difference between us and the christians in any way

00:25:04.700 what we read about i'm curious how it took that form over many years is the idea of instantaneous

00:25:12.060 transmission of the higher parts of the soul up towards the gods there is the very fundamental

00:25:20.360 and primal you can see it the flames burn and the smoke from your carcass and the flames rise

00:25:28.120 upward that just works and i think the symbolism of that is inescapable um whereas the christian

00:25:37.880 dead in the in the you know being buried would await their you know what was originally believed

00:25:43.560 to be bodily like zombie resurrection and so i think that that defined us then and it's

00:25:51.000 something special that we look to now as a as a mark of pride in our faith and our

00:25:59.080 i don't know point of distinction of what our ancestors did that marked them as being separate

00:26:04.760 or marked them as notably practicing ausitry uh it's also the thing with you know wearing hammers

00:26:11.800 there's no real indication that hammers were worn until we see our ancestors wear them as a as a

00:26:21.080 signal to you know hey in a world where there's a religious smorgasbord like no we are also true

00:26:26.760 or we are not christians they have their crucifix but we have our hammers um so yeah that's really

00:26:34.040 interesting and something kind of to note that's what the afa you know recommends i don't think

00:26:43.320 that's a hard point of dogma or something that we you know are pushy about but the recommendation

00:26:50.600 is uh cremation and that's so far what we have interred at uh at our hoffs and in our our sacred

00:26:57.960 spaces so there you go before we continue on the on the deal here i wanted to acknowledge

00:27:07.320 uh thank you very much uh ronald blake has donated 50 to help family in need we appreciate

00:27:16.280 uh we appreciate that and we appreciate seeing you back around

00:27:19.720 yeah it's been a while like just uh yeah that's awesome

00:27:26.660 um i i did want to point out one thing but and i'm not stalling to start um in there there is

00:27:37.880 mention of them being sprinkled with the red blood of men but the sprinkling of the red blood of men

00:27:46.700 is referring to the red ochre, a sacred natural red dye that was used in runic, placing them

00:28:03.680 within runic inscriptions, and goes all the way back to the Stone Age. They have found

00:28:10.240 burials with uh the the bodies they were sprinkled with red ochre before they were buried so again

00:28:22.540 another little gleaning sense of understanding that our way the old way uh alza through

00:28:29.980 as it has evolved to become uh goes all the way back to the stone age so

00:28:35.900 So now Sigurd and Brynhild are dead, and this leaves the rest of Brynhild's prophecy to come true.

00:28:54.720 And one of them is she states that Gudrun, the wife of Sigurd, is going to be the death of Atli and his sons.

00:29:08.240 But after he passes, she is married to Atli.

00:29:20.040 And here we go.

00:29:21.140 So, chapter 33, Gudrun is wedded to Atli, and there is a misspelling there if you're following the website.

00:29:32.240 Now so it is, that whoso heareth, these tidings saith, that no such and a one as was Sigurd was left behind him in the world.

00:29:46.280 None were so great as him. The world is now lesser for his loss.

00:29:53.360 Nor ever was such a man brought forth because of all the worth of him, nor may his name ever minish by eld in the Dutch tongue, nor in all the Northlands while the world standeth fast.

00:30:10.160 So I looked at this as the usage of the Dutch tongue, and I think that it's a direct translation with the idea of the Deutsch or the Germanic proper, and he translated it as the Dutch tongue.

00:30:40.160 because in the in the old norse it's tungur og au nord london so the tongue of the of like the

00:30:53.320 northern kingdoms and he translated it to that so i thought that was kind of odd

00:31:00.400 uh the story tells that on a day as Gudrun sat in her bower she fell to saying better was life

00:31:12.880 in those days when I had Sigurd he who was far above other men as gold is above iron

00:31:20.220 or the leak over the grass of the field or the heart over the wild things this was that exact

00:31:29.160 line was spoken earlier and you will see that our ancestors used anchor points and if you could

00:31:39.720 remember how many times you've said that specific phrase you knew where you were at in the story

00:31:47.720 while you were trying to memorize it and it is again very interesting to show iron is very

00:31:54.440 important but gold is clearly the higher and more precious metal of the time um we also the the leak

00:32:05.080 the the leaks holiness has been with our people since we left the home dale and went throughout

00:32:14.040 the land and then lastly the heart the which is a deer um and i'm just saying that for anybody

00:32:23.080 who might not know that but the word deer means in in old english it means the wild animals and

00:32:31.080 the heart was specifically the antlered or uh the the animal we would consider like a doe or a or a

00:32:38.600 deer um and the heart the the connection between the white heart or just the the heart in general

00:32:49.960 as a noble animal as an animal that was um hard to be hunted and had um an essence of

00:33:02.360 prophecy to it and of course they didn't hunt the deer like we do today um so i i think that's why

00:33:10.360 that the challenge and the and the uh general regalness of that animal is it's much higher i

00:33:16.440 think people now when sitting in trees is different story but um still majestic but uh so

00:33:29.880 she speaks and says that none are as great as her last her her late husband and um

00:33:40.120 she says that the leak over the grass or the field of the heart in the other wild animals

00:33:45.000 until my brethren begrudged me such a man the first and the best of all men and so

00:33:53.160 they might not sleep or they had slain him huge clamor made grani when he saw his master and lord

00:34:03.560 sore wounded and then i spoke to him even as with a man but he fell drooping down to the earth

00:34:13.000 where he knew Sigurd was dead.

00:34:16.620 And this is, of course, his horse,

00:34:19.340 where I had also made a mistake about that,

00:34:21.660 Grom and Grani.

00:34:25.120 So Grimhild, this is her mother-in-law,

00:34:33.380 the wife of her father.

00:34:38.780 So Grimhild comes to here,

00:34:40.540 Where Gudrun has taken up her abode and she calls her sons to talk with her and asks whether they will make atonement to Gudrun for her son and her husband and said that it was but meat and right to do.

00:35:01.880 so it also you the utilization of meat uh meat would mean a meal not specifically just flesh

00:35:14.000 but also to reach the proper level of things then gunnar spoke and said that he would atone

00:35:25.080 for her sorrows with gold. So they sent for their friends and arrayed their horses, their helms,

00:35:34.220 and their shields, their bairnies, and all their war gear, and their journey was furnished forth

00:35:40.960 in the noblest wise. And no champion who was of great men might abide at home, and their horses

00:35:54.440 were clad in mail coats see we've read this have we not they're they're uh they're wearing the short

00:36:05.560 bernie coats and their their helms are strongly hammered but we've read this part

00:36:12.040 um there they go and as they're moving they gather many great princes and kings or

00:36:24.940 and remember the usage of king is uh leaders of the people they own the land and um they gather

00:36:33.560 them uh including uh the longabards and the franks and the saxons uh i was here we read this part

00:36:48.360 and we talked about in the poem here coming up all the kin of letters cut a right and reddened

00:36:55.000 about the runes.

00:36:59.580 I think we are further

00:37:01.400 on.

00:37:06.520 We're into it now.

00:37:07.840 I don't think if we are further on,

00:37:09.700 I don't think we're that much.

00:37:13.020 Okay.

00:37:14.060 So

00:37:14.460 at this point,

00:37:17.320 they're gathering

00:37:19.800 forward to make

00:37:21.860 atonement to their sister.

00:37:23.680 And they're going to bring gold, but the other element of the story is, is they're not going alone. They're bringing all of the absolute best from all of these tribes as they move forward and go to meet them.

00:37:44.940 um so they went into the hall of king alf and there abode them the longobards and the franks

00:37:54.540 and the saxons they feared with all their war gear and had over them red fur coats even as the song

00:38:02.780 says bernie's shortcut strong helms hammered girt with wood swords red hair gleaming

00:38:10.700 they were fain to choose good gifts for their sister and spake softly but in none of them

00:38:20.880 would she trow and again that in none of them would she trust uh as she her brothers are the

00:38:29.840 slayers of sigurd then gunner brought unto her a drink and it was mingled with hurtful things

00:38:37.700 And this she must needs a drink. And with the king thereof, she had no more memory of the guilt against her. This is a plot point in the story numerous times in which the runes are placed onto the horn in which the victim forgets things.

00:39:02.460 And I only bring this up because there are certain people on the internet who try to portray that Seder is strictly evil or malicious and that the runes given to us by Lord Heimdall are good.

00:39:20.880 And there are many, many instances where it shows that the runes are tools and they can be used for good or they can be used for ill based on the one who has the knowledge.

00:39:38.880 And that kind of trying to say, see there come from women feminine magic bad, runes come from male god good is, I think, a very kindergarten kind of style of thinking.

00:39:58.640 Or, again, just the idea is nobody's going to read it so we can say whatever.

00:40:03.860 Well, in this case here, we clearly see the runes are being utilized to wipe memory away.

00:40:13.880 So in that drink was blended the might of the earth and the sea with the blood of her son.

00:40:23.020 And in that horn were all letters cut and reddened with blood, as is said here under.

00:40:31.800 So, to give better descriptions and for the Scalds to do metered poetry, they would put metered poetry into the stories.

00:40:44.540 So, at this point, it's just reemphasizing.

00:40:49.940 On the horn's face, we're there, all the kin of letters, cut aright and reddened.

00:40:58.320 How should I read them rightly?

00:41:00.960 How should I interpret them? The word read there is more, it's R-E-D-E, meaning to interpret or to take counsel from them.

00:41:12.220 How should I read them rightly? 0.96

00:41:15.900 The ling fish long of the land of Hadding.

00:41:21.200 Weak ears unshorn and wild things inwards.

00:41:26.820 In that beer were mingled many ills together.

00:41:31.060 Blood of all the wood.

00:41:33.860 So, sap.

00:41:35.680 And brown burnt acorns.

00:41:38.680 the black dew of the hearth so soot the god doomed dead beasts innards inwards i think

00:41:51.520 that's actually supposed to be innards it says inwards another um typo perhaps um and god doomed

00:42:00.140 beast is a beast that's

00:42:02.160 sacrificed to the 0.95

00:42:04.240 gods doomed to death

00:42:06.420 sacral 0.94

00:42:08.260 butchering and

00:42:09.860 it also

00:42:12.560 says and the swine's

00:42:14.320 liver sodden

00:42:16.020 because all wrongs

00:42:18.500 that deadens

00:42:19.680 so now

00:42:21.600 we're speaking about two forms

00:42:24.560 of

00:42:25.380 clairvoyance two forms

00:42:28.380 of divinatory practices, reading the innards of an animal and the veins and the cracks and seams

00:42:41.880 of a pork's liver. And what this tells me is most likely the poets were not familiar a lot

00:42:53.460 with the divinatory practices of the priests but saw them and

00:43:00.240 kind of were like spooked out by it and then thought that in essence it could be utilized

00:43:12.080 in this magic but it's really just substantiating the plot point i'm gonna fill this horn with a

00:43:20.800 bunch of spooky stuff and that the audience is going to be like whoa that's crazy or this could

00:43:28.700 also leak from ancient traditions and have some merit but i'm not i'm not saying either way um

00:43:37.260 a lot of the times though the poets did not understand what was going on and they would see

00:43:45.340 the godis reading the innards or reading the livers or doing the casting the runes and they

00:43:53.660 didn't fully know what was going on because those things were not the corpus of aussitru at all

00:44:03.420 and they were kind of left to the vitki or the godi um or the save corner so um

00:44:12.220 And so now, when their hearts are brought an eye to each other, great cheer they made, then came Grinhild to Gudrun and spoke.

00:44:24.760 So now she's lost her memory of that, of all that's happened before.

00:44:30.700 and uh their mother-in-law both Gudrun and um uh Gunnar this is their mother-in-law she comes

00:44:45.300 forth and she again is always kind of portrayed as this older uh wise in the ways of spell and

00:44:58.080 magic. So, and she's always kind of been an ever-present motivator from the back.

00:45:07.760 She goes to Gudrun and she says, all hail to thee, daughter. I give thee gold and all kinds

00:45:15.760 of good things to take to thee after thy father. Deer bought rings and bed gear of the maids of

00:45:26.280 the Huns, and the most courteous and well dight of all women, and thus is thy husband atoned for,

00:45:34.360 and thereafter shalt thou be given to Atli, the mighty king, and be mistress of all his might. 0.67

00:45:45.260 Cast not all thy friends aside for one man's sake, but do according to our bidding. And we've already

00:45:53.980 spoken a little bit about uh folks asking about atli and attila and again by this time the name

00:46:03.500 and his deeds had kind of soaked into um european history uh even up to the the nordic period

00:46:16.620 and that athlete by name was adopted um but the effect that he had on the eastern germanics

00:46:26.120 clearly spread that um even to his downfall um the power and the

00:46:33.660 like ferocity of his warrior nature there were good things along with the bad things that

00:46:44.620 happens. So at this point, it's Atli as a character, and Atli is most 100% perceived as being of

00:46:57.700 just as much as one of the other tribes, the Longobards or what have you.

00:47:03.740 Now, Gudrun answers back, and she says,

00:47:11.280 Never will I wed Atli the king. Unseemly it is for us to get offspring betwixt us.

00:47:22.360 Grimhild said,

00:47:23.280 Nourish not thy wrath, it shall be to thee as if Sigurd and Sigmund were alive when thou hast born sons.

00:47:35.880 So don't think about the fact that your husband just died and you're being married off and you don't want to have kids.

00:47:42.440 When you have kids, those kids will be of just the same powerful stock.

00:47:48.300 Guthrun says in retort

00:47:53.420 I cannot take my heart

00:47:55.080 From the thoughts of him

00:47:57.160 For he was the first of all men

00:48:00.340 And Grimhild says 0.75

00:48:03.380 So it is 0.65

00:48:04.700 Shapen that thou must have this king 0.94

00:48:07.940 And none else

00:48:09.360 So even despite

00:48:11.080 The magic in the horn

00:48:13.340 To try to make her forget

00:48:15.240 Sigurd is still too powerful and has, um, enraptured her heart for so strongly.

00:48:26.180 Um, so 0.93

00:48:32.540 Gudrun retorts, give not this man to me for an evil thing shall come upon thy kin from him.

00:48:43.020 So now she's also lending into, she's taking stock in Brynhild's prophecy.

00:48:49.900 And to his own sons shall he deal evil and be rewarded with grim revenge thereafter.

00:48:59.180 Then waxed Brynhild fell at those words and spoke.

00:49:05.500 So the best way to think of this is Grimhild kind of, it says she waxes.

00:49:34.120 She grows in might. Her hammer, the part of her soul that is her will manifest, grows forward, and she tells Gudru, you're going to do this.

00:49:53.140 It's very similar to in The Lord of the Rings, if anybody's watched it, when Gandalf says, I am no conjurer of cheap tricks, and his whole demeanor and the very environment around him changes.

00:50:09.700 This is, again, a part of the expression of the soul.

00:50:13.640 So, then Gudrun spoke, thus then must it need befall, whosoever against the will of me or for little joy shall it be, and for great grief.

00:50:32.020 So, I am. Terrible news coming for Atli. And hearkening back to the prophecy of Brynhild saying, and Brynhild hated Gudrun, but she said Sigurd's going to die. I'm going to die.

00:50:49.520 And then when you are alone, you'll be married off to Atli and you will be the death of him and his sons. 1.00

00:50:59.440 And then Sigurd dies and then she dies.

00:51:02.280 And now Gudrun is like, oh, no, this is this is all there.

00:51:09.200 So she's yeah, she I am great grief.

00:51:12.540 Then men leaped upon their horses

00:51:17.160 And their women were set in wanes

00:51:20.600 Wanes are wagons or chariots

00:51:24.840 And so they fared four days of riding 0.94

00:51:27.920 And other for a shipboard

00:51:30.960 And yet four more again by land and road

00:51:34.780 Till at last they came to a certain high-built hall

00:51:39.100 Then came to meet Gudrun many folk thronging in groups.

00:51:47.220 An exceedingly goodly feast was made there, even as the word had gone between either kin, and it passed forth in most proud and stately ways.

00:51:57.660 And at the feast, drinks.

00:52:03.780 Atli, his bridal with Gudrun, but never did her heart laugh on him.

00:52:11.620 And little sweet and kind was their life together.

00:52:16.540 So this is the wedding feast.

00:52:19.120 And a general understanding is that oftentimes we did have Hoffs, but a lot of times it was about the Gothar going to the hall and performing the union there and finishing by placing the hammer on the lap of the bride at the table where everyone was eating and drinking. 0.83

00:52:49.120 So, they're there and they join them, but it says she just knows she's doomed.

00:53:01.120 So, before we proceed, I'd like to acknowledge a $50 donation from Austin in Wisconsin towards

00:53:11.420 the Baldur's Hoff Steeple Fund, and an additional $50 donation from him to the Fraeshoff Fund.

00:53:20.300 So thank you very much. We appreciate that. And some of you may be aware we are currently building

00:53:27.160 up a war chest to put a down payment on Fraeshoff when we find a suitable property. So thank you

00:53:33.180 very much for that. Oh, I was needing, I was going to break off to the restroom real quick.

00:53:41.060 All right, take care of business.

00:53:44.720 We'll be here when you get back.

00:53:50.960 Let me see what, if anything,

00:53:53.220 we have got for any questions,

00:53:57.380 or if I will kill time.

00:54:01.440 All right, so here's a question.

00:54:06.520 I was here to go with you, Matt and Witton Svahn.

00:54:08.780 What lessons do you feel are important

00:54:10.700 us to take away from a volsunga saga um what a

00:54:23.580 a broad question um

00:54:29.100 and i say that because in the telling there are so many little

00:54:35.740 little pieces of things

00:54:39.740 so and i don't mean this to circumvent the question but it's a little bit of a sidestep

00:54:58.740 one of the lessons or at least something i think is instructive

00:55:02.780 of the saga is to be inspired inspired by it and inspired by the

00:55:12.620 the example of nobility that's uh signified or that's exemplified in uh sigurd fafner's body

00:55:28.340 I think that it is within him you see the nobility of character with his living up to his oaths, with his being loyal, with his having to be tricked in order to be part of the duplicity.

00:55:52.180 But you also see a very prominent martial prowess.

00:56:02.220 I think accompanied by, in a later period when you see a knight exemplified with those things,

00:56:14.660 You see a certain amount of humility. You see a reluctance towards violence that you don't see here.

00:56:24.560 What I think is really important is, yes, you see a sense of propriety in how he deals with kings and court, how he deals with ladies.

00:56:40.100 but you also see that he, you know, wades through the gore of his foes. He is a killer 0.94

00:56:51.680 of men and worms. He, you know, in his death throes, he cleaves them in in twain by chucking 0.99

00:57:02.280 um you see a perfect match of civility where it's appropriate and of

00:57:20.200 shocking violence when it's necessary without conflict or without guilt you see those things

00:57:29.960 celebrated and made noble by him you also see the value especially when he talks about

00:57:38.760 you know kind of his in his last words you see the value placed on

00:57:46.280 and this may be kind of an extension that you got to go with me on because again i think that

00:57:50.920 the lessons aren't like it this is not a morality tale of do this don't do that it is a tale of

00:57:58.200 examples of good things and not good things but one of the things he points out

00:58:07.720 is reputation and status and value of associating yourself with great heroes

00:58:16.040 you know having one hero in your retinue of of allies and the significance that places

00:58:24.840 in the view of your foes and everything else.

00:58:28.520 And go with me on this if you would.

00:58:30.680 There is a common refrain in the modern world,

00:58:33.660 and it's even something that people within Ausitru

00:58:36.660 have internalized without realizing,

00:58:40.100 is this idea of, you know,

00:58:42.320 I don't care what other people think about me or whatever.

00:58:45.860 That's not the case in the authentic practice of our faith.

00:58:51.640 it was supremely important to every character in this story of what everyone else thought about

00:59:00.240 them it was supremely important to these women that no their husband is the best of warriors

00:59:08.920 he is the hero of the greatest renown um you know sigurd uh fafner's body is so above and beyond

00:59:20.860 that it's an egregious step down 0.57

00:59:25.680 to couple with the scourge of God 0.89

00:59:29.660 until the hun conquered all before him.

00:59:35.120 Yeah, but he's not Sigurd. 0.96

00:59:37.340 So the status and reputation

00:59:41.660 that men earn for their worth,

00:59:45.260 their value, their valor,

00:59:47.940 their courage, and their effectiveness

00:59:50.380 is of supreme value and not just for the hero himself but for those who are associated with

00:59:58.360 the hero for his wife for his friends for people who you know are in his war band or amongst his

01:00:05.880 company that means everything reputation and the fame you could win in your life

01:00:12.480 meant everything and not just with the people that you liked. Yes, you have enemies that are

01:00:20.220 going to, you know, say little petty things, but you want your friends and your allies to take

01:00:28.260 strength and take pride in you and be able to

01:00:32.620 use their association with you to be prosperous. And you wanted your enemies to be terrified

01:00:41.700 of you and to always be cautious lest they incur your wrath the idea of wanting to be somebody of

01:00:52.240 note who your friends cherished and valued who your you know your peers trusted your word

01:01:00.780 your commitment and your honor your integrity it's interesting how you see this this slayer

01:01:08.420 of men talk about how you know you're going to regret this when you go to face your enemies

01:01:14.500 and i don't have your back you know talking in the same tone without pause or without

01:01:22.660 any feeling of it being incongruent with you know hey i'm a killer and you want me

01:01:28.100 on your side when you go to war and you're going to be missing it when i'm not there

01:01:32.420 in the same way you know like no i put a sword between us so there was no improper sexual conduct

01:01:41.480 no i'd never do anything to dishonor you in this kind of you know sweet discussion of you know him

01:01:50.380 behaving himself with the most you know seemingly trivial levels of of propriety amongst ladies of

01:01:58.100 the court amongst his friends but with the fact that he is you know he is brutal and effective 0.65

01:02:05.720 on the battlefield those things mean a lot what are what our ancestors what the scald who you know

01:02:14.780 was reciting this valued in a prince in a hero i think speaks to our soul and is something for us

01:02:24.940 rally around and to make note of you know one of the things that i think is

01:02:33.820 very instructive on this is in the beginning when he matures from

01:02:44.140 from boyhood and ascends into his rank of you know a prince of nobility and then of king

01:02:53.500 through his daring through his cunning through learning and the wisdom and the wits of doing

01:03:02.300 things through overcoming the dragon and gaining the insight into the song of birds

01:03:09.020 into understanding runes you see little bits that you see laid out differently in

01:03:17.820 uh the rigs thula but you see elements of that in his progression from you know coming into the world

01:03:28.060 to coming into his full power as the hero you see that self-actualization that is what our

01:03:35.260 ancestors prized in nobility and i think that's a really important lesson from it i think the other

01:03:40.140 thing we see a caution against envious misbehavior um we see

01:03:57.500 we see this cunning in this duplicity amongst people who are envious to take upon you know to

01:04:06.140 to take something that's not earned through trickery and to betray

01:04:15.020 family and friends who are close to them for

01:04:21.100 you know for petty reasons for uh

01:04:26.060 you know for a covenant a covetous that's that's one of the things that i think is also

01:04:32.140 very interesting in our the stories in our lore is being ambitious is praised and is awesome

01:04:42.460 you should want to achieve great things wanting big things is never frowned upon

01:04:48.140 but the idea of like coveting things that other people have wanting wanting things unearned or

01:04:55.580 things that you didn't get in a noble way is always frowned upon and i think that's something 0.55

01:05:01.580 you see here and what i think you also see here is the potentiality of women when they get nasty 0.87

01:05:10.700 them destroying kingdoms and destroying relations between warriors between men 0.93

01:05:17.900 and bringing down families and houses and everything one of the most destructive forces 1.00

01:05:23.180 socially is women when they use their social power in a metastasized way a lot of so many of 0.93

01:05:36.860 the stories you see at a distance when people look at our lore they see the great male heroes

01:05:46.300 that are protagonists of a lot of these stories but a consistent theme is the

01:05:53.180 influence and context that the women provide for all of these stories and it is tremendously

01:06:01.800 valuable and important when it's done for the benefit or for the the wheel of the hero or of 0.64

01:06:13.420 the society and it is unspeakably destructive when done for their woe due to you know a woman 0.98

01:06:23.100 scorned or a woman who's envious or whatever that might be the power the social power that women 0.99

01:06:30.780 wield in culture i would say generally but certainly personified in the hall culture of 1.00

01:06:37.180 our ancestors, I think teaches a lot of lessons for today and how we do things. Svon, question was,

01:06:45.580 what lessons do you feel are important for us to take away from the Volsung saga?

01:06:52.780 I would say conviction, and every time that there is this magical

01:06:59.100 plot kind of separator it's a deep cut in the long-standing conviction and then when he

01:07:11.280 Sigurd is convicted to Brynhild but then the magic cuts him and then he is convicted to his

01:07:21.640 wife Gudrun and even so much so that when he pretends to be Gunnar he doesn't and so he's

01:07:32.680 going against the it's it's cross convictions or cross oath cross troth so everywhere we see

01:07:41.800 there's always this sense of uh you make your oaths you make your loyalties and then you

01:07:51.220 go against them or you cross that conviction seems to be an overarching

01:08:00.740 point even to now where we just read that Gudrun is upset at her brothers for breaking

01:08:09.160 the conviction they had with Sigurd her late husband and so everywhere it goes it is a

01:08:20.740 constant reminder that one of the biggest things is you join a war band you join this group

01:08:31.000 you join the people and you hold true and you work it out you don't use magic you don't slay

01:08:42.180 you don't go behind people's back conviction and loyalty is a constant thing and I think that's

01:08:50.000 one of the biggest things to pull from this. And some of it can be taken to a little bit further

01:08:58.000 than I would say is right. This in the case of Sigmund and his sister, her conviction to keeping

01:09:07.080 her family bloodline alive. But again, another example of conviction, constant conviction,

01:09:17.140 and even, too, against Fafnir.

01:09:21.900 Yeah, it's worth reiterating, guys.

01:09:24.420 Asterix, we do not endorse incest.

01:09:28.020 Oh, yes.

01:09:30.260 Incest is bad, as Svon was pointing out.

01:09:35.980 Another thing that came to mind as far as big kind of macro lessons,

01:09:43.180 our the tragedy for our ancestors and the tragedy for us today is

01:09:54.700 I would say on the face of it like conflicting allegiance

01:10:03.820 and in a macro for all the stuff that we do

01:10:09.880 it's the right word for this I'm sure that there is when you are working across purposes when your

01:10:22.380 life is not in synergy and in harmony when we see false dichotomies between you know you having to

01:10:30.100 choose split loyalties of stuff I talk about it a lot but the idea of wholeness is key to our

01:10:37.280 ancestors idea of health they didn't just mean health in a physical sense but a mental health

01:10:42.680 emotional health overall well-being and right behavior comes from all of your life being in

01:10:52.760 harmony and in um building a synergy upon itself we see when you have conflicted alliances like

01:11:02.200 what do you do here well i'm married to her but i promised you know this other woman something and i

01:11:10.360 need to be true to that well i am in an oath relationship with my brother-in-law but

01:11:19.080 my brothers-in-law are you know have conflicting any of these inter-family

01:11:24.520 Finally, strife amongst kinsmen was always the worst thing for our ancestors to contemplate

01:11:32.260 because you have to do something.

01:11:35.900 There's no right answer when you have to choose between allegiance to different family members

01:11:49.520 or people you're owed to.

01:11:51.560 It's all bad.

01:11:52.860 you're trying your best to navigate the lesser of two evils and that's always a loss maybe it's a

01:12:00.860 bigger loss or a smaller loss but it's always a loss when you're in harmony it works different

01:12:07.420 and then it's kind of a final comment for me on this and then we can get back to uh to the the

01:12:13.660 the story is uh from wise final solution the hero can't be underestimated though because he very

01:12:21.340 strongly influences the women in the way that he is so yes and no that's kind of the lesson

01:12:28.300 men have the ability if they're able to stand for what they believe in to very strongly influence

01:12:35.660 women but i think as we all know and see in our life and in all of the world that surrounds us

01:12:45.260 now men get led around by the approval of women to our detriment

01:12:49.580 every single day. I think we've all seen men whose whole life would be better if they just

01:12:57.860 stood up, took charge of their lives, took charge of their family, took charge of their relationship

01:13:02.020 and made clear decisions. The world would be a better place. But we see that that is very often

01:13:09.460 not the case. And we also see examples of, you know, we see plenty of examples of evil women 0.99

01:13:15.220 leading men astray and destroying stuff we see a lot of that but we also see examples of women and 0.99

01:13:21.880 their um they have the ability to manipulate circumstances and the word manipulation has a

01:13:30.400 negative flavor to it in common parlance today but that's not the that's not the case etymologically

01:13:39.520 that's not the case historically they have the ability to influence men to be strong to stand up

01:13:45.520 for the right things to stick to their word to be honorable to be you know men of greatness to like 0.59

01:13:53.680 go out and achieve go out and do having a woman who is supportive of that and who manipulates

01:14:02.240 social situations to amplify um the hero is also something very much seen and very much

01:14:11.760 within those realms of capability but that's what i have on that before we get too far afield

01:14:19.360 we do have you know a significant amount to get through tonight so let's try to work our way

01:14:24.540 through chapter 34. All right. Chapter 34, Atli bids the Gjukings to him. And bear in mind,

01:14:38.940 the Gjukings are referred to as a tribe, but by the late Nordic period, this word is actually

01:14:45.840 synonymous with viking um but obviously didn't come into the same usage it just wasn't as popular

01:14:55.880 uh now tells uh now tells the tale that on a night king otli woke from a dream from sleep

01:15:07.480 and spake to Gudrun.

01:15:10.720 Me dreamed, said he,

01:15:14.240 that thou didst thrust me through with a sword.

01:15:18.560 Then Gudrun areeded the dream

01:15:21.140 and said that it betokened fire

01:15:24.940 when as folk dreamed of iron.

01:15:28.460 It befalls all of thy pride belike

01:15:31.680 in that thou deemest thyself the first of men.

01:15:35.940 so that's a kind of a biting point to say it's it's folly it's it's your your pride is mistaking

01:15:47.360 you for you to think that you're invulnerable but what she's really saying is you're never

01:15:55.060 going to be compared to sigurd so naturally you know your end will be at least said moreover i

01:16:06.340 dreamed that here waxed two sorb trees saplings and feign i was that they should have no scathe of me

01:16:20.580 Then these were riven up by the roots

01:16:25.560 And reddened with blood

01:16:27.660 And borne to the bench

01:16:29.880 And I was bidden to eat thereof

01:16:34.460 So down at the bottom here

01:16:36.360 It does have a note for the service tree

01:16:43.200 The Pyrus Sorba Domestica

01:16:48.420 And I am not familiar with that tree. And I actually went to school for horticulture, but I, yeah. I'm going to have to look that one up.

01:17:03.080 um so he's bitten to eat of it eat of the tree eat of the roots or excuse me eat of the uh

01:17:14.820 of the fruit and then it is torn up and brought into the hall

01:17:20.960 and that's what the meaning of the benches are and it is it's reddened with blood

01:17:27.800 um i yet again i dreamed that two hawks flew from my hand hungry and unfed and fared to hell

01:17:43.120 and mesemed their hearts were mingled with honey and that i ate thereof so another point of this

01:17:53.400 is the falconry and uh there's no differentiation between hawks and falcons linguistically but most

01:18:03.940 likely these are falcons uh and it says that they fared to hell which means they died the uh the

01:18:13.080 the wording of it is the road to hell traveling to hell the goddess hell is there waiting and

01:18:21.900 they pass instead of mythologically or cosmically traveling they die and I think this usage by this

01:18:34.260 time is just pretty common for death in a poetic sense and he takes their bodies and

01:18:43.380 he he eats their hearts mixed with honey 0.64

01:18:48.260 and then again i dreamed that two fair whelps lay before me yelling aloud and that the flesh 0.96

01:18:59.540 of them i ate though my will went not with the eating so here the um the whelps i'm

01:19:08.980 because i don't want like what happened last week where i was assuming in one but the general sense

01:19:16.840 of whelps being puppies or small hounds um and he was hesitant to eat that and again this is all in

01:19:28.380 his dream. Guthrun says, no wise good are these dreams yet shall they come to pass. Surely thy

01:19:39.780 sons are nigh to death and many heavy things shall fall upon us. One, she's talking to leaning back

01:19:49.420 towards Grinhild's prophecy. The other thing that's worth noting that's not being talked about

01:19:57.520 is again, when he wakes up, he speaks about his dreams to his wife. And there was a great stock

01:20:06.160 in dream and interpretation and the knowledge of women and their connection to things.

01:20:16.360 I'm not saying that there's a certain sense, excuse me, of knowledge 0.74

01:20:23.140 that comes with that that i think we've lost over time but uh you know at the time a woman was

01:20:33.900 of of a knowledge of an understanding of things and men folk were comfortable

01:20:42.020 talking to them because they're the the woman's connection to the mystical uh was

01:20:50.540 pretty well established and she says yeah no it's this isn't good and um and he continues on he says

01:21:01.900 now these things were away with time but in no wise was their life together fond

01:21:08.420 now falls oddly to thinking of where may he gotten that plenteous gold which Sigurd had owned

01:21:17.700 But King Gunnar and his brethren were lords thereof now.

01:21:24.520 So King Gunnar is Gudrun's brother, and he is now in possession of the gold that Sigurd won from Fafnir the dragon.

01:21:39.300 And Atli's thinking to himself, like, how can I get that or get some of it?

01:21:47.700 Atli was a great king, mighty, wise, and he was a lord of many men.

01:21:54.540 And now he falls to counsel with his folk as to the ways of them.

01:22:00.580 He wadded well that Gunnar and his brethren had more wealth than any others might have.

01:22:08.460 And so he falls to the reed of sending men to them and bidding them to a great feast.

01:22:16.900 and honoring them in diverse wise and the chief of those messengers was height or titled vingy

01:22:27.520 so he notices his his brother or his brother-in-law has a great amount of wealth let's

01:22:36.820 hold a feast for them? And are they trying to woo them, impress them, bring them into the fold of

01:22:47.880 things? Now the queen wants of their conspiring. Watts, she's witful. She gains knowledge of 0.67

01:23:01.780 they're conspiring and misdoubts her that would mean some beguiling of her brethren. So she cut

01:23:12.320 runes and took a gold ring and knit therein a wolf's hair and gave it into the hands of the

01:23:22.480 king's messenger, Vingy. So Gudrun has knowledge. She cuts a rune or a stave or a number of runes,

01:23:32.780 places a wolf hair into the ring connected to the rune she cuts.

01:23:41.020 Thereafter

01:23:43.740 They go their ways according to the king's bidding

01:23:48.680 And or ever they came aland

01:23:53.820 Vingi beheld the runes

01:23:56.000 And turned them about in such wise

01:23:59.480 As if Gudrun prayed her brethren in her runes

01:24:03.840 To go meet king Atli

01:24:05.980 that turnaround there is is interesting uh thereafter they came to the hall of king

01:24:19.360 and had good welcome at his hands and great fires were made for them and in great joyousness they

01:24:27.740 drank the of the best of drinks so i think that turnaround there is is a just a confusing way of

01:24:34.920 saying that Vingy was not stopped from going to Gudrun's family, but was driven to.

01:24:49.000 Again, the translation of it's a little confusing right there.

01:24:54.840 So, Vingi is now the messenger of Atli

01:25:04.340 That's come before Gunur, her brother, Gudrun's brother

01:25:08.660 And says, then spoke Vingi

01:25:11.880 King Atli sends me hither

01:25:14.460 And is fain that ye go to his house and home

01:25:19.460 In all glory and take of him exceeding honors

01:25:23.640 Helms and shields, swords and bearnies, chainmail armor, which again, extremely, the intricacy and labor of chainmail armor was reserved for royalty, along with swords.

01:25:44.820 Um, gold and goodly raiment for your horses, hosts of war and great wide lands for, saith he, is, he is faintest of all things to bestow his realm and lordship upon you.

01:26:07.160 Then Gunnar turned his head aside and spoke to Hogni, his other brother.

01:26:14.820 And what wise shall we take this bidding? Might and wealth he bids us take, but no kings know I, who have so much gold as we have, whereas we have all the whore which lay once in Mithahith, where Fafnir lived.

01:26:37.800 and great are our chambers and full of gold and weapons for smiting and all kinds of rainmen of 0.72

01:26:47.220 war and well I walk that amidst all men my horse is the best and my sword the sharpest and my gold

01:26:56.180 the most glorious so why would we want to go do all of this when we have the dragon horde

01:27:04.340 uh hogney answers in return a marvel is it to me of his bidding for seldom hath he done in such a

01:27:15.200 wise and ill counseled will it be to to wend to him to to go his way lo now when i saw those

01:27:26.660 deer bought things the king sends us, I wondered to behold a wolf's hair was knit to a certain

01:27:35.780 gold ring. Be like Gudrun deems him to be minded as a wolf towards us and will have not of our

01:27:47.240 fairing. So there is Gudrun places the wolf hair in the ring or bound around the ring and he notices

01:27:59.560 it and he knows that's from his sister. So here we have two kind of the possibility that these

01:28:08.460 royals, these nobles were taught magic tradition and he catches the symbol of it. So there were

01:28:17.220 really not thinking that Atli is doing something out of kindness, but more so, this is a trap.

01:28:30.000 But, so, excuse me. But withal, Vingy shows him the runes which he said Gudrun had sent.

01:28:40.700 ah so at this point i i think this is where it's the the confusion was is that she placed the runes

01:28:48.840 perhaps in all of the gifts coming to them and he sees the runes and the possibility is that he's

01:28:58.860 simply reading a message written in runic the other possibility is is that he is trained

01:29:05.540 in magical tradition and can interpret the meaning of them.

01:29:11.520 But either way, there's a message being transferred

01:29:15.620 that she knew the messenger himself would not know.

01:29:21.020 Now the most of the folk went to bed,

01:29:23.960 but these two drank on still with certain others.

01:29:29.340 There were, and Kostbera, the wife of Hogni,

01:29:33.300 the fairest of women came to them and looked on the runes so this is the youngest brother i know

01:29:43.240 it was kind of hard to keep track of but gunner and hogni are the two living brothers the eldest

01:29:50.060 brother was slain of um gudrun who is now the wife of atli and um she comes over and is able

01:30:02.140 to interpret the runes. But the wife of Gunnar, her name was Glaumvor, a great-hearted wife.

01:30:14.280 So these twain poured out, and the kings drank, and were exceedingly drunk, and Vingi notes it

01:30:23.060 and says. So the messenger is still there, but most likely this royal house is drinking up

01:30:33.700 together. There is Hogni and Gunnar and each of their wives respectively kind of going over this

01:30:42.860 while everyone else is at their tables, and then they start to go to bed, but the messenger is

01:30:49.680 clearly still there, probably, you know, again, waiting for an answer.

01:30:58.000 So, so these twain poured out and the kings drank and were exceedingly drunk and Vingy notes it and

01:31:09.720 says, not may I hide that King Atlee is heavy of foot and over old for the warding of his realm.

01:31:19.680 But his sons are young, and of no account now will he give you rule over his realms while they are yet thus young.

01:31:32.260 And most fame will be that ye have joy thereof before all others.

01:31:39.660 So I'd like to remind you, he's near death.

01:31:44.760 His children are too young to run his kingdom.

01:31:48.460 and you are the brothers of his wife so you would probably be able to put up the land

01:31:56.860 first and gain the best of properties um well springs and rivers and

01:32:06.380 defensible defensible positions would be first up to you and not to the little ones

01:32:12.460 Now it so befell both that Gunnar was drunk and that dominion was held out of him, nor might he work against fate shapen to him.

01:32:25.120 So he gave his word to go and tells Hogni his brother thereof, but he answered, thy word given must even stand now, nor will I fail to follow thee.

01:32:41.380 but most loft am I to this journey. So again, another example of conviction in his drunkenness,

01:32:50.080 he gives the word, and this is a warning. The story is not condoning this. The story is saying,

01:32:58.920 don't give your word and your convictions while you're drunk. And he gets drunk and says he will

01:33:04.940 go. And of course, Vingy is taking everything in and more than likely was the next day saying,

01:33:15.160 well, you promised. And his little brother, Hogney, said, I don't want to go, but

01:33:20.440 I'm not going to let you go alone. So two examples of conviction, if you will.

01:33:27.700 chapter 35 the dreams of the wives of the gyukings so when men had drunk their fill

01:33:42.420 and they fared to sleep then falls kostbara to beholding the runes this is the wife of hogni

01:33:51.620 she's reading the runes

01:33:56.000 and spelling over the letters

01:34:00.020 and sees that beneath where other things cut

01:34:03.200 and that the runes are guileful

01:34:06.460 yet because of her wisdom

01:34:08.980 she had skill to read them aright

01:34:12.920 so then she goes to bed

01:34:16.200 by her husband

01:34:17.460 but when they awoke

01:34:19.720 she spoke unto Hogni. So I think that's just an interesting point, is that our ancestors very

01:34:28.080 much thought if you were not trained in reading the runes correctly, the mystery of them trying

01:34:39.340 to peek through the layers of threading that is, you would be led astray. Mistaken perhaps,

01:34:48.200 but certainly mysteriously let off track unless you knew how to read them right.

01:34:56.040 You knew their secrets.

01:35:00.100 So she speaks to him in the morning and she says,

01:35:04.240 Thou art minded to wend away from home?

01:35:08.540 Ill-counseled is that.

01:35:11.020 Abide till another time.

01:35:12.880 scarce a keen reader of rune arts thou if thou deemest thou hast beheld in them the bidding of

01:35:23.100 thy sister to this journey so excuse me it doesn't differentiate who was speaking but she says don't

01:35:29.980 go and he says um he says you're you don't read the runes a lot or possibly not even that well

01:35:41.580 uh and if you you've deemed me not to go despite i you know i'm also being bid by my sister

01:35:51.940 um lo i i read them the runes and had marvel of so wise a woman as good the rune is that she 0.93

01:36:02.960 should have miscut them and that which lieth underneath beareth your bane with it i either she 0.98

01:36:14.800 lacked a letter or others have dealt guilefully with the runes so there's uh she's saying there's

01:36:25.080 a cover-up and that she's speaking of the ill of the of the trip and someone either

01:36:33.240 changed it or she doesn't know it well enough so she's reading this clearly as an omen to not go

01:36:43.340 and now hearken to my dream for therein me thought there fell in upon us here a river

01:36:56.860 exceedingly strong and broke up the timbers of this hall so now she's saying on top of that

01:37:04.600 I just had a dream and the dream is that there's great deluge of water that flows into our hall

01:37:10.420 and breaks the the walls um and he answers 0.97

01:37:15.220 full oft are ye evil of mind ye women but for me i was not made in such wise as to meet men 0.99

01:37:29.620 with evil who deserve no evil be like he will give us good welcome so women are capricious 0.89

01:37:39.220 and I'm not of that mind. 1.00

01:37:43.100 I'm going to take him at his word.

01:37:46.300 And she answered in return,

01:37:48.720 well, the thing must be yourselves to prove,

01:37:52.700 but no friendship follows this bidding.

01:37:56.480 But yet again, I dreamed that another river fell in here

01:38:00.300 with great and grimly rush

01:38:02.380 and tore up the deus of our hall

01:38:05.640 and broke the legs of both me.

01:38:08.100 your brethren, surely that betokens something. And he answered, meadows along our way, whereas

01:38:17.440 thou didst dream of the river. For when we go through the meadows, plentiful doth the seeds

01:38:24.520 of the hay hang about our legs. So he's like, no, you're not dreaming of the river in the hall.

01:38:34.780 you're dreaming of our travel over there and there are many rivers along the way

01:38:41.100 that flow just like the hay we're going to be going through

01:38:46.540 she says again i dreamed that thy cloak was a fire and that the flame blazed up above the hall

01:38:54.140 he says well i want what that shall betoken here lieth my fair dyed raiment and it shall

01:39:06.860 burn and blaze whereas thou dreamest of the cloak so he's he's saying you know i'm i see

01:39:19.500 my garments are perfectly fine fair dyed is a big one it's colored well because he is of royalty and

01:39:30.140 he says in essence i'm gonna wear this you know different clothing this this riding cloak

01:39:39.580 as opposed to the one you had a dream about and that will change all things

01:39:44.940 you know if i'm wearing something different then did you really have it or was it just fear

01:39:51.900 uh then she says again me thought a bear came in and break broke up the king's high seat and

01:40:01.560 shook his paws in such a wise that we were all a dread uh a dread uh thereat and he got us

01:40:12.400 altogether into the mouth of him so that we might avail at us so that we might avail us not and

01:40:21.880 thereof fell great horror upon us so now she's saying two on top of this there is the flood that

01:40:29.820 breaks the timbers there is he who gets lit ablaze and then a bear comes in and kills his family

01:40:39.440 and kills the courtly hall,

01:40:43.420 and they were unable to stop it.

01:40:47.880 And he says,

01:40:49.240 some great storm will befall,

01:40:55.260 whereas thou hadst a white bear in thy mind.

01:41:00.700 And Erne, that's, see again,

01:41:03.500 that's his translation there, Erne.

01:41:07.100 Methought came in, she says,

01:41:09.440 and swept a down the hall and drenched me and all of us with blood and ill shall that be token

01:41:17.840 me but thought it was the double of king atli so she's just compares all of this

01:41:27.060 to his visit that king atli is a bane or a bale coming down upon them the flood the fire and the

01:41:39.140 bear. He answered, full off do we slaughter beasts freely and smite down great neat for our cheer 0.69

01:41:51.560 and the dream of the Erne has but to do with oxen. I, Atlea's heart hold towards us and therewithal

01:42:04.880 they cease their talks so she tries many different avenues to say that this is a bad idea and he says

01:42:12.240 no there's no reason atli is perfectly fine with us he's married to our sister and he's never shown

01:42:20.080 any grievances towards us i'm not gonna go forth so that would make also to looking at the the

01:42:29.360 conversation he had before is that he was more loathsome to the trip than perhaps seeing atli

01:42:40.080 so chapter 36 of the journey of the gukings to king atli now tells the tale of gunner that in

01:42:49.040 the same wise fared with him for when they awoke glom for his wife told him many dreams with which

01:43:01.040 seemed to her like to betoken guile coming but gunner read them all in otherwise so his wife as

01:43:10.720 well the little brother and the middle brother their wives wake up and say this is bad we've had

01:43:16.800 dreams this none of this is good more or less it's really just establishing cultural tradition

01:43:25.680 our ancestors would be hearing this story and saying like if you

01:43:29.520 if your wife wakes up with a bad dream you should consider it you should uh go forth cautiously

01:43:37.840 this was one of them she said me thought a bloody sword was born into the hall here wherewith thou

01:43:49.360 were thrust through and either end of that wolves howled now it's another thing to bear in mind

01:43:57.320 prophecy and dream in poems uh was extremely popular it was

01:44:06.640 it was it was a thing that would get the audience on the edge of their seat like what's the dream

01:44:14.540 what's the dream they kind of needing to know that poetic um placement of things outside of

01:44:23.740 just the physical all right so i'm gonna deviate for a sec because i think it's important when

01:44:30.500 we're talking about. It's come up a few times here at this

01:44:39.800 part in the poem, but I think it's a thread we've seen

01:44:42.300 throughout is the the nobility in their training in and use of

01:44:54.500 magical arts. When talking about divination through rooms,

01:45:09.020 through dreams, through horospex practice, what is the horos?

01:45:22.400 reading of uh yeah yeah but like the act of doing is uh

01:45:32.560 anyways so my latin's messed up on that but yeah anyways through playing with the intrals through

01:45:39.120 you know getting meaning from the flight patterns of birds the moving of flocks

01:45:44.560 um what i think is really important and something that folks can relate to is

01:45:53.200 dreams are interesting and i think they're interesting in a bunch of different ways but

01:46:02.080 those of you who have been fortunate enough to have a

01:46:09.520 i hate to elevate it to the point of prophetic dream but those of you who have had a special dream

01:46:16.960 know the difference between man i was watching a horror movie and then went to sleep but i had a

01:46:25.360 really freaky dream and i kind of only sort of remember pieces of it but man that was crazy

01:46:30.380 and dreams that you can remember years later in detail and stick out to you and are important

01:46:38.100 And, you know, defining and attaching meaning to which of those is which is really interesting.

01:46:48.460 But I think, you know, those of us who are fortunate have had dreams that are of great meaning that we do remember years later that, you know, and we can see the difference.

01:47:02.160 One of the things that is criticized oftentimes in navel-gazing circles is the lack of initiation in modern Alcitru.

01:47:19.800 so in the traditional world of our ancestors you have

01:47:26.040 you have skills and tradition and lore that's passed down to you through generations of

01:47:37.360 adepts that have honed the practice and the understanding of these arts over a long period

01:47:45.460 of time. In modern Ausitru, and rightly, you know, to the critics' credit, yes, that hasn't

01:47:56.980 been the case and has been, you know, forcibly beat out of our folk over the last thousand years.

01:48:03.460 i don't pretend as some i've seen do that there's some kind of authentic school of these things

01:48:16.480 kept under wraps and some kind of secret code that we can recover to you know as some kind

01:48:23.840 a cope that that hasn't been severed it has been but we can re-establish it through

01:48:39.520 through listening to our elders and building upon tradition and

01:48:45.760 i feel like i'm missing the right way to present this to you guys tonight and apologize for that but

01:48:50.560 But everything starts somewhere.

01:48:55.440 There is always a day one of starting tradition or of reestablishing initiation cult into magical practice.

01:49:06.640 if we're constantly bemoaning that we don't still have the you know however many thousands

01:49:17.160 of years of tradition that our ancestors had to build on in a unbroken fashion

01:49:22.620 we neglect taking the opportunity to start fresh so that you know a hundred years from now we won't

01:49:31.240 be having the same lamentation that there's no tradition. The way that we get 100-year-old

01:49:37.180 tradition is we start it today, and we keep up with it for 100 years. And that's one of

01:49:45.300 the things I'm really proud of with the AFA is, you know, we don't have an unbroken continuation

01:49:51.580 back to, you know, Oath and Vili and Vae shaping Ask and Embla.

01:49:58.160 We do genetically, but spiritually in our current practice,

01:50:03.740 the way it looks now, no, but we have an unbroken chain

01:50:07.520 that goes back to Stephen McNallan and his pact with the Allfather

01:50:16.800 in 1968 that we're building upon.

01:50:21.580 No, it's not a thousand years old, but, you know, we're like 50, 50 some odd years towards that. And the only way it gets to be a thousand years old is by continuing and keeping it up, which we're doing.

01:50:40.140 But every time you restart, you lose that. And so something I was going to say is we see that now in a lesser way. And I think we're a little bit more connected because we're not sitting on the back of the school of understanding it with a context that runs that deep.

01:50:56.860 but we do have you know three or four generations into it that some of our folk have taken knowledge

01:51:06.700 from the more you synchronize your life with also true with our corpus of lore with

01:51:17.100 interactions with the gothar interactions with your brothers and sisters within the afa

01:51:23.340 the more you build a comprehensive worldview that you can see and recognize when it presents itself

01:51:31.020 in your dreams and this is kind of what i'm getting at and i know it's a very long-winded

01:51:36.540 way to get at this point but understanding dreams and i think that even even the atheist amongst us

01:51:47.500 understands that dreams communicate something really important i think they may have a

01:51:54.380 disagreement with us on what the source of that is but even the atheists will acknowledge that

01:52:02.460 you know maybe the dreams sort out something from your subconscious and bring it to your conscious

01:52:08.940 you work out thoughts that you may not be fully aware of in your waking mind that are clarified

01:52:15.900 to you in uh in the dream state that you can you know learn from now we know that there's something

01:52:24.620 much more to that but i think there is that i think there is your subconscious but i think

01:52:30.140 there's your subconscious interpreting messages from the other from your ancestors from the gods

01:52:38.300 from things that you subtly perceive around you and they take the shape in dreams

01:52:43.260 the more you build a consistent context for that in your mind the more you will recognize

01:52:50.340 things to pick up on in your dreams and the significance they have in your waking reality

01:52:57.160 i think the same is the case with your understanding of the runes

01:53:02.340 again the runes as we casually call them are just you know stick pictures on whatever medium we have

01:53:14.060 the value they're in is the mystery or the the concept that that sigil represents

01:53:21.020 the more you internalize it and you familiar with it and you see it and like calibrate yourself to

01:53:31.500 the runes as a system to also true as a

01:53:35.340 way of life and existence the more you will recognize those meanings when they're made

01:53:45.780 manifest the more you will see how those core mysteries interact with and play off of one

01:53:52.720 another when they're in a sequence or when they're you know drawn at certain periods of time

01:53:57.900 The more you make your life consistent and holistic within the worldview and the Veltenschong of Ausatru, the more these different points stand out and things that might have seemed random, you can see the meaning within them.

01:54:19.180 And as much as I talk about rune magic as being a lens to see the world or to see a problem or to see a situation,

01:54:29.080 I think that our dreams are very much that, you know, expressed in a different way.

01:54:34.700 And the more we internalize this, the more we see those images display themselves in meaningful ways in our dreams.

01:54:45.320 And it's a really long-winded way to express that.

01:54:49.180 but i do think it's something to point out during this because if people who lacked any of the

01:54:58.300 the context had the exact same dreams but without the context to the imagery and to you know

01:55:07.100 the story they would not get the same meaning that you get just like if swan and i both did

01:55:13.900 a rune pole we would take different meanings from the different runes because a lot of

01:55:22.140 the value in that is added by the person who is the practitioner of it and i don't doubt that the

01:55:31.660 more we the closer to wisdom and understanding that myself and spawn are the more that even if we

01:55:41.260 interpreted the individual runes differently we would come up with the same conclusions but through

01:55:49.180 different routes i think at our current level of understanding there would undoubtedly be different

01:55:54.700 deviation here and there but i think the more that we the more that we learn and the more that

01:55:59.660 we grow that we more that we start seeing things leading us to similar paths the more we refine

01:56:07.660 our process of of discerning wisdom through these more subtle things and at this time in the golden

01:56:17.020 age our ancestors would have been very well acquainted and fully immersed in the context to

01:56:25.180 recognize these meanings in their dreams in a very clear standout way

01:56:30.700 i it's worth reiterating one of the big themes that i see played out here

01:56:34.940 and I didn't think was obvious

01:56:37.740 until we read this a lot

01:56:39.160 the more your life is congruent

01:56:44.100 and all of the pieces work together

01:56:47.320 in a unified whole

01:56:50.640 all of the pieces fit

01:56:52.460 all of these things begin to click

01:56:55.820 begin to fire and begin to synergize

01:56:58.980 in a way that's worth more than the sum of their parts

01:57:01.240 that's where the magic happens

01:57:02.840 carry on attaining mythos through alignment with the or law that flows from the gods attending

01:57:13.980 the holy tides um holding true to the threshold rights of your people it brings you all into an

01:57:23.600 alignment that breaks through that mundane, kind of synthesizes the mundane with the

01:57:34.060 spiritual and makes the mythical existence where you begin to see and know things and

01:57:41.360 outside of just the norm.

01:57:53.600 of this. So they're, they're going back and forth about the dreams. And

01:57:59.640 let me see here. That was going down a little further.

01:58:10.780 So she speaks of the fact she sees a sword bloody and that will go through him. And on either end

01:58:21.560 our wolves howling. The king answered, our dogs shall bite me belike, blood-stained weapons

01:58:31.600 oft betoken dogs snapping. She said yet again, I dreamed that women came in heavy and drooping

01:58:45.440 and chose thee for their mate may happen these would be thy fateful women now this here is a

01:58:56.720 i believe a direct reference to the d-seer that she's saying that your d-seer have come in

01:59:04.040 and have they take you as a mate if you will they're they're going to embrace him

01:59:14.520 and take him beyond the veil, these fateful women.

01:59:25.760 He answered, hard is to read this.

01:59:31.020 It's very hard to interpret all of this, is what he's saying to her.

01:59:38.200 And none may set aside the faded measures of his days, nor is it unlike that my time is short.

01:59:49.340 So, memento more, everything is impermanent, and he's again just kind of casting off her worries.

02:00:02.220 So, in the morning they arose, and were minded for the journey, but some led them herein.

02:00:15.080 Then cried Gunnar to the man who is called Fjornir, Arise and give us to drink goodly wine from the great Tuns, because may happen.

02:00:30.760 And bear in mind, tun is a barrel, a measurement barrel, because may happen this day be the very last of our feasts.

02:00:43.180 Belike, if we die, the old wolf shall come by the gold, and that bear shall no wise spare the bite of his war tusks.

02:00:56.640 And again, the usage of the word tusk versus teeth is interesting, but his war teeth.

02:01:06.740 Then all the folk of his household brought them on their way weeping.

02:01:11.660 So now there is this element of they're going forth.

02:01:18.280 Nothing's wrong, but everything is just laden with doom.

02:01:23.340 And even to the point where he says, this may be the last time I see you guys.

02:01:28.020 So let's have a great toast before I head off.

02:01:35.640 Then the son of Hogni, who is the little brother, said, fare ye well with Mary Tide.

02:01:44.580 The more a part of their folk were left behind.

02:01:48.660 Solr and Novar, the sons of Hogni, fared with them, and a great champion named Orkning, who was the brother of Klosterber, the wife of Hogni.

02:02:08.780 So that's kind of their troop going.

02:02:13.560 so folk followed them down to the ships and all fetted them for their journey they tied everything

02:02:22.740 down but attained to not their end so they left they left the boats then spoke glamvor and said

02:02:32.000 oh vingy most like the great ill hap will come of thy coming and mighty and evil things shall

02:02:41.340 betide in thy traveling. So now she's speaking to the messenger of Atli and she says, there is ill

02:02:48.180 that goes forth not only for our kin, but you as well. And then cried Kostbera, fare ye well with

02:03:00.320 merry days and hogni answered be glad of heart whosoever it may fare with us

02:03:11.680 so don't worry about all of the ones who travel with us be glad be of a happy heart

02:03:21.840 don't worry and and they start to leave and therewith they parted each to their own fate

02:03:29.200 then away they rode so hard and fast that well nigh the half of the keel slipped away from the

02:03:39.040 ship and so hard they laid on to their oars that the whole the whole the thole and the gunwale

02:03:47.200 break and again this is more hearkening back to the fact that the audience is of the northmen

02:03:56.240 And so they're pulling off and it's just so fast that the boat is breaking and they're moving with earnest.

02:04:07.520 So they're not, no trepidation, even if this is foretold with all this doom.

02:04:16.240 But when they finally come a land, they made their ship fast and then they rode a while on their noble steeds through the murk wild woods.

02:04:26.240 So they had their horses with them on the ship, and when they land, they go up and into the dark wild woods.

02:04:35.080 Now they behold the king's army, and huge uproar, and the clatter of weapons they hear from thence.

02:04:44.160 And they see there a mighty host of men, and the manifold array of them, even as they wrought there.

02:04:51.520 And all the gates of the berg of the keep were full of men.

02:04:57.120 So they rode up to the berg, and the gates thereof were shut.

02:05:02.360 Then Ogni broke open the gates therewith.

02:05:06.500 They ride into the berg.

02:05:08.680 Then spoke Vingi, the original messenger.

02:05:17.480 Well, might ye have left this deed undone.

02:05:21.520 go not now by ye here while i go seek our gallow trees softly and sweetly i base you hither 0.97

02:05:32.000 but an evil thing abode there under short while to bide ear ye are tried up uh tied up to that same

02:05:43.360 tree so he he in essence says stay here in this keep or in this walled place and i'm going to go

02:05:51.200 find out what the heck is going on and be careful not to leave out of here because i don't know

02:05:57.840 what's who's winning or going on and you might end up hung as well so hogney answers none the more

02:06:10.160 shall we waver from that cause for little me thinks have we shrunk a back when as men fell

02:06:18.820 to fight and not shall it avail thee to make us a feared or afraid as we use it today and an ill

02:06:29.940 fate hast thou wrought and therewith they cast him down to the earth and smoked him with their

02:06:36.740 axe hammers till he died so here we have um the the idea that no they're being trapped

02:06:48.820 and that was the first start of the cunning but i did want to make point

02:06:55.380 there is uh in the first annotation down at the bottom of the website here they he speaks of

02:07:05.220 of parallel beliefs to those in preceding chapters and elsewhere in the book as to spells

02:07:13.200 and dreams, drinks, et cetera. Among the English people, it may be found in the form of leechdoms

02:07:22.980 and leech having that connection between leak and actual blood sucking worms. But the hospital

02:07:33.580 nature or the nature of healing, wart cunning, the study of herbs, star craft. So now there is

02:07:44.760 the mentioning there too of a deep understanding by our ancestors who were naval navigators going

02:07:53.780 on the lamp, took stock in the stars, took stock in their placement, in their movement,

02:08:02.800 even though it's not greatly written. So whenever you have people kind of say, oh, well, you know,

02:08:10.020 there's just really no written evidence of it. One, there's common knowledge to look at it and

02:08:16.260 say they're sailors. They probably, you know, know the stars. But every now and then you can

02:08:23.420 see in these peripheral points, there's clearly things that are there that people just often

02:08:31.320 don't think about. I often call it the owl of the sagas. Since the owl is only mentioned once,

02:08:40.640 but we know that our ancestors knew what an owl was. But it's not in the lore,

02:08:46.560 so it doesn't exist. And we got to get away from that understanding.

02:08:53.420 So, back to, he says to Vingy that, no, you guys are trapping us here so that we can't defend ourselves or run.

02:09:06.520 And he strikes Vingy down with their axe hammers, which was another cool, the word is axuhamrum.

02:09:19.280 So it's a war hammer, but that has a blade and a blunt end.

02:09:25.480 um so chapter 37 the battle in the burg of king atley in the in the keeper in the in the enclosure

02:09:42.560 then they rode unto the king's hall so they they they leave that place and and ride in

02:09:51.380 And King Atlee arrayed his host for battle, and the ranks were set forth that a certain wall there was betwixt them and the brethren.

02:10:03.280 So now there's this dividing wall or something that's kind of been turned to where it's between the two, the host that traveled, which isn't very big.

02:10:17.720 Um, though I would also argue that with the ship, there's, uh, perhaps, um, they were only naming big named people, but there were other people with them when they, um, left off with the ship.

02:10:33.840 And Atlee turns his army to have a, an obstruction.

02:10:39.540 And he says,

02:11:09.540 never get us thou that wealth and men of might must thou meet here or ever we lay my life if

02:11:19.020 thou wilt deal with us in battle ah be like thou settest forth this feast like a great man and

02:11:28.960 would it's not hold thine hand from Aaron and Wolf and at least as long ago I had it in my mind

02:11:39.380 to take the lives of you and be Lord of gold and reward you for that deed of shame, wherein ye

02:11:48.640 beguiled the best of all your affinity, but now shall I revenge him. So he knows. He knows about

02:11:58.380 Sigurd. He knows about their conspiratory nature against him. And he says, I've been thinking

02:12:07.520 about killing you guys for a long time, and I'm going to get revenge for him. 0.96

02:12:15.640 Hogney answers back, little will avail to lie, long brooding over that reed, leaving the work 0.68

02:12:22.560 undone. So in essence, you should have jumped when you had the inclination, but long, you

02:12:31.780 you toiled over the idea you showed hesitation um which may be kind of a veiled insult in and

02:12:39.820 of itself if you were truly you know bent on being an a revenger of his death you would have done

02:12:48.880 this immediately um and therewith they fell to hard fighting at the first brunt with shot so

02:13:04.640 the first uh exchange is a volley of arrows a volley of um perhaps sling stones i don't

02:13:14.800 i don't know how much sling stones were utilized but again it's kind of the owl of the of that

02:13:21.520 the in the battle sling stone or sling um sling uh actual weapons are they they deteriorate and

02:13:33.120 the the shot can look very much like just regular stones if they had didn't make specific stones

02:13:41.280 So perhaps they're slinging at each other or throwing spears and javelins and arrows at each other in the first round, trying to soften up the ranks.

02:13:54.200 but therewithal came the tidings of Gudrun and when she heard thereof she grew exceedingly

02:14:06.700 wrathful and cast her mantle from her and ran out and greeted those newcomers and kissed her

02:14:14.260 brethren and showed them all love so this is again they originally they were in a castle

02:14:21.280 uh off to the side or a building off the side they said no this is a trap they kill the messenger

02:14:27.440 they go forward and atli is waiting outside with all of his men which i think was like the first

02:14:35.620 tipping point of this now they have turned so that a wall is between them and then

02:14:42.480 their sister guthrun comes running out of the hall

02:14:46.780 and grabs and embraces her brothers.

02:14:58.000 She kissed her brethren and showed them all love.

02:15:01.640 And the last of all greetings was betwixt them.

02:15:05.620 Then said she, I thought I had set forth counsel

02:15:09.500 whereby ye should not come hither. 0.99

02:15:12.200 I sent the message.

02:15:13.560 You shouldn't have came.

02:15:14.460 But none may deal with his shape and fate, and withal, she said, will it avail Ott to seek for peace? 0.86

02:15:25.740 But shortly and grimly they said, nay, thereto, there would be no peace between Ottli.

02:15:33.760 So she sees that the game goeth sorely against her brethren, and she gathers to her great stoutness of heart,

02:15:43.420 and does on her a mail coat and take to a sword and fights by her brethren and goes as far forward

02:15:56.760 as the bravest of men folk and all spoke in one wise that never saw any fiercer defense than in

02:16:04.460 her. So this, again, is another audience pull. This is a big one where she's so convicted and

02:16:13.640 loyal. She really wasn't loyal to Atlee. So she runs and bear in mind, you know, the battle's

02:16:23.280 probably not stopping for her to don armor, but she goes, she dons armor, and then she runs to

02:16:31.100 her brother's aid. And timing and logistics and even the reality of that might not have, again,

02:16:40.380 it wasn't plausible, but it was something in which it was teaching about conviction. It was

02:16:49.040 teaching about what men and women should do in relation to their families. It was a reinforcement

02:16:57.980 of morality in a kind of subtext way that we see in, you know, movies or in books or

02:17:09.880 mediums where the, you know, there's a reinforcement of things based on example that just gets

02:17:20.660 the the crowd in um so she joins with her brothers and keep in mind too so

02:17:38.580 machine gun engagements go really quick um yes they do hacking at people with swords and axes

02:17:47.220 who have shields and other stuff there's a longer play of things here um

02:17:54.900 you know even and again this is a fanciful retelling of things but even in in attila's

02:18:01.300 day with with horsemen and stuff going on it's a long enough process and it's not like it's in

02:18:07.860 the late medieval period where she needs to go and get you know have some squire

02:18:13.300 buckle on all her armor she's throwing on you know a chainmail nightgown 1.00

02:18:20.980 it's heavy and it's kind of pain in the butt to get on but it's putting on a really heavy 0.95

02:18:27.780 short shirt and taking up a sword she can accomplish that pretty quick if they're in

02:18:33.060 the back and you know the soldiers are out there making making headway in the battle and she gives

02:18:38.780 them all a hug and they tell her what's you know what's going on it's plausible for her to like

02:18:45.600 quickly like hey you give me that I'm a queen and put on her you know grab a sword from somebody and

02:18:51.840 put on war gear to go there and be with her uh be with her brothers in the thick of it

02:18:56.460 but I think this is also informative uh we were asked and rightly so kind of lessons to learn

02:19:03.840 from this and i don't think gi jane we're all shield maidens thing is is what the story is to

02:19:15.520 learn i think what's to learn is there is a resolve in the women in our lore and even though she is

02:19:27.540 you know not the the good guy in this story um there's a strength of noble character that you

02:19:37.380 owe it to your ancestors and your station in life to stand up and be counted and to be of character

02:19:46.900 and to show you know to show what you are made of and even under great pain and great sorrow and

02:19:59.620 great misfortune as to what's going on she's not you know swooning and you know falling on her

02:20:08.100 fainting couch she is stealing she is stealing her resolve she is setting her mind and her heart to

02:20:16.900 You know, what is her course of action and how she's going to let her story be told, and she is choosing to be an active participant in her life.

02:20:33.240 I think that's one of the things that I think is often misstated as an over-resolution to fatalism.

02:20:45.600 But you do see in our lore the example of knowing that doom is impending, knowing that bad stuff's going down, and choosing, you know, you can run and hide, you can be a crybaby, you can do a lot of things.

02:21:01.800 but this is your hour to shine and you may not have many left so pick how you want to be remembered

02:21:08.900 and we see the nobility and the people that we're supposed to think highly of people who are from a

02:21:16.980 proud lineage going out and meeting their fate even if it's against great odds they're going

02:21:23.960 to go out there and they're going to show up it reminds me this is a strange aside but i'll put

02:21:31.480 it out there i remember when i was bouncing and i had this uh this kid working with me and you know

02:21:37.480 i was running security and he was this you know 155 pound scrawny kid but he was clearing the

02:21:46.280 smoking deck and they're you know telling everybody hey time to go everybody need to go inside whatever 0.80

02:21:50.920 we got to clear this down because we're closing this and that and there was this big samoan dude

02:21:55.560 that just you know this big samoan gangster dude that just kind of scoffed at him and kept going

02:22:00.040 kept drinking and smoking and whatever and he kept reminding the guy and he saved him till last 0.64

02:22:05.720 because this guy was not going to move and he was going to be the biggest problem he got rid of

02:22:09.800 everybody else he's like all right man got to have you go in we got to close the smoking deck

02:22:16.040 and the big dude looked at him he's like

02:22:20.760 what are you going to do about it and he said my best and shrugged his shoulder

02:22:27.480 And the Samoan dude looked at him, saw that he was serious,

02:22:32.540 sized him up, gave him a chuckle, and went inside. 0.99

02:22:36.940 Because there's, you know, there's just something to be said for, like,

02:22:41.560 I realize that I don't stand a big chance of winning here,

02:22:45.220 but I'm going to show up, you know, and if you're going to, you know,

02:22:48.700 if you're going to beat me, I'm going to make it cost you.

02:22:52.540 it's going to cost you. And that there's a respect to that. And I think that's some of what we see

02:23:00.660 exhibited in this and a lot of stories from our Lord. Well, this battle starts to rage. And I

02:23:12.280 can tell you just as much as Gudrun donning her armor and going out and fighting with her brothers

02:23:19.500 And the conviction is so strong there. Another thing that's going to happen in this engagement is there is some embellishment in range of like this battle took all day and oftentimes battles didn't take all day.

02:23:42.320 The other is, is that you'll generally see in battles, the king of one army will fight the king of the other army.

02:23:51.980 And the chances of this happening in reality, but for story, it happens quite often.

02:24:02.580 fighting getting captured um fighting the champion of another king uh all of those are kind of on

02:24:14.100 the checklist so guaranteed one of those is coming down the line um it's just interesting

02:24:19.320 i don't quite remember how it goes with the two of them uh the two brothers but um we shall see

02:24:27.560 Um, so she, um, they go forth and therewithal, there was, uh, a lull in, oh, excuse me.

02:24:44.460 I didn't read this part.

02:24:46.320 So now the men fell thick and far before all others was fighting of those brethren and

02:24:53.160 And the battle endured a long while until midday, Gunnar and Hogni went right through the folk of Atli, and so tells the tale that all the mead ran red with blood. 0.80

02:25:08.580 The sons of Hogni withal set on stoutly. So Hogni and Gunnar are not easy foes.

02:25:18.960 Then spoke Otley the king, a fair host and a great have we, again, this writing, the way it's written, you know, great heroes have we, mighty champions with all, and yet have many of us fallen.

02:25:38.820 And but evil am I paid in that 19 of my champions are slain, but left six alive.

02:25:48.480 And therewithal, was there a lull in the battle?

02:25:53.280 So, you know, from historical standpoints, we normally see shield wall versus shield wall.

02:26:01.360 and it could be 30 men versus 30 men with perhaps a small under 20 horse element kind of enacting

02:26:11.560 here. They don't go into great detail. And one of the major reasons I think they don't

02:26:16.840 is because by this time, these types of battles are not happening. Certainly not in Iceland.

02:26:31.360 um but also in the mainland in europe actually the battles are getting bigger not smaller um

02:26:40.560 so there isn't a ton of knowledge of militaria that would be fit in here um and again all

02:26:49.200 ultimately none of that matters so long as the key players of the story get their say and have their

02:26:57.280 points. So, Otley spoke, four brethren were we, and now I left alone. Great affinity I got to me,

02:27:08.540 and deemed my fortune well sped thereby. A wife I had, fair and wise, high of mind, great of heart,

02:27:18.220 but no joyance may I have in her wisdom, for little peace is betwixt us. But ye, ye have slain

02:27:26.380 many of my kin and beguiled me of the realm of riches of the realm and of riches and for the

02:27:36.000 greatest of all woes have slain my sister with all so uh this is uh king at least speaking to them

02:27:47.780 um and hogni says why why babelist thou thus why are you talking so much now we're the first to

02:28:00.960 break the peace so he's at least trying to make the case that his revenge is honorable it's justified

02:28:12.380 And Hogni's, I just like the fact that it literally is.

02:28:17.320 Why are you babbling so much?

02:28:20.500 Thou were the first to break the peace.

02:28:22.300 Thou didst take my kinswoman and pine her to death by hunger and didst murder her and take her wealth.

02:28:31.180 An ugly deed for a king, meat for mocking and laughter.

02:28:35.460 I deem that thou must needs make long tail of thy woes.

02:28:40.980 Rather, will I give thanks to the gods that thou fallest into ill.

02:28:46.940 So you went on a long roundabout way of saying that all of this stuff has befalled you,

02:28:51.840 but I would joyously praise the gods for every ill that befell you because you deserve it. 1.00

02:29:02.560 But alas, chapter 38 speaks of the slaying of the Gilkings, 1.00

02:29:08.700 which is, of course, Gunnur and Hogni. 0.59

02:29:14.780 Now, King Atli eggs on his folk to set on fiercely and eagerly they fight.

02:29:21.180 So they have this conversation during the battle.

02:29:24.920 You have to bear that in mind.

02:29:27.800 That probably would not happen in reality.

02:29:31.140 So you want to take everything as a poetic sense.

02:29:38.700 Um, he urges his men to fight on.

02:29:44.120 Atlee gave back into the hall and within the doors was a fight and fierce beyond all fights.

02:29:50.240 So now his men are kind of caving as he falls back.

02:29:54.320 The battle was the death of many men, but such was the ending thereof that there fell

02:30:01.960 all the folk of those brethren, and they twain alone stood up on their feet, and yet many more 0.97

02:30:10.560 must fare to hell first before their weapons. And now they fell on Gunnar the king. So the fight

02:30:21.360 comes in, and now the two, Gunnur and Hogni, the brothers, are standing.

02:30:30.280 And Attila's men, the ones who remain around him, they fall upon him to fighting.

02:30:40.100 And because of the host of men that sat on him, was hand laid on him, and he was cast

02:30:49.340 into fetters so they go after um they go towards gun gunner and they hit him and they are going to

02:31:00.460 fight him but there were so many of them that he gets overwhelmed and he actually gets um

02:31:07.660 you know overcome he's he's he's been taken down but not killed so here we see this is

02:31:15.420 kind of one of those typical end results to carry on the story and um and he was cast into fetters

02:31:26.300 fetters are irons or manacles or ropes afterwards fought hogney the stoutest heart and the greatest

02:31:36.300 manlyhood and he felled to the earth twenty stout champions of king atli and many he thrust into

02:31:45.660 the fire that burst amidst the hall and all were of one accord that such a man might scarce be seen

02:31:53.980 yet in the end was he born down by many and taken then said king atli a marvelous thing how many men

02:32:04.700 have gone their ways before him how many they have killed cut the heart out of him

02:32:13.020 and let that be his bane hogney said do according to thy will merrily will i abide what so thou

02:32:23.980 writ to do against me and thou shalt see that my heart is not a dread for hard matters have

02:32:33.100 i made trials of air now and all things that may try a man was i feigned to bear

02:32:41.900 whilst yet i was unhurt but now sorely am i hurt and thou alone henceforth will bear mastery

02:32:52.220 in our dealings together

02:32:53.820 so he he says i've never turned away my heart is clear of of uh conspiracy of of any sort of

02:33:08.000 poison when you take it out you'll notice it's a good heart um but alas you have the the control 0.67

02:33:17.520 And then a counselor of King Atli said, better read, I see, thereto, take we the thrall, Hyalli, and give respite to Hogni, for this thrall is made to die, since the longer he lives, the less worth shall he be. 0.59

02:33:41.360 the thrall hearkened and cried out aloft and fled away any there with either or any wither 0.93

02:33:50.700 where he might hope for shelter crying out that a hard portion was because of his strife and wild

02:33:58.020 doings and the ill ill day for him whereon he must be dragged to death from his sweet life and his

02:34:05.980 swine keeping but they caught him and turned a knife against him and he yelled and screamed

02:34:12.620 or ever he felt the point thereof so now they're the slaying of this thrall and i think it's

02:34:23.820 more important to notice the way that he takes death versus others others take death with

02:34:30.940 of uh bravery and and uh an accumulation of desire and bravado forward whereas the thrall is 0.99

02:34:42.180 screaming and and squealing and much like the pigs he generally keeps

02:34:48.600 then in such wise spoke hogney as a man seldom speaketh who has fallen into hard need for he

02:34:58.240 prayed for the thrall's life and said that these shrieks he could not away with. And that is where

02:35:08.260 a lesser matter to him to play out, the play to the end. And therewithal, the thrall got his life

02:35:15.760 for that time. But Gunnar and Hogni are both laid in fetters. So at this point, and I'm just to not

02:35:26.080 be confused because again this this detail is eluding me i believe the point is is that they

02:35:34.180 kill the thrall and take his heart to ottley and not hogni's heart um so one ottley is not there

02:35:47.420 to witness and the other is is that his his councilman otley's councilman is doing something 0.83

02:35:57.260 but remember he says bring me a bring me that man's heart and then they leave and or go and

02:36:04.460 go their separate ways or he gets thrown in the dungeon and his man shows up with a heart

02:36:10.380 heart. So, you know, there's a layer of conspiracy going on right there.

02:36:20.860 Um, then spoke King Atli with Gunnar, the other brother, and bade him tell out concerning the

02:36:30.360 gold and where it is. If he would have his life, you can trade your life. Tell me where the gold

02:36:37.000 is but he answered nay first will i behold the bloody heart of my brother

02:36:42.920 so now they caught hold of the thrall again and cut the heart from him

02:36:49.740 and bore it unto king gunner and said this is your brother's heart

02:36:54.100 but he said the faint heart of hyali may yet uh may ye here behold little like the proud heart

02:37:04.880 of Hogni, for as much as it trembleth now, more by the half it trembled whenas it lay in the breast

02:37:12.320 of him. So now they fell on Hogni, even as Atli urged them, and cut the heart from him. But such

02:37:23.240 was the might of his manhood, that he laughed while he abode the torment, and all wondered at

02:37:31.300 his worth. And in perpetual memory, it is held since thence. Then they showed it to Gunnur.

02:37:44.000 So Gunnur even, he was like, no, that's not my brother's heart.

02:37:49.480 So, I mean, even to that point, he's so strong that you could recognize his heart. His brother

02:37:57.780 says no that's not my brother's heart and then they go back and they actually cut it out and he

02:38:04.180 laughs at them the entirety of the time the mighty heart of hogni little like the faint

02:38:13.140 heart of hyali for little as it trembleth less it trembled when as in the breast it lay

02:38:20.660 But now, O Atli, even as we die, so shall thou die. And lo, I alone wot where the gold is, nor shall Hogni be to tell thereof now.

02:38:33.680 And to and fro played the matter in my mind whilst we both lived, but now have I myself determined for myself, and the Rhine River shall rule over the gold, rather than the Huns shall bear it on the hands of them. 0.89

02:38:53.200 So now we have the cursed treasure being placed in the Rhine River as a way to keep it away from the Huns. 0.79

02:39:03.680 So the more important thing is, is it's, he says, 0.55

02:39:08.880 Hogni would not be able to tell you where it is.

02:39:11.320 I'm not going to tell you where it is.

02:39:13.520 But before we even left, we hid the gold.

02:39:19.480 Then said King Atli, have away the bondsmen.

02:39:24.160 And so they did.

02:39:25.380 But Gudrun called to her men and came to Atli and said,

02:39:29.480 May it fare ill with thee now from henceforth, even as thou hast it ill-held to thy word with me.

02:39:38.120 So Gunnar was cast into a worm, into a worm clothes, and many women abode him there.

02:39:49.620 And his hands were fast bound.

02:39:52.420 But Gudrun sent in a harp, and in such a wise did he set it forth, his craft, that wisely he smote the harp, smiting it with his foes.

02:40:09.300 And again, I think this means toes.

02:40:12.940 So he's playing the harp with his toes.

02:40:16.540 and so exceedingly well he played that few deemed that they had heard such playing even when the

02:40:25.260 hand had done it see so there's a mistype there but i'm reading this translation i i um she goes

02:40:36.440 to gunner um while he's in the dungeon and she dresses or hides herself and she brings him a

02:40:45.100 harp. And he plays it because his hands are fettered and he plays it with his toes and

02:40:53.800 better than some would play with their hands. And with such might and power,

02:41:03.220 he played that all the worms fell asleep in the, oh, the worms, the snakes, the serpents.

02:41:09.740 um yeah so he he puts the serpents to sleep excuse me yeah where he's at the dungeon he's in

02:41:19.420 is not filled with worms but with serpents they fell asleep save one adder only great and evil

02:41:29.400 of aspect that crept up upon him and thrust its sting into him until it smote his heart

02:41:37.100 And in such wise, with great hardihood, he ended his life days.

02:41:43.220 So here we kind of see the similar sense to like Ragnar Lodbrod, where he's thrown into a pit of snakes.

02:41:53.780 here he's thrown in and his sister throws him a harp and he begins to play it and puts all of

02:42:03.740 the snakes to sleep except for one specific evil and again I love that it's just very much a

02:42:14.720 flex before dying it's it's a point of the story in which the members of the audience would just

02:42:22.920 be like holy crap like it's even this guy's just he's more and more upon himself but it also shows

02:42:32.180 too how much is important music in our ancestral view i i think a lot of times the gauls get

02:42:39.800 um noted as they're they're so heavily music focused and here we clearly see even at the

02:42:47.740 bridge of his death. He plays a harp before he dies.

02:42:53.900 And if we follow on to your point of commonality there, that's referred to as Ragnar's death song.

02:43:04.680 Right.

02:43:07.940 The idea of singing spellcraft is fundamental in our lore.

02:43:17.740 But, yeah, this is a really cool bit of imagery and part of the storytelling.

02:43:23.740 And it's why I chose the picture that I chose for today's graphic for today's show.

02:43:28.840 Oh, yeah.

02:43:30.800 I mean, and again, you know, when the way they describe it, I didn't know if they were speaking of a dungeon.

02:43:37.720 And that it was he was just destined to rot.

02:43:41.520 But then the worm, too, the usage of worm on the other side.

02:43:47.740 Yeah, no, no, it's a serpent.

02:43:49.920 And the adder is the native poisonous snake to Europe.

02:43:56.100 So you'll hear the adder mentioned often, especially in the naming of spears and swords.

02:44:03.300 So chapter 39, the end of Atli and his kinfolk.

02:44:08.620 So, now that Atli had gained his mighty victory and spoke to Gudrun, even as mocking her greatly, because these are her brothers that he just killed, or as making himself great before her,

02:44:26.440 Gudrun saith he, thus hast thou lost thy brethren, and thy very self has brought it about.

02:44:34.920 so he tells her you you lost your brothers and you're the reason for it she answers in good

02:44:42.740 liking oh and she answers in good liking livest thou where whereas thou thrustest these slayings

02:44:50.840 before me but may happen thou wilt so you live in a you know in a world where you think you could

02:44:58.720 Flaunt this to me, but you will regret this

02:45:02.780 When thou hast tried what is to come hereafter

02:45:06.860 And of all I have, the longest-lived matter shall be

02:45:10.640 The memory of thy cruel heart

02:45:12.960 Nor shall it go well with the wiles I live

02:45:16.940 He answered in return and said

02:45:19.320 Let there be peace betwixt us

02:45:22.400 I will atone for thy brethren with gold and dear-bought things

02:45:26.720 even though as thy heart may wish. So I could pay their where price and smooth things out between

02:45:38.700 us. And she says, hard for a long while have I been in our dealings together. And now I say

02:45:46.500 that while Hogney was yet alive, thou mightiest have brought it to pass, but now mayest thou

02:45:55.280 never atone for my brethren in my heart. Yet oft must we women be overborn by the might of you men,

02:46:05.200 and now are all my kindred dead and gone, and thou alone art left to rule over me.

02:46:13.720 Wherefore now this is my counsel, that we make a great feast, wherein I will hold the funerals

02:46:21.840 of my brother and thy kindred withal.

02:46:27.580 So she bids Atlee a victory feast for his war

02:46:33.500 and a funeral feast for her brothers.

02:46:37.640 In such wise did she make herself soft and kind in words.

02:46:43.780 So she turns and becomes very agreeable,

02:46:48.600 though far other things forsooth lay there under but he hearkened to her gladly and trusted in

02:46:59.300 her words whereas she made herself sweet of speech so Gudrun held the funeral feast for

02:47:06.660 her brethren and King Atlee for his men and their victory and exceedingly proud and great was this

02:47:13.200 feast. But Gudrun forgot not her woe, but brooded over it, how she might work some mighty shame

02:47:23.300 against the king. And at nightfall, she took to her the sons of King Atli, and her, as they played

02:47:32.660 about on the floor, the younglings waxed heavy of cheer and asked what she would do with them.

02:47:40.460 She said, ask me not. Ye shall die the twain of you. Then they answered, thou mayest do with 0.58

02:47:48.300 thy children even as thou wilt, nor shall any hinder thee, but shame there is to thee in doing

02:47:57.720 of this deed. So the children say to her, you're an adult and you have the power to do this,

02:48:07.060 but it is a heinous thing to kill children.

02:48:11.820 And again, that's the premise of the story

02:48:14.680 versus the reality of the events. 1.00

02:48:21.140 So, then she cuts the throats of them in vengeance. 0.99

02:48:30.220 Then the king asked where his sons were, 0.99

02:48:34.020 and Gudrun answered,

02:48:35.540 I will tell thee and gladly thine heart by the telling.

02:48:40.080 Lo, now thou didst make a great woe, spring up for me in the slaying of my brothers.

02:48:47.580 Now hearken and hear my read and my deed.

02:48:51.360 Thou hast lost thy sons, and their heads are become beakers on the board there.

02:48:58.360 and thou and thou thyself has drunken the blood from them blended with wine and their hearts i

02:49:07.320 took and roasted them on a spit and thou has eaten them thereof so the story is jumping here but

02:49:18.740 again i think that this is more of an audience

02:49:23.060 point of where everyone is just like, oh, dang, like they just kind of get that reaction

02:49:31.500 because she says she has made their skulls into bowls and that she has fed him

02:49:44.720 their hearts. But there's no sense of time between the two.

02:49:50.360 and i don't think that you know the the palms just pushing that out there so that

02:49:57.460 the audience just is oh and then what is he going to do next um then this was

02:50:04.360 the entertainment of of that age there was just this back and forth it it caught much of the um

02:50:14.540 the grimness and the darkness of their time. Perhaps even, too, the audience didn't or was

02:50:21.460 not accustomed to experiencing this level of violence and intrigue and murder. But

02:50:30.500 the audience still took, it was, you know, so shocking. King Otley answered, Grim art thou,

02:50:39.880 in thou hast murdered thy sons

02:50:42.080 and given me their flesh to eat 0.94

02:50:44.340 and little space passes betwixt ill deed of thine

02:50:48.420 and ill deed

02:50:49.840 Gudrun said my heart is set on doing to thee

02:50:55.640 of as great shame as may be

02:50:59.120 never shall the measure ill be of full

02:51:02.600 for to such a king as thou art

02:51:06.020 I will always think of your ill, and never will it be enough

02:51:12.040 to shame you and to hurt you like you've hurt me.

02:51:18.820 Worser deeds hast thou done than men have to tell of, Atlee says.

02:51:25.940 And great unwisdom is there in such fearful reeds.

02:51:30.220 Most meet are thou to be burned on the bale.

02:51:35.360 when thou hast first been smitten to the death with stones. 0.98

02:51:40.800 So your body is going to be cast on a funeral pyre after we pelt you with stones.

02:51:47.940 For in such wise wouldst thou have what thou hast gone a weary way to seek. 0.94

02:51:57.600 She answered, Thine own death thou foretellest, but another death is fated for me.

02:52:04.520 So, no, the death you're speaking of for me is not to come. Mine has already been foretold. But your death is coming.

02:52:19.420 And many words were spoken in wrath between them.

02:52:23.420 Now, Pogni had a son left alive. His name was Niblung, and great wrath of the heart he bare against King Atli. 0.55

02:52:38.740 and he did and he did Gudrun to wit that he would avenge his father and she took his words

02:52:47.880 well and they fell to council together there over and said would be great a good hap if

02:52:55.740 if it might be brought about so that also kind of again proves that there is a great amount of time

02:53:03.320 after the feast where she even gets in contact with her brother's son, her nephew, and he has

02:53:13.920 grown into a strong and stout-hearted warrior and he wants revenge against Atli. Now she's helping

02:53:22.360 him get there. So on a night when the king had drunken and he got him into bed and when he laid

02:53:32.360 asleep thither, to him came Gudrun and the son of Hogni, Niblum. Gudrun took a sword and thrust

02:53:42.460 it through the breast of the king, Atli, and they both of them set their hands to the deed,

02:53:49.560 both she and Hogni's son. Then Atli the king awoke with his wounds and cried out,

02:53:57.220 no need of binding or salving here who art thou that has done the deed Gudrun says somewhat have

02:54:08.000 I Gudrun wrought therein and somewhat with all the son of Hogmi so again you see here's another

02:54:16.640 example of the more the theatrics of it in the darkness of the night he wakes up and says you 0.63

02:54:24.880 know, who's done the deed? And she explains herself and her nephew. Atlee says, ill it be

02:54:34.080 seen to thee to do this, though somewhat of wrong was between us. For thou wert wedded to me by the

02:54:41.500 reed of thy kin, and dour paid I for thee. I, thirty goodly knights and seemly maidens,

02:54:49.740 and many men besides and yet were thou not content but if thou should rule over the lands

02:54:58.480 king butli owned and my my mother-in-law full of thou let us sit a weeping so she based or he

02:55:09.360 basically says you know i the fault of you coming to me really is at the fault of your family and

02:55:16.080 your brethren and yet i i paid the dowry i gave the for the loss of you from your family i gave

02:55:25.980 over 20 men and 20 maidens um and yet you still were not content with the lot of your life so

02:55:39.200 you can kind of see some of the dynamics there of of of marriage but gubern says many false

02:55:48.200 words have you spoken you're lying and of all not i account them oft indeed i was i was i fell of

02:55:57.000 mood but much did thou add thereto so yes i was i was saddened when i got here but you added more

02:56:07.280 full oft in this thy house did phrase befall and kin fought kin and friend fought friend

02:56:15.780 and made themselves big one against the other better days had i when i was abode with sigurd

02:56:22.660 when he slew kings and took their wealth to us but gave peace to whom so would and the great men

02:56:31.220 the great men laid themselves under our hands and might we have, might we gave to him of them

02:56:40.040 who would have it. Then I lost him and all little thing was it that I should bear a widow's name,

02:56:50.980 but the greatest of griefs that I should come to thee. I who aforementioned the noblest of all

02:56:59.700 kings. While for thee, thou never bearest out the battle ought but the worser lot. So

02:57:08.380 she's speaking about Sigurd's nobility. She's speaking about the fact that he was kind when

02:57:16.140 people asked for his forgiveness and was wrathful for those who stood up against him. But Atli

02:57:25.120 was always wrathful and encouraged discord amongst his men.

02:57:32.240 And again, this is her accusations, and that he always backed the side that was going to win.

02:57:44.760 So she's calling Craven and just a bad king.

02:57:48.760 king atli answered not true are thy words nor will this our speech better the lot of either of us for

02:57:57.080 all is fallen now to naught but now do to me in seemly wise and array my dead corpse in a noble

02:58:05.280 fashion remember to seemly means honorable it's the germanic equivalent to the word

02:58:12.440 honor or honorable. So he's asking, do the honorable thing and make sure at least

02:58:20.560 to give my body a noble funeral. And she says, I, that will I, she says, and let make for thee

02:58:31.380 a goodly grave and build for thee a worthy abiding place of stone and wrap thee in fair

02:58:37.720 linen and care for all that needful is. So even despite all of this, she will bury him in a

02:58:49.580 barrow, wrapping him in linens and doing as to accord. And I don't know if this is referencing

02:59:00.560 to the accord of his people, which I don't think by this time is correct. It's just, again, the

02:59:06.740 the barrow mound um in general so therewithal he died and she did according to her word 0.61

02:59:15.780 and then they cast fire into the hall and burned the hall and when the folk and the men of the

02:59:22.180 estate awoke amid the dread and trouble not would they abide the fire but smote each other down

02:59:29.620 and died in such wise so there atli the king and all his folk ended all their days

02:59:35.800 But Gudrun had no will to live longer after this deed was wrought, but nevertheless, her ending day was not yet to come upon her.

02:59:47.620 Now, the Volsungs and the Gyukings, as folk tell in tale, have been the greatest, hardest, and the mightiest of all men, as ye may well behold, written in the songs of old times.

03:00:03.120 But now, with the tidings just told, where these troubles stayed.

03:00:11.660 So this is kind of starting to come down into the ending.

03:00:17.640 It's the post effects of a lot of these things as they happen.

03:00:27.280 And again, the tragic figure of Gudrun, her kind of being the secondary wife to Brynhild and then her life.

03:00:38.340 And we know historically Attila was not slain in his bed.

03:00:48.060 His younger children were not slain.

03:00:50.280 He had older children, though he might have actually been slain by a wife, which is interesting.

03:00:57.980 Yeah, I thought he was slain in his bed.

03:01:00.060 I thought he ended up getting poisoned.

03:01:03.740 Yes, I thought it was a vat of alcohol that was, or that he was drowned.

03:01:12.300 Yeah, I thought he choked in his own vomit.

03:01:14.620 Yeah, something like that.

03:01:16.480 that's i sorry attila that wasn't a nice way to put it but i'm just saying like i thought that's

03:01:22.980 what happened yeah the idea that he was he wasn't slain by his wife he wasn't slain by a wife

03:01:31.720 from the western germanic tribes or what have you the story is generally that his wife of the time

03:01:40.120 was uh of the either of his people but that he drank a great amount of uh alcohol and was

03:01:49.640 possibly poisoned or died from alcohol poisoning and subsequent um vomit from the throat but um

03:02:02.040 his sons were older and um they ended up separating a lot of his kingdom up

03:02:08.280 and that's ultimately what brought a lot of it down was internal warring so there you can see

03:02:15.880 this was not seen as a historical point and in truth the people hearing the story might

03:02:22.760 not have even known of attila the hun it was simply oddly the the character in the story

03:02:30.600 chapter 40 Gudrun cast herself into the sea but was brought ashore again this woman can't just

03:02:40.880 can't oh so Gudrun had a daughter by Sigurd and her name was Svanhild she's mentioned earlier

03:02:50.560 she was the fairest of all women so now she's most likely she's grown up eager eyed as her father so

03:02:58.320 that few durst look under the brows of her, as far did she excel other womankind as the sun

03:03:07.140 excels all other lights in heaven. But on a day went Gudrun down to the sea and caught up stones

03:03:15.820 in her arms and went out into the ocean. For she had will to end her life, but mighty billows

03:03:22.980 drove her forth along the sea and by means of of their upholding was she born along till she came

03:03:30.980 at last to the berg to the castle of king uh a mighty king and a lord of many folk and he took

03:03:42.100 gudrun as his wife and there they had children hamdir and sorely erp maybe it's

03:03:53.220 and there was swanhild nourished with all so she does meet um king uh jonaker and

03:04:04.100 he takes her as a wife plucking her from the sea they have kids and most likely she tells him i

03:04:10.980 I have a daughter as well.

03:04:12.300 Her name is Swanhild, and she comes to live with them.

03:04:23.100 The wedding and the slaying of Swanhild.

03:04:26.540 So, even though that last chapter kind of leaves pretty good,

03:04:32.700 there's more that Brunhild said was going to befall her.

03:04:37.660 chapter 41 of the wedding and the slaying of Svanhild

03:04:42.560 Iormenrek was the name of a mighty king of those days this is the gothic king a manorik

03:04:57.480 and it's just converted in in in Norse and it's worth noting that the j in the beginning of a word

03:05:04.720 is generally a double e sound so it's not it's it's more like enormous and it it means a great

03:05:13.700 king the great or powerful or large king he uh jorman rick was the name of a mighty king of

03:05:22.560 those days and his son uh was called ronville now this king called his son to talk to him and said

03:05:31.340 That shall fare on an errand of mine to King Jonakur, with my counselor Bicke, for with King Jonakur is nourished his princess or his daughter-in-law or stepdaughter is Svanhild, and she is the daughter of Sigurd Fafner's bane.

03:05:54.100 And I know for sure that she is the fairest maid dwelling under the sun of this world.

03:06:01.320 Her above all others would I have to wife, and thou shalt go woo her for me. 0.73

03:06:08.260 So again, bear this in mind.

03:06:10.440 This is the time we see this where the emissary of the one.

03:06:15.580 and the reasoning for that most people might think is cowardly or misplaced is it was seen

03:06:24.700 as a safer way if you were to go and attempt to woo someone's daughter and they disagreed with it

03:06:35.700 they could very well kill you but they couldn't kill someone who wasn't gaming out of this situation

03:06:43.680 so that's why this practice was done um there's a certain diplomatic immunity with messengers

03:06:56.460 right can't kill the messenger that is

03:07:00.280 universally understood and more often than not respected

03:07:08.380 yeah this except for the spartans they were like no no but then they sent two of their

03:07:14.980 own messengers to get sacrificed in return ah that's a funny story anyways so

03:07:20.680 um the king says this is an alliance of great honor for a man of fame he is so now we we have

03:07:32.520 But, oh, excuse me.

03:07:34.800 Wait a minute.

03:07:35.620 Did I miss the, yes, to be shown.

03:07:40.160 Let me see.

03:07:41.900 Where did I, did I jump that far?

03:07:44.440 Oh, I'm sorry.

03:07:45.160 Okay.

03:07:45.940 Ranvir answered, meet and write, fair Lord, that I should go on these, on thine errands.

03:07:52.020 So the king set forth this journey in seemly wise, and they fare till they came to King Yonaker's abode.

03:08:01.220 And behold, Svanhild, and have many thoughts concerning the treasure of her goodliness.

03:08:10.060 So he agrees and says, I will do your bidding.

03:08:13.880 He goes forward, and clearly she is what he has heard.

03:08:20.200 But on a day, Ranver called the king to talk with him and said,

03:08:25.360 And Jorminrek, the king of my people, in essence, is kind of the thing.

03:08:31.780 Because you're hearing all the usage of the word konig or king thrown here a lot.

03:08:38.220 And it is because the concept of the lands.

03:08:45.220 So the king of his people would fain be thy brother-in-law.

03:08:49.740 for he has heard tell of Smonhild

03:08:53.180 and his desire it is to have her as wife

03:08:58.420 nor may it be shown that she may be given

03:09:01.820 to any mightier man than this one

03:09:04.320 so my king Jorminric wants to wed

03:09:10.320 your stepdaughter

03:09:13.700 but he says there are no better suitors

03:09:18.800 out there than him. And the king says, this is an alliance of great honor for a man of fame he is.

03:09:27.680 So this is again, to more of a political point that I think the nobility really

03:09:35.220 played a heavy hand in was war cost men's lives, marriages cost women's placement.

03:09:47.500 And again, sometimes it was good and sometimes it was not good.

03:09:54.880 Gudrun says, a wavering trust, the trust and luck that changed not.

03:10:01.500 Yet because of the king's furthering and all the matters that went herewith is the wooing accomplished.

03:10:08.120 And Svanhild went to the ship with goodly company and sat in the stem beside the king's son.

03:10:16.720 so she's uh guthrun disagrees but it's kind of out of her hands and swan held goes and most

03:10:28.160 likely too she's of age she's probably looking to get married to a king to ensure that she

03:10:36.640 um stays in high station and that you know all is well if she was to stay too long in her 0.99

03:10:43.040 you know father or stepfather and mother's kingdom it would again look unseemly and perhaps

03:10:51.460 after they passed they may she may get less or nothing once the the prince came in and i think

03:10:58.700 this is just kind of a general idea of the way the politics worked um so she gets on the boat

03:11:07.600 and she she sits and the messenger uh bicky says to ranver the prince how good and right it were

03:11:16.640 if thou thyself had a wife so lovely a woman rather than the old man so she's so young she's

03:11:26.640 so beautiful why don't it wouldn't be great if you had her as a wife and not your father

03:11:33.760 Good seemed that word to the heart of the king's son, and he spake to her with sweet words, and she to like him wise.

03:11:43.220 So they travel back, and they are falling in love.

03:11:49.560 So they came a land, and go unto the king, and Bicke said to him,

03:11:54.600 Meet and write it is, Lord, that thou shouldest know what is befallen, though hard it be to tell.

03:12:02.520 For the tale must be concerning thy beguiling, whereas thy son has gotten to him the full love of Svanhill.

03:12:11.260 Nor is she other than his harlot, but thou let not the deed be unavenged.

03:12:19.700 So here Bicke is playing both sides.

03:12:24.780 now many an ill reed had had he given the king

03:12:29.680 or this but of all his ill reeds did this sting home the most and still would the king

03:12:40.120 hearken to all his evil reeds that uh whereof he who might now wise still the wrath within him

03:12:49.260 cried out that radvers should be taken and tied up to the gallow trees 0.76

03:12:55.200 so everyone there that's counseling him and giving him reed says no this is terrible he

03:13:07.160 shouldn't have done it my king he's he's betrayed you so he orders him to be taken to the gallow

03:13:13.480 trees and as he was led to the gallows he took his hawk and plucked a feather from it and bade show it

03:13:23.720 show it to his father and when the king saw it then he said now may folk behold that he deemeth

03:13:31.880 my honor to be gone away from me even as the feather from or of this hawk and therewith he

03:13:41.160 bay deliver him from the gallows so at this point he shows him a hawk's feather like a bird losing

03:13:50.200 a feather he says this is him saying i i'm losing great honor so he changes his mind he backs out of

03:14:00.600 it but in that while uh had bicky wrought to his will and ranver was dead slain

03:14:11.960 so let me see here but in that while had bicky wrought his will and ranver was dead slain so

03:14:19.320 bicky ends up killing ranver uh i mean and it's not so outright to say

03:14:30.600 because Biki ultimately wanted Ranver dead.

03:14:34.680 And this is again,

03:14:35.480 just like a political machination after the story of Guthuram.

03:14:43.680 And moreover, Biki spake against none,

03:14:47.000 has thou more wrongs to avenge the event against Svan Hill. 0.99

03:14:52.580 Let her die a shameful death. 1.00

03:14:55.660 I said, 1.00

03:14:56.240 the King we will do after thy counsel.

03:15:00.600 see this is where it gets a little confusing the idea being that his father lets loose

03:15:10.140 his son but then Ranver is slain and then Bickey turns the king against Svanhild because she fell

03:15:19.300 in love with him as well it's like he wasn't the only one a part of this it was her too she was

03:15:26.560 supposed to be your wife uh you should kill her as well and he says yes we will do thy counsel 0.98

03:15:33.740 so she was bound in the gate of the keep and a horse there driven at her to tread her down 0.99

03:15:41.480 but when she opened her eyes wide when then the horse durst not trample her so this is the same

03:15:49.860 thing the gallows he doesn't go to the gallows so he is slain and i'm assuming it means bicky

03:15:56.000 kind of arranged it with us with um slayers and then here the horse is running towards svanhild

03:16:05.360 and it doesn't presumably because of her her beauty or her countenance but it does not trap

03:16:12.320 trample her so when bicky beheld that he may draw a bag over the head of her and they did so and

03:16:19.680 therewith she lost her life so yeah there's the the countenance her beauty was so astounding that the

03:16:26.000 horse couldn't trample her so they put a bag over her head to hide her beauty and thus she was trampled

03:16:37.520 so now gudrun is going to find out that her daughter was slain all because of the 0.99

03:16:46.080 the machinations of this biki gudrun sends her sons to avenge swanhild now gudrun heard of the 0.74

03:16:56.880 slaying of swanhild and spake to her sons why sit ye here in peace amid many words whereas 0.97

03:17:04.720 jormen rick hath slain your sister and trodden her underfoot of horses in shameful wise no heart ye

03:17:13.920 have in in you like to gunner and hogni my brothers verily they would have avenged her

03:17:21.520 their kinswoman so another point is the the women folk for good or for ill are urging pushing

03:17:33.360 forward a lot of the mass of nations going on as well they are very much behind the scenes

03:17:39.600 kind of you setting standards and those standards create action this is my you know my daughter

03:17:47.860 bear in mind too is the is the daughter of sigurd was just slain by this jormen rick and you guys

03:17:56.180 are you know doing nothing you should go hamdian answered little didst thou praise gunnar and

03:18:02.740 Hogney, whereas they slew Sigurd. So you speak a lot of praise towards your brothers, but you

03:18:09.740 didn't when you were talking about how they slayed your husband. And thou wert reddened in the blood

03:18:15.680 of him, and ill were thy brethren avenged by the slaying of thine own sons, yet not so ill a deed

03:18:24.220 where it was for us to slay King Jormenric, and so hard thou pushest on this that we may not abide

03:18:33.600 thy hard words. So ultimately, and also bear in mind as the audience, this is the overarching

03:18:43.420 curse of the treasure the curse of the the name the very befallment of sigurd's line including

03:18:55.100 his wife and everything it's again to our to the audience of our ancestors this was a great tragedy

03:19:01.820 of deaths happening without being avenged brothers killing husbands and so it leaves her in this

03:19:11.740 millstrom of where her loyalties lie i mean it's it's just it would be very very bad

03:19:19.500 um in relation to the way our ancestors would would hear this and i keep bearing that in mind

03:19:27.580 just as the single snippets of old norse on the side versus kind of this older english style

03:19:36.300 translation. Um, so they say, you know, you were pushing this hard, but we can't take your words

03:19:47.060 too, uh, harshly considering all the trouble that has befallen before. Guthrun went about laughing

03:19:55.840 now and gave them to drink from mighty beakers. And thereafter she got for them great Bairnies 1.00

03:20:03.360 and or chain mail and good and all other weed of war so um

03:20:11.520 weed is kind of like in relation to the word tweed it's the it's it means clothing or fabrics

03:20:22.260 of war so the it's a poetic word for accoutrements helmets uh pauldrons bit bridal spear all of that

03:20:36.580 then spoke hamdir lo now this is our last parting for thou shalt hear tidings of us

03:20:43.620 and drink one grave ale over us and over swan hill so they are going to do this they're going

03:20:51.300 to go and avenge their um their mother's daughter but they say we're not going to come back from

03:21:00.340 this and so therewith they went their ways but gudrun went unto her bower with a heart

03:21:08.420 swollen with sorrow and spoke to three men was i wedded and the first to sigurd fafnir bane

03:21:17.060 And he was berayed and slain, and of all griefs was the greatest grief.

03:21:24.620 Then I was given to King Otley, and so fell was my heart towards him.

03:21:30.320 I slew in fury of my grief, his children and mine.

03:21:35.620 Then gave I myself to the sea, but the billows thereof cast me a land.

03:21:40.700 And to this king then I was given, then gave I swan-hilled a way out of the land with mighty wealth, and lo, my next great sorrow after Sigurd, for under horse's feet she was trodden and slain.

03:21:57.680 But the grimmest and ugliest of woes was the casting of Gunnur into the worm clothes, into the pit of snakes.

03:22:07.760 And the hardest was the cutting of Holgny's heart, my little brother.

03:22:13.300 Better would it be if Sigurd came to meet me and I went my ways with him.

03:22:20.320 For he biddeth now behind with me neither son nor daughter to comfort me.

03:22:26.120 oh mind it's thou Sigurd the words we spoke when we were when we went to bed together

03:22:33.040 that thou wouldst come and look on me I even from thine abiding place among the dead and thus had

03:22:43.000 the words of her sorrow an end so she does say why didn't I just die when he died why didn't they

03:22:52.060 just kill me as well because her suffering just continues on and the latter end of the kin of the

03:23:04.340 and now tell us the tale concerning the sons of Gudrun and what I was thinking too is the not 0.94

03:23:13.940 just the way this is written is that this may have been written in series in parts and only

03:23:20.060 presented as what we would hear today as a page um and i know we're trying to finish the work

03:23:27.340 so that we can move into other things but um i just find it very interesting that

03:23:32.620 the most part that they might have heard was just a page worth of recitation from the skull

03:23:39.740 so now tell it the tale concerning the sons of Gudrun that she had arrayed their war

03:23:49.340 arraignment in such wise that no steel would bite thereon so more magic she puts magic upon

03:23:57.320 their clothing and their battle arraignments that no steel could bite them and she bade them play 0.98

03:24:04.680 not with stones or other heavy matters for that it would be to their scathe if they did so so in

03:24:11.640 essence she only has a protection upon them for steel but stone and wood could kill them

03:24:23.000 and now as they went on their way they met erper their brother and asked him in what wise

03:24:29.640 he would help them and he answered even as hands help hands or feet or foot helps foot but that

03:24:38.920 they deemed not at all and slew him there and then then they went their ways nor was it long

03:24:47.240 or ever hamdills hemder stumbled and thrust down his hand to steady himself and spoke therewith

03:24:54.280 Not but a true thing, spake Erper, for now should I have fallen, had not hand been to steady me.

03:25:07.400 So in this sense, he's saying, I'm here to help hand versus hand, but they don't trust him.

03:25:13.440 They kill him.

03:25:14.580 Then he falls and lands on one hand and says, see, even now, what he was speaking was a lie because one hand can save itself.

03:25:22.200 Um, I think this is just an interesting little kind of excerpt thrown in, um, a little after

03:25:30.600 sorely stumbled, but turned about on his feet. And so stood and spoke, I now had I fallen,

03:25:39.020 but I steadied myself with my own feet. And they said that they had done evilly with Earp,

03:25:45.560 their brother. But on they fare, and they come to the abode of King Jormunrek, and they went up to

03:25:54.080 him and set on him forthwith. And Hamdir cut both hands from him, and sorely both feet. And then

03:26:02.500 spoke Hamdir, Off where the head, if Ert were alive, our brother whom we slew on the way, and

03:26:12.160 And again, this also lends me to think that there's much more of a story involving that in relation.

03:26:35.520 But now in this must they turn away from the words of their mother, whereas they had to deal with stones.

03:26:47.320 For now men fell upon them and they deafened themselves in goodly manner wise and were scathed of many a man, nor would iron bite on them.

03:26:59.680 But there came thereto a certain man, old of aspect, and one-eyed, and he spoke,

03:27:08.600 No wise men are ye, whereas ye cannot bring these men to their end.

03:27:14.620 Then the king said, Give us reed thereunto, if thou canst. 0.97

03:27:19.420 He said, Smite them to death with stones.

03:27:22.120 in such wise was it done for the stones flew thick and fast from their from every side which 0.82

03:27:30.240 is another reason why i brought up the point of of the first round being shot that they were

03:27:35.540 most likely using slings and now has come to an end of the whole root and stem of the guckings

03:27:44.680 now may all earls be bettered in mind may the grief of all maidens ever be

03:27:52.220 minished for the tale of trouble so told its ending

03:27:56.040 yay that's that's it all right well we did it uh we have completed all 43 chapters

03:28:12.100 of the Wulsonga Saga.

03:28:15.580 Only a half an hour over schedule.

03:28:18.160 Yeah, we're not, that's not too bad.

03:28:20.600 I think this worked out, I think this worked out nice.

03:28:24.180 We do have some questions, but not a ton this evening

03:28:27.880 that I would like to get to.

03:28:30.540 Right.

03:28:31.660 All right, from Sarah, good evening.

03:28:33.580 All's here, you go, and Witten's Fawn.

03:28:36.140 This is a random question, I know.

03:28:38.380 I'm wondering how much we know about Odin's mom and her family.

03:28:44.540 Svon was excited about this question when we first started, so take it away.

03:28:49.880 Yeah, when I saw the question come in, I was like, ooh.

03:28:53.640 So, it's worth bearing in mind, what I'm about to tell you is my theological and linguistic interpretation,

03:29:03.600 which I think has some bearing, because when you look at other people's kind of shots in the dark,

03:29:11.380 they're all over the place with this. 0.89

03:29:14.600 But through my gleaning of this, first off, a lot of folks think that there is only one Yotun,

03:29:24.920 and that Yotun is the middle Yotun, the Yotuns of Ymir.

03:29:31.020 And they speak about the deluge and that they even say the upper Jotuns were of a higher class and the lower Jotuns were of a lower class, but they were all swept away, save two.

03:29:48.660 So upper or lower, whether that's true or not, Bergelmer is the only one with his wife that remains. 0.50

03:29:59.400 But there are other Jotuns, and it's better to think of the word Jotun to mean ancient ones.

03:30:07.580 There is the Hrimthursa, or the Jotuns of Niflheim. 0.64

03:30:13.240 They are there in the beginning.

03:30:15.960 And there are the Jotuns of Muspelheim, ancient beings intrinsically tied with the realm that they're connected in.

03:30:24.580 And when Av Umla, the cow, her name means without horns, so she is benevolent, she licks the ice, she's the first, she's the feminine, she's the creation, she licks the ice, and out of the ice, she shapes the first house.

03:30:47.420 Now, he is, again, kind of portrayed as, he's proto in a way, and he is nudged up the ice and into the land of the ice giants or the ice jotuns.

03:31:02.860 And remember, in a cosmic sense, Niflheim is proto-matter.

03:31:09.420 It's the place of substance.

03:31:11.500 It's the place of all connection.

03:31:14.060 It's opposite to the land of energy, radiation.

03:31:16.680 fire and they came together and in the middle as they pulled away there was the great gap and in

03:31:24.960 the great gap is the tripartite there is the tree the the giant and the cow so again this is all

03:31:34.440 mythologically analogous to great forces of creation destruction and stability so he moves

03:31:43.620 into the realm of proto matter and he dis he disappears from our lore he's not spoken of

03:31:50.900 but his name was booty now booty and the only reason i'm bringing this up is because it is

03:31:57.060 important in naming booty is uh his name attest is attests to that which is buried which makes

03:32:07.940 perfect sense he's under the ice or he's not buried under the ice but he comes from the ice

03:32:14.260 he's shaped from the ice um he's underneath and then he he comes out of the ice so

03:32:24.100 he is it says he takes to wife and they have a child and his name is bore so bore then

03:32:34.260 takes to wife one of the ancient ones of niflheim and her name is bestla that is lord odin's mother

03:32:46.660 so best love the only other thing we know she she's from nivelheim she's an ancient

03:32:54.260 being from the proto-matter world of nivelheim but uh which is interesting if you think about

03:33:02.660 the possibility that niflheim might be like hyperborea that's a whole nother thing i'm just

03:33:10.260 throwing that out there just to give some people some people some thoughts about it but

03:33:18.180 the uh he goes amongst the the the jotens of niflheim he take and he takes his wife besla

03:33:25.460 but then he realizes in the center of the great gap there is the tree he will go there

03:33:32.180 he will take his wife and she uh the only thing other than that is mentioned that her father's

03:33:39.460 name is bail thorn bowl thorn so she is best love both thorns doctor and there's not much beyond

03:33:50.980 that but let's look at the name and this is where again the name of of birdie and the name of boor

03:33:58.100 and pestla and why through what i'm going to propose here and it is my belief um is what's

03:34:09.540 what i'm setting up is at this point uh bore his name means to lift to bear to hold

03:34:20.340 He moves forward and takes Bestla, and it is soon realized that Ymir's presence at the tree is going to shake creation.

03:34:32.600 It's going to shake all of the stasis. 0.65

03:34:35.640 So she has three children who are one.

03:34:43.100 They are triplets.

03:34:44.080 They are born at the same time.

03:34:46.040 There is Odin, Pili, Ve. Anybody wondering why Odin is different than the two others is because linguistically the WV was dropped off by the late Nordic period.

03:35:00.460 So just as easily to state, you know, Vodin, Votan, Vili, Ve would not stick out. But that's more grammatical than anything else. It's not necessarily religious significance.

03:35:16.040 Well, the three come down and slay Ymir and create the deluge, and all the jotuns upon him are flooded. 0.92

03:35:29.640 So we can already see this is bigger than just simply beings. 0.84

03:35:34.920 This is worlds and cosmos.

03:35:39.260 the at this point there is the general view i believe our ancestors saw was that the gods were

03:35:49.140 living on a in the center in a heavenly mountain range him and baker they were living upon and

03:35:58.020 above and Ausgarther is there with the tree. So of a general sense, Bor, I believe, is the one who

03:36:13.240 lifts up Bestla and Bestla becomes the heavenly realm. So they cosmically sacrifice their being

03:36:23.780 to extend further in a different form and they lift up the land and become the heavenly realm

03:36:32.400 because the name best love if you look it up on wikipedia everybody says it means

03:36:38.120 like bark or um i can't remember some of the other stuff it's nowhere near but

03:36:46.160 to beset the the uh the indo-european word for yeah thank you nick besetiana the besetting of

03:36:57.440 things and on top of that if you look even in old norse the the word bestie means to bast or like

03:37:06.400 to bast in the sun to lay down in the sun um and there is also uh betra which means to improve so

03:37:15.440 there's a lot of words kind of linking here but again we got to be careful you can't by sound

03:37:21.920 alone can't do that but best law and to beset and how far it goes back as a proto-indo-european word

03:37:31.520 i believe that she is the one who lays out her body to the heavenly realm she gives the abode

03:37:40.560 to her children the tree is upon her and she is the upper world so at this point her soul and

03:37:53.360 uh bore soul the one who is bearing up leave their place but turn into the hawk and the eagle

03:38:03.520 on top of the tree to watch their children but another point that i i like to make is that

03:38:13.120 the strut of heaven the ermine soul is shaped like a strut it's shaped like that which is lifted up

03:38:21.520 and so the stasis of separation between the earth and the heavens needs to be maintained

03:38:30.320 there is this lifting up or placement and i believe that the ermine an initial

03:38:39.920 ermine designation is given first to bor all too often i think a lot of people just discount

03:38:47.280 bor and besla and they don't look at them as they do in other aryan religions where there is

03:38:55.680 a deus potter and deus mater and they pass away and then the tripartite the three

03:39:02.800 are established and this happens in every single arian branch and people have just

03:39:11.680 completely disrode that or laid it away and i think that that's that's not wise um i believe

03:39:19.120 that the proto house of cosmic uh cosmic order and natural law are in war and best love but they pass

03:39:30.480 on to allow their children to grow forth from there and manage the rest of creation from their

03:39:39.280 place um the only one of the reasons why this kind of led to that in study and in prayer was that

03:39:47.360 there was theorized that Bor was a mountain or an original mountain of the Caucasus or an

03:39:55.440 original mountain of the place of where our folk presided. And again, the Aryan concept

03:40:04.320 of a central mountain, a pillared place, a central axis, and this going along with 0.95

03:40:14.640 the the name of being bored up to carry up so it i am a belief that board and best law are

03:40:24.640 a dynamic part that's not talked about in the stories but is again inferred to as

03:40:32.640 they step away from their positioning and become structured part of the cosmos

03:40:40.640 for their children to proceed but that's a a big point i wanted to bring up the other big point is

03:40:49.980 the jotens of niflheim and the jotens of muspelheim and the jotens of emir are different

03:40:57.940 and so for people to think joten bad or the gods mix with jotens so 0.57

03:41:05.500 So, no, Lord Odin descends with the blood of Jotuns from Niflheim in him, and he has that.

03:41:17.580 Now, he's not with the ones in the middle, but later on, some of the other gods do take dominion from the middle world, from both the Vanir and the Jotuns. 0.96

03:41:29.920 And that's, again, a deeply symbolic reason when the heavenly realm starts to take up dominion from both of those sides in order to keep the middle under control. 0.87

03:41:42.820 And the only place that they don't have full control but create law under is with Ayur and Ran, the most proto-yotan base of the middle, which is the blood of Ymir. 0.89

03:41:59.040 it's the it's the one place in the tangible physical world where things are old as old as 0.91

03:42:07.600 emir they uh and have been around since from the down to the micro to

03:42:13.440 many of the larger animals so this place is that untapped sense and the gods have pulled from

03:42:23.120 vonaheim they pulled from jotunheim but then they lock the center of the ocean the swirling mass of

03:42:30.800 chaos here in the material under uh oath with um in the stories it's you know they every every day

03:42:40.480 they go and ride and share feast with ayur and he's obligated to take them so the divine are now

03:42:50.080 in his hall and they have this obligation to each other so it's very interesting when you see the

03:42:56.320 stories the way they're written and that's i'm saying this because this is how i come to a lot

03:43:03.280 of my um insights is the way that cosmic energy moves the fact that when they do pull up from the

03:43:11.520 west when they do pull up from the east but yet they don't from the middle but then they create

03:43:17.760 obligation and that's why it's so important to do so so that way they can bring the dominion

03:43:24.640 away from chaos and and more aligned with themselves it's it's a that's a very long and

03:43:33.840 and i could go on and on and on but she i believe is the one who besets and is the body of heaven

03:43:43.760 and that her soul resides now on on the beak of wind torn the the eagle and that they watch from

03:43:53.900 the tree which is in heaven not with the roots down in hell guard or or what have you that

03:44:02.040 some people are trying to say so i hope that was that that made no sense that was a big information

03:44:11.520 So, what I, I don't know, what I'd like to add, the

03:44:41.520 I'm trying to think of the best way to phrase it. We see a couple of kind of interesting parallels. When Ask and Embla are ennobled, they exist first.

03:45:03.520 uh Othinville and they don't create them they transform them there is an existent

03:45:17.520 thing that they find described as you know driftwood cast up on the shore by the by the

03:45:25.520 Oceanside, and they see these two logs or pieces of wood or whatever that is, they see

03:45:39.200 potential, and they imbue that with certain things.

03:45:47.940 they imbue it with um with will with sacrality and with you know animating life force

03:46:03.460 you see a similar thing so

03:46:10.420 spawns right that there's

03:46:17.940 Um, we, we have a tendency to try to overextend the metaphor by, I don't know, over coming

03:46:38.620 up with a biography of these very primal beings.

03:46:41.860 um the yotnar we see evil chaos destructive yotnar in a variety of forms we see yotnar that

03:46:55.740 you know intermarry with our gods and you know become aligned with the isir you see

03:47:05.520 Yotnar who are a variety of different things. There's some that are just evil and bad and chaotic,

03:47:12.940 but there's many that are old and wise and magical and representing something older and

03:47:22.340 something more primal. And you see all things in between. You see ones that are hideous and

03:47:27.260 see ones that are beautiful um there's something special that happens

03:47:39.980 with

03:47:44.060 booty and with bore and with with the progeny there you see this process of emerging consciousness

03:47:54.620 There's an existing group of beings sprung out of the sweaty pits of Ymir, and when

03:48:16.780 he's lit, you know, uncovered, and emerges from the ice, and nourished by a dumla. 0.70

03:48:26.720 boar has to

03:48:36.800 there's a certain level of refinement we see through that very very rough beginning

03:48:47.600 tale in our cosmos but once he really is differentiated as a being and is the

03:48:56.560 um progenitor of our folk and our gods and our existence and you know our understanding of the

03:49:09.500 cosmos he has to mate with something he's not just licking stuff out of ice or you know spewing

03:49:19.780 forth kids out of his armpits he's got to you know this comes into something that we do understand

03:49:28.900 there is the coupling of of a man and a woman and production of of the next generation 0.64

03:49:36.420 and he does this with the the females around him

03:49:42.180 him there's not like racial divides of people there's

03:49:52.260 the existent life around him and there is him with the first spark of godhood

03:49:59.940 to kindle that in the you know loving coupling of that the male with the female to

03:50:11.140 to produce um the foundational forces of odinville and vey and through choosing a wife

03:50:28.460 amongst the life the living beings around him and elevating her through their coupling through

03:50:38.920 their their association with one another and through the exchange of their vital forces

03:50:47.880 they produce you know the the first of the of the iser and they are able to produce

03:50:56.920 this coupling of of this really a special spark of divine consciousness with

03:51:04.680 you know the ancient primal life force that's there with with one chosen amongst that that's

03:51:15.080 living that's you know he sees something appealing in something beautiful something

03:51:23.400 some potential for something more and through his you know coupling with her he raises her up

03:51:32.920 and he raises her up through the

03:51:37.800 positioning of her being the mother of the king of the gods and there's something very special in

03:51:46.200 that and she's able to serve a really special purpose through that he lifts her up and pulls her

03:51:56.440 out of the the primordial and into something conscious something ordered yeah yes he pulls

03:52:05.000 her into order and that's one of the what we see so often in the mundane is order versus chaos

03:52:16.760 and for you know 99 of the time that is absolutely the right um positioning

03:52:23.240 but at a higher level with nobility with godhood it's not always a fighting of chaos

03:52:34.840 sometimes it is a manipulation of a shaping of chaos into order a transmuting the chaotic

03:52:44.560 or the base metal into the noble metal.

03:52:49.760 And that process we see a number of times.

03:52:55.660 Ganongagap is, there's a subtle little linguistic thing.

03:53:00.800 It's not just a wide open space,

03:53:04.100 but there's like the implication that it's pregnant with potentiality.

03:53:11.500 taking the primal chaos and from it shaping order is a theme we see over and over again we see it

03:53:21.560 with the slaying of emir and breaking him down into components and shaping a beautiful ordered

03:53:28.660 world ordered existence out of his corpse we see you know again taking the driftwood and 0.60

03:53:39.440 ennobling that into the first Aryan man and woman we see this here with him choosing to mate with a 0.76

03:53:48.560 with a you know a primal giantess and bring her into into order

03:53:57.440 and we see that a lot in the tradition and you know blame it on the patriarchy or whatever

03:54:05.420 it's a thing you see the man take the woman from her people and her tribe

03:54:13.200 and her family and bring her into his family bring her into

03:54:20.460 his realm and she becomes something else we see that with our gods a lot when they take

03:54:31.220 yot and brides and bring them in to alignment with the iser into alignment with order

03:54:37.760 uh you know in a sense elevate them and level them up to part of cosmic purpose

03:54:44.780 and not chaotic disillusion or chaotic you know

03:54:50.100 consumption and excretion stuff but bring them into something better and i think that's what

03:54:59.740 you see here and i think the product of that coupling is you know our the the king of our gods

03:55:11.260 and his brothers and that's really special at that moment and i think we see her elevated from

03:55:18.460 something from something lesser and more base into something more noble through her marriage

03:55:26.780 through her coupling and through her um great honor of being able to be the mother of owen

03:55:36.780 i think that's a really special thing we see with her you you said um about the the truth of it is

03:55:44.460 that men do take these women into their families and you see this reflected and i i think it's

03:55:50.700 really important for folks to understand the allegories going on but at some point whether

03:55:56.380 it was right away or later her brother shows up and that is mimir lord olden's uncle and that is

03:56:05.900 a huge another reflective point of arian uh tribal kind of politics you would take the wife but the

03:56:15.180 uncle could show up and was kind of also in hands with helping raise the son and the stories as

03:56:23.660 they were told would be understood by these kind of rules and and that's that's an important note

03:56:32.380 here to think of we all do it spawn and i do it i do it all of the time we have human minds

03:56:43.260 so we construct the picture of our gods in ways that are easy for us to understand and comprehend 0.78

03:56:51.260 the idea that in reality there's some giant mimir hey sis let me sit your son upon my knee

03:57:03.500 and teach him things and i'm making fun of you as much as i'm making fun of me because this is how 0.90

03:57:10.200 we relate right in reality these are grand cosmic forces and the physical picture of exactly what

03:57:18.640 that looks like is different but the understanding and the truth of it is maintained

03:57:26.480 the folks who wrote down this lore in this way understood that the maternal uncle

03:57:35.680 that was often the thing he had a special part in raising in raising the child and teaching

03:57:43.760 you know i don't know how it was with with girls but especially with teaching you know a male a boy

03:57:50.320 child how to you know less like fostering them as they became men and that's a that's an important

03:58:02.800 thing this ties together that first generation of isir with this really special spark of godhood

03:58:16.240 but also with the ancient and the primal and the ancestral memory of creation

03:58:25.600 and of all of those processes that come before

03:58:28.640 and it imbues that into the icr and i think you know in spawn's conception of

03:58:43.040 bore structuring things vertically and bestla structuring things horizontally in a way

03:58:53.680 the concept with that of what the root of isir is and the root of aus is is like a pillar or a

03:59:06.140 structural beam that a a building or a um a complex is exists because of or what's what holds up

03:59:19.060 the existence i think that's very fitting in that and that's you know for anybody that might not

03:59:25.240 know that is what house means it means like a beam or a pillar that's the main structural support

03:59:31.180 of something you know the pole that a tent is constructed around or the beam that a roof is

03:59:39.920 is is built upon um but yeah so i think there's i think

03:59:47.940 that's a special thing about it and it's something that kind of you know whatever it

03:59:53.480 wasn't something i don't think i thought as deeply on until i saw the question asked and

03:59:58.080 i'm really glad that you asked the question because i think it's these are corners of our

04:00:03.060 lore that often we don't ponder or they're not you know in our faces something to really spend

04:00:08.940 a lot of time thinking on. So one of our audience on Twitter felt the need to reach out and tell

04:00:19.920 you Svon that that knot in your tie is legendary. This is, this, yeah, this, this gets a lot

04:00:28.400 of attention. And I have a really hard. So inside baseball, Matt, this is the angle that is 100%

04:00:45.240 straight of my arm. This is as close to my tie as I can get my right dominant hand. I can't touch

04:00:57.960 my tie knot with my right hand unless I lean into it or unless I use the other hand to pull it into

04:01:05.340 it because I have a joint injury in my elbow. So it is really difficult for me to tie a tie. You may

04:01:14.080 wonder like my top button isn't buttoned because I can't do it with this and it's kind of silly to

04:01:20.920 watch me try with my left hand so tying ties is difficult for your all's here you go feed

04:01:27.220 um and tying one of these meaty ties with the full Windsor I always used to do a half Windsor

04:01:35.060 but it's fine I had to up my tie game um because of my co-host here so

04:01:41.720 it is challenging to even get this it's like my tie ends up short unless I do this with only the

04:01:49.080 tiniest little nubbins on the end so it's it's a it's process to uh look my best for you folks

04:01:56.840 and i will gladly endure it but yeah watch knowing how difficult it is for me to get this tie done

04:02:04.600 it is hard for me to wrap my head around uh the tie that you come to the show with swan well and

04:02:10.840 i noticed too our ties are very similar um yeah and strangely enough um i i just realized this

04:02:18.440 like a couple days ago this is from the donald trump uh signature collection but

04:02:28.680 i was going to say one thing there on the back you have uh two this uh the way that you make

04:02:35.240 these leaves you without the the second one and that you get slack well one but because of my

04:02:46.280 torso it's not long enough so i got to tuck it in yeah okay so you're kind of dealing with the same

04:02:52.360 thing it's one piece of fabric i mean i've got this little nubbins on the end and depending i

04:02:57.320 didn't realize until i started tying this fancy tie that they are different lengths but they are

04:03:02.920 so i've never bought them according to length i don't know how to really measure that and i've

04:03:07.160 never seen an indication on it i have i have a couple of trump ties unfortunately and i didn't

04:03:14.600 realize this time i have some some some ditty ties as well what he has a tie like yeah he's got his

04:03:22.360 own like sean john uh i end up getting some loud colored uh things sometimes and uh the the the

04:03:35.720 ebb and you gentlemen tend to like the bright colors in their in their fancy clothes so i have

04:03:41.160 come about a couple of those it didn't know i was looking on the back of the tide and i'm like sean

04:03:45.160 john what's this so but yeah i do have some some trump ones also um that's funny

04:03:56.440 so yeah you can find it on youtube it's very accessible it's not some mystical secret oh it

04:04:04.600 It may not be a secret.

04:04:06.680 It is, in fact, mystical.

04:04:08.760 Getting that tie to get pulled off is a big get.

04:04:12.500 And we get a lot of compliments on your tie spot.

04:04:15.580 That's awesome.

04:04:16.480 That's what it's there for.

04:04:19.180 That counts.

04:04:20.260 Counts.

04:04:21.580 So, joking aside, no, but it shows you put in effort.

04:04:25.640 I see some of these people on their YouTube channels or whatever else,

04:04:30.280 and they look like they just rolled out of bed

04:04:34.360 and they're not realizing this is a visual medium,

04:04:39.460 I appreciate that our folk that come on the program

04:04:43.680 make an effort to present themselves,

04:04:46.620 you know, putting their best foot forward,

04:04:48.020 and I appreciate that a lot.

04:04:51.900 So Dom Barnes, I realized that I am too loyal

04:04:56.980 to people who have different autonomy what are some ways i can keep that from happening

04:05:04.480 by the way hi guys hi dom so i was thinking about this well this is what i was you know

04:05:13.580 waxing philosophic about the tragedy of the conflicting loyalties and and such as being

04:05:23.320 big theme about this work and other uh of our epic poems so do you have any thoughts on this

04:05:32.680 uh i mean again you you have friends but you can try to read read the people better

04:05:42.520 before you lay your loyalties down i'm not saying that their autonomy and loyalties to other things

04:05:49.640 is bad. But let's say it's just not something worth you putting your time and effort into.

04:05:57.280 I'm not going for the worst case scenario. I'm just going for the more mild scenario

04:06:01.660 where you meet someone and you realize they're really into or have loyalty or connection to

04:06:09.100 or driven by something. And you really know that's not that important or it's not really your thing

04:06:17.760 or um you know that's a sign an indicator to keep things at a distance and there's nothing

04:06:24.700 wrong with you being an acquaintance and you being friendly and kind but loyalty is something

04:06:31.040 you should reserve and dish out to someone who you you mesh with and once you do create that

04:06:40.680 frid between each other it should be like a fence when they're gone it's like the fence is broken

04:06:49.520 and likewise for you as well so it is a very very valuable commodity that you provide to

04:06:59.800 other people so definitely try to read the room before you apply your loyalty to them

04:07:06.960 I would say, I don't know if this answers the question or not.

04:07:25.100 There's a couple of things.

04:07:26.940 I think having wisdom and foresight before you pledge your loyalty is important. 0.98

04:07:36.960 But I think that sometimes you're going to find yourselves in spots where you are obliged to be loyal when people don't deserve it or to people that suck.

04:07:55.660 And I think one of the things that is important, at least in your mindset, because some of that has to do with duty.

04:08:03.460 Sometimes you're in a spot where you find yourself, you're on the wrong team, but you still got to do your part or whatever.

04:08:10.260 There is a way to approach that stoically with knowing that you make certain choices and choosing to be loyal anyway,

04:08:21.720 even when you realize that somebody is not worthy of it for the principle of the loyalty

04:08:30.120 or for your personal example and your personal dignity

04:08:36.240 and I think there's a measured way to do that I don't say you know a lot of our lore and I think

04:08:43.740 that one thing that we say suffer from, but I don't think that's fair, cause and effect

04:08:56.740 of when our lore is told the way that it is, in the heroic cycle, everything is written

04:09:07.220 in absolutes everything is the most kicked up to notches beyond any form of reality

04:09:20.820 every battle is the most epic struggle of whatever everything is in the most stark terms

04:09:28.740 it's always the saga of not even the greatest hero that exists but of like the most pretend

04:09:37.500 version of that we can do to exemplify a point that's very instructive for children

04:09:45.780 it's instructive in a very broad way for all of us but I don't think that we stop and

04:09:54.480 it dial it back to real things that real people do um there's you doing your job you doing what

04:10:06.060 you signed on to do you doing it for a period of time that was agreed upon and then saying cool

04:10:12.060 I'm out I served you well because we agreed that that's what I was going to do and now I'm done

04:10:18.660 I don't want any part of what you got going on is a real thing you face in your life.

04:10:24.220 You're not always in a to the death, die for your Lord, even though he turns out to be a dirtbag thing.

04:10:31.440 And I'm not suggesting you extend your loyalty like that.

04:10:34.600 But sometimes you make deals with people that you know may not fulfill their end.

04:10:42.880 And you still do the right thing because it's the right thing to do.

04:10:46.820 and because people are watching you and people are judging you and that's true

04:10:52.420 there's a big difference between constantly feeling betrayed

04:11:00.260 because you go into situations

04:11:06.020 naive and assuming that everybody is going to be the kind of person you are

04:11:12.340 it seems like you have matured to a point where you have outgrown that

04:11:16.340 and you understand some of the deeper sorrow that comes with betrayal

04:11:25.540 in life sometimes you choose to give people opportunities to surprise you

04:11:31.620 knowing that the odds are they might not hold up their end of the bargain sometimes you knowingly

04:11:38.580 make trades that are not advantageous to you to give people the opportunity if you don't you find

04:11:45.460 yourself very very cut off from those around you and and i say this and i don't i know a lot of the

04:11:51.860 stuff i'm saying is very abstract and it's hard because i don't know the circumstances you're 0.98

04:11:55.860 talking about you don't want to be made a fool of you don't want to you know be a cuck you don't

04:12:01.300 want to whatever but what i've learned a lot as a gofi is sometimes you give people a chance to be 0.95

04:12:11.700 successful, even when you know objectively the odds are low. Sometimes you extend a certain

04:12:19.320 amount of grace with, you know, extending them a courtesy or extending them an agreement

04:12:27.480 to give them the opportunity. But if you know that going in, you can prepare contingencies

04:12:34.400 and you can prepare yourself, it's hard when you go in assuming the best of everyone you engage with

04:12:42.880 because there's degrees of loyalty. There's, I swear, a blood oath to always be, you know, your

04:12:47.960 most stalwart, whatever, and I'll die with you. There's a lot of that, but there's subtle

04:12:54.040 loyalty things you engage in every day with your employer, with a romantic partner, with a friend

04:13:00.700 of yours with anyone you go into an endeavor with sometimes you have to take chances on things that

04:13:08.220 you know there's decent odds they're not going to hold up their end knowing that going in choosing

04:13:15.580 how much you're willing to extend out of courtesy and knowing where that line is i think is a more

04:13:23.980 healthy way to do that you're going to put your heart into things if you're a good person to a

04:13:31.100 degree but there's a different i've learned in my life at least there is a different feeling

04:13:45.180 when you went into it knowing okay and what i'm babbling about now may not make any sense

04:13:51.820 it's like loaning a friend money or loaning family money a lot of people get in a really

04:13:58.720 bad spot because they do that one of the wisdoms that I've heard about it is yeah you sign up and

04:14:07.220 loan the money or whatever but internally no you wrote that off as a gift if they pay you back

04:14:14.100 awesome but you know the odds of that are kind of low and you're willing to accept that if that's

04:14:21.660 what the eventuality is. That is a much more healthy place for you to be than you to trust

04:14:28.000 that, nope, they're going to pay me back and I'm counting on it and my whole life's depending on it

04:14:31.880 and then they betray you and then it's a huge wound. What I think with some of your loyalty

04:14:37.180 when you extend it, until somebody has earned it and you have high degree of confidence they're

04:14:43.040 going to repay it, count some of it as a gift up front and if they repay you, awesome, and if they

04:14:50.420 don't, okay, well, you gave them a shot, and it's a nice thing to do. Looking at it with that kind

04:14:57.580 of objectivity, and I say this a lot, one of the key things about nobility in an Aryan context 0.82

04:15:06.060 is that you can choose, you don't owe anybody anything. You owe people what you commit to,

04:15:14.060 certainly. You owe your ancestors things. You owe people obligations that they've already

04:15:20.300 earned from you. But you don't, like, owe people forgiveness. You don't owe people opportunities.

04:15:29.340 You don't owe people things in that sense. That said, you have the freedom and the willpower

04:15:37.300 to choose when you want to extend a kindness.

04:15:41.180 I think if you look at some of your benevolence in your life

04:15:45.960 as you choosing to extend a kindness

04:15:48.260 in a hope that someone will rise to the occasion,

04:15:52.520 but without the expectation that they will,

04:15:55.540 I think it positions you in a much more healthy place emotionally

04:16:00.340 to continue to choose when you want to make a bet on something

04:16:04.780 or when you don't.

04:16:05.600 I hope that made some sense. I don't think it maybe did, made sense in my head. But yeah, I don't, what I would caution against is becoming jaded.

04:16:22.120 It is very easy when you are surrounded by people that don't hold themselves to the same moral standards that you do.

04:16:31.420 For you to take a jaded position and for you to become less than you ought to be because you are surrounded by people below you.

04:16:42.120 And it's funny how I see some of these things tie in, kind of like I was talking with Bore and Vestla.

04:16:48.420 there is a beautiful nobility in taking something with potential that's not there yet

04:16:58.420 and helping to elevate them to their best self or to an actualized version of themselves.

04:17:05.140 If you can do that with people, great.

04:17:07.580 But if you're surrounded by people that don't have that Aryan nobility that you have,

04:17:14.380 don't let yourself be drugged down to their level to where nah screw that nobody's loyal to me I'm

04:17:19.860 not loyal to anybody else I'm just out for number one that's a shame if you allow the world to do

04:17:26.820 that to you don't keep your loyalty keep an eye out for those worthy of wholeheartedly extending

04:17:34.960 it to but also hold an open place in your heart for people that you give an opportunity to rise

04:17:42.220 the occasion don't bet more than you're willing to lose on it but place those bets strategically

04:17:50.540 in the hopes that they pay off and sometimes they do

04:17:56.940 i hope that made some sense anyways um

04:18:02.860 finwraith asks can being closer to the gods or being connected to ancestors or just being more

04:18:10.300 spiritual help with self-discipline and succeeding at life spawn go for it uh yes and i i i think

04:18:20.140 that's that one flows down from the other your your spirit helps you helps your mind your mind

04:18:28.380 helps your body or or perhaps it could be seen as a triangle if you will with each one kind of

04:18:34.300 needing their own catering in order to hold each other up i i think it is more one-sided for me to

04:18:40.380 say that it's down one's downstream of the other um no yeah it's a stabilized triangle of three

04:18:48.540 healthy things but your spirit is one of those and it and if you remove that it it crumbles

04:18:56.620 You know, when I first got into Ausatru, I remember I was very young and my runic teacher was talking about giving prayers to Lord Thor before working out.

04:19:13.020 Something as simple as that. And there was this culmination of spiritual mixed with physical and even in cultural events.

04:19:22.020 And what it really is, is it's about bringing your three aspects into alignment, where you have your spiritual and it's not perfect.

04:19:34.120 You're attempting to maintain alignment, maintain conviction, maintain truth and understanding and moving forward and trying to learn more.

04:19:45.100 But it's the same with your intellect or your mental capacity. It's the same with your body.

04:19:52.020 Trying to constantly hone or shape, and certainly just not letting it wither into misuse or neglect.

04:20:02.860 I think it is a huge part of helping folks overcome things and understand things and clearly get better.

04:20:15.100 And ultimately, it's not so much the spiritualism or, you know, that if you accept the gods into your heart, you're going to be healed of all woes.

04:20:26.820 That's a snake oil sale.

04:20:30.120 That's a snake oil sales pitch.

04:20:32.160 What it is, is that you start yourself on the road to improving yourself with the hopes that the holy gods, the great cosmic powers we were talking about, notice you and make worthy, like they note in worth your resolve.

04:20:58.900 so uh i think a lot of people don't understand that or that you know the attraction that some

04:21:05.460 religions have where they can say some words or do some things and they're instantly just

04:21:11.220 absolved whereas our faith is like no now it's the beginning now you have to start maintaining you have

04:21:17.220 to you want to hold true and as you do so you one you're not alone and two it starts to formulate

04:21:25.140 your life around you you uh the the full moon that uh you know is coming to pass right now

04:21:34.340 being the midsummer moon i don't see the though the the year is like oh what day is this it's july

04:21:43.300 11th no it's it's midsummer moon and we're preparing to do this and we're gonna go there

04:21:49.140 And I think it frustrates my wife to no end that I see kind of a lot in the mythical sense.

04:21:57.420 But I think it's important for us to do that and that there is so much more meaning.

04:22:03.060 I'm not saying that you shouldn't have the responsibility of seeing the calendar date and what you're doing.

04:22:09.880 But when you start to integrate into it, it does tie you to other things and it does make you see the world in different ways and it does motivate you in different ways for the better.

04:22:24.320 As long as you maintain troth to the Aesir and give homage and honor to your ancestors, absolutely starts to change and create and formulate yourself in a disciplined life.

04:22:45.600 So the simple answer to your question is yes.

04:22:49.520 Yes.

04:22:50.880 No, all of those things do help you.

04:22:54.320 But one of the aspects of that, first, I think those things help you in general.

04:23:01.100 I think being aware of, appreciative of, and pious towards the gods, the ancestors, and your spiritual development generally, that's all to the good.

04:23:16.020 There's nothing bad about that.

04:23:17.660 That is obviously going to yield positive results.

04:23:21.320 I think that everything else remaining the same, you being aware of that and you being respectful, your life will be better for it.

04:23:32.920 I think everything remaining the same and you being respectful and you asking for help, you will get some help.

04:23:41.600 But I think the best thing about it is you wanting to rise to the occasion.

04:23:46.360 What I think is special is calibrating yourself to higher standards than just the people around you.

04:24:01.140 What happens in a world without spirituality, without religion, without belief in afterlife or belief in the gods, your bar is set very low.

04:24:16.360 And it's very hard to attune yourself to accomplishment, to things that are eternal, to honor, to glory, to all of the things that have advanced Western civilization since the very beginning of our folk.

04:24:33.380 It's very easy to sit around and just live a nihilistic, masturbatory existence of whatever kind of makes you happy or you get the most fun out of in a given 24-hour period.

04:24:52.560 You're eating and excreting, and you're not living an elevated existence. 0.81

04:24:57.340 when you check in with your ancestors and with the gods and you see yourself as part of a greater

04:25:06.040 whole that is a continuous a continuum of divinity and of ancestry that's eternal back to the very

04:25:16.420 beginning and throughout the rest of existence and you are trying to build the best place for

04:25:25.740 yourself within that it forces you to set your standards higher and to calibrate higher 0.99

04:25:31.500 great people and heroes don't look at the churls around them to judge themselves against

04:25:43.200 very quickly you find yourself the best of that lot and you can sit and get fat on on feeling 0.98

04:25:49.880 like you're better than you know you're the spartus kid in the special ed class that's not

04:25:57.640 that's not winning um what is

04:26:04.360 and this sounds grandiose but screw it it is what it is setting your height your your standards

04:26:16.560 on things that are so far out of reach

04:26:20.240 or that are whatever and aspiring to them,

04:26:22.700 you will always be closer than you are

04:26:25.620 if you set your standards low.

04:26:27.460 If you set a low bar and you accomplish it,

04:26:31.920 you won't make it as far as if you set

04:26:35.320 an impossibly unaccomplishable bar,

04:26:38.280 but you're constantly striving towards it.

04:26:40.780 You will be so much closer than if you didn't.

04:26:46.560 it comes to mind that caesar seeing a statue of alexander the great

04:26:56.320 he wept in shame because at that point in alexander's life he had conquered so much

04:27:02.080 more of the world and you know here's lowly caesar you know just being the dictator of

04:27:09.680 of, you know, the Roman Republic. Um, that sounds stupid, but he was a real guy. And 0.98

04:27:18.220 he did stuff and he looked around. He's the best of all the generals that were his rivals.

04:27:25.580 His civilization that had existed through all of his known memory, back into antiquity

04:27:33.220 back into the days of troy um he found himself being the top dog there so he set his sights higher

04:27:46.260 you know i think alexander did something similar you know bemoaning his inferiority compared to

04:27:53.300 achilles and you have a thing in history where great people look to history they look to

04:28:03.220 divinity to compare themselves to because they want to raise to something higher when we're in

04:28:10.000 a wolf age that we're in and we see people around us that are very often disappointing

04:28:16.080 it's hard to find something to calibrate ourself against and to judge our strengths and weaknesses

04:28:23.580 in a way and i would never want to be impious or express this impiously but

04:28:30.880 it's one of those things that's the difference between having a personal trainer and not

04:28:37.740 sometimes even though people may know exactly what they should do to get in better shape

04:28:45.380 having somebody that they check in with that holds them accountable accelerates everybody's progress

04:28:53.640 because they're you can delude yourself easily when you know that your ancestors are looking on

04:29:02.160 and they are judging you then you work that much harder to make them proud of you

04:29:10.080 when our gods when you have done something in your life to where you feel that our gods have

04:29:16.320 taken notice of you? How could you let them down and settle for being a loser when you 0.96

04:29:25.480 could raise yourself to somebody that they take pride in? Conceiving of yourself in a

04:29:33.980 position to where, because we don't have as much of that in community anymore as we used

04:29:40.320 to we're working to rebuild that we have a long way to go knowing that your family both on this

04:29:49.980 side and on the other side of the veil looks to you as an example and judges you that matters

04:29:57.480 that matters to a noble person knowing that our gods are examining you and you know you are calling

04:30:07.120 their notice to you there's something scary about standing before divinity and asking them to take

04:30:18.960 notice of you because they may not pay attention to you one way or another but you calling attention

04:30:28.960 to yourself and saying hey here i am i'm standing before you take notice of who i am and i hope that

04:30:39.280 you find me worthy yeah but what if they don't you have to contend with you need to rise to a

04:30:46.400 certain standard and i think that is immensely beneficial if you take up the challenge and i

04:30:53.040 would encourage everyone to do that certainly every man to do that and to stand before your

04:30:59.920 gods and your ancestors to invite them to judge you and if you're scared of what that outcome is

04:31:07.840 then you need to step up your game and you need to be aware of your desire to make them

04:31:15.360 proud of you or to take note of you and be pleased with what they see when you can calibrate your

04:31:23.800 life to where that's how you conceive yourself and those are the the persons that you are seeking

04:31:32.020 approval from, I think that is

04:31:35.920 only positive. 0.70

04:31:41.320 Spear of Wotan.

04:31:44.260 Is it appropriate to ask the gods for healing if you have

04:31:47.960 certain traumas, childhood, or otherwise?

04:31:51.720 Svan. Yes, absolutely. I have

04:31:54.620 numerous levels of

04:32:00.000 of trying to cope with, or not cope with things.

04:32:06.240 Just, I realized there were different levels of things

04:32:11.920 I needed to, hurdles I needed to jump over

04:32:15.980 because my mind was defaulting me against

04:32:19.620 or improperly to the way I needed to be.

04:32:23.980 Or worse off, I was thinking that I was so broken.

04:32:27.160 needed to remedy myself with alcohol or to go there's a lot of stuff there that needs to be

04:32:35.560 understood and it's not so much about healing as it is about really coming into awareness of the

04:32:45.080 way you're acting and then having the willpower to change it and that's the key i think that

04:32:51.160 the holy gods and in particular the our senior um help in a in kind of clearing the way of

04:33:03.480 seeing the cause or seeing the the root as to what your issues are and then you overcoming those

04:33:14.200 traumas through re-correcting yourself and we see it people understand this completely when we say

04:33:21.720 oh it ends with you you notice something's wrong and you decide i'm not going to pursue that further

04:33:28.520 maybe with my children and what have you makes perfect sense but very rarely do people ever

04:33:35.320 conceptualize the idea that you are the the person you should be saying that to it's not just about

04:33:42.760 the next generation it's okay i see why i'm angry i i have anger or or what have you and i'm doing

04:33:52.840 this as a result of it and that ain't that deed is causing problems or doing bad things i need to

04:34:03.080 go to the source of it maybe talk talk to gothar talk to someone um and sort it out

04:34:14.280 so that you can stop penting up anger or depression and and acting out in the willful

04:34:22.200 manifestation of whatever those things are constantly breeding um that's a a big one and

04:34:30.200 And I believe that our senior are very, very powerful in helping the healing.

04:34:41.740 It's not just healing of the physical body and really taking a genuine attempt at healing yourself.

04:34:52.820 Remember, in order to turn off the faucets of the willful deeds you're doing,

04:34:59.520 if you are something bad has happened and out of that you are depressed so because you're depressed

04:35:07.520 you do x that's that's the thing you need to kind of get to the core of and work through

04:35:17.760 and that takes not it's it's not so much uh i'm going to overcome strength and and uh i'm just

04:35:27.040 gonna crush all this no no this is much more subtle takes a lot more of a a softer hand and

04:35:35.440 a way to kind of work through to calm down to piece apart and i do believe that the our senior

04:35:42.960 are pivotal in in healing a lot of trauma but that trauma again is you're not broken

04:35:53.200 it's that there are incidences in your life that have left you with emotional

04:36:02.400 ghosts great rifts of emotion and those emotions have not been contended with

04:36:08.400 and so then we oftentimes act out or we feel sometimes subconsciously things are happening

04:36:16.160 and so it is best that we try to get to the core of what's causing these rifts or ghosts or

04:36:26.080 fissures in us that lead us to willfully act out or shut down or hide or what have you

04:36:34.640 yeah you're the first i don't know most obvious thing is it appropriate to ask the gods for

04:36:46.240 healing if you have trauma absolutely absolutely and i saw in the chat and i heard what swan said

04:36:54.340 i think that it is appropriate to ask any of our gods and any of our goddesses to help you

04:37:01.220 to heal in something you're trying to heal i think in particular the asenior are a very good

04:37:10.560 choice to reach out to i think that lady air is you know the most obvious choice for helping any

04:37:20.100 kind of healing, physical, emotional, spiritual. And I think that what is unfortunate is getting

04:37:35.360 past trauma involves confronting uncomfortable things. You know, Svon says you're not broken.

04:37:47.520 I don't know you. Maybe you are broken. That's scary to think about. Having that conversation with yourself. Are you, you know, are you broken or do you just have some stuff you need to get over?

04:38:03.840 If you're fundamentally broken, then cool. How do you work with your brokenness to maximize the rest of you that is whole? And how do you make that functional to work towards your goals?

04:38:20.880 If you're not, how do you confront the trauma that you have in a productive way?

04:38:28.580 I think something Svon said makes a lot of sense in the sense that overcoming trauma isn't a strength Herculean,

04:38:39.280 like I'm going to endure this one thing, and if I slay this one demon, then I'm good.

04:38:47.020 No, you have to have this slow, persistent, endurance kind of strength that's very different.

04:38:56.920 You have to forge new habits and retrain yourself on how to respond to stimuli in a different way.

04:39:06.560 That is a strength, but it's a very different strength.

04:39:10.020 strength it's not a you know punch somebody in the face break through lift a boulder off yourself

04:39:18.820 thing it is this endurance and this being able to hold up over very difficult things

04:39:26.100 over a long time until it becomes something that you're accustomed to and that's hard to do

04:39:32.820 it also more than just strength it takes courage takes courage to face and recognize uncomfortable

04:39:42.720 truths about yourself and about your relation to things that you've dealt with in your life

04:39:49.880 and as always these questions aren't aimed at the original poster i really don't know

04:39:55.260 what your situation is but you mentioned trauma in childhood or otherwise

04:40:00.300 okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna wax philosophic here because i think it does this on a couple

04:40:08.540 of different levels childhood trauma is really tricky because i don't think it's easy to

04:40:15.480 understand i think objectively it's easy to understand but if you are afflicted with

04:40:25.020 childhood trauma. It's become a part of you at a developmental stage so early on, it's very hard

04:40:32.980 to conceive of life differently than the way at a very fundamental stage it was baked into you.

04:40:42.060 That's a unique kind of challenge. Trauma you've had as an adult, you can lean on like,

04:40:48.960 i remember how i was before i had this happen to me i recognize when that changed

04:40:58.000 you can at least have that touchstone of knowing something different

04:41:04.720 but all of those things are um

04:41:09.680 very hard to deal with and it's going to fill in with our last question here we have a question

04:41:14.800 in between that we'll get to but the question that just popped up you know what are your thoughts on

04:41:19.280 mental health problems and therapy and i think that goes exactly into what we're talking about

04:41:25.120 so yes it is completely right and appropriate to ask our gods to help you but with this caveat

04:41:33.600 i don't think it is appropriate to ask our gods to help you if anything you are not willing to

04:41:39.280 put yourself in to help yourself. Asking them to help carry you that extra bit of the way that you

04:41:48.700 can't or to help aid you in something you are doing is important. Sitting there and like not

04:41:58.400 even trying and just ask that they magically come and lift you up out of it. I don't think

04:42:05.760 that that's the right place to be mentally to approach our gods and ask for their help

04:42:13.700 you have to be willing to put forth the effort on your end and hope that they grant you you know

04:42:20.720 a boon of their help on to get you get you through what you can't do by yourself

04:42:25.680 um but as far as that rolls into mental health and therapy um you know what are my thoughts

04:42:35.560 on mental health problems i they're terrible

04:42:41.300 and they afflict us really different i've heard this expressed in far less

04:42:49.740 sympathetic terms but i think there's a truth to it those are like first world kind of problems

04:43:00.220 because they're problems that affect us differently than immediate survival problems

04:43:09.660 so i think we are at a um point in civilization to where we have a lot of

04:43:17.900 time to contemplate life, to have mental health problems affect our thinking because we're

04:43:30.180 functioning on a different system. We're not fight or flight, just get by, find stuff to eat,

04:43:37.900 procreate, and be able to not die by tomorrow. We're not in that kind of existence, most of us.

04:43:44.180 So it leaves us a lot of time to sit and think.

04:43:49.780 And sometimes when we're overstimulated all day, every day with infinite stimulus, and then we find ourselves alone, all of the mental health things come out to scare us.

04:44:06.280 And I think it's kind of a place in human history that most people didn't always find themselves.

04:44:14.180 there are a lot of mental health problems out there but i think once we label certain things

04:44:19.380 as a disease we fall into a you know throwing our hands up there's nothing we can do this is a

04:44:28.100 permanent condition that we can't fix like you can't will yourself out of you know having

04:44:35.140 tuberculosis or something and i think i would caution against that there are certain things 0.70

04:44:41.460 to where you are fundamentally mentally ill to where you are dangerous and you are broken and 0.86

04:44:45.940 there is no fixing you that's unfortunate but i want to quarantine that section of the population 0.92

04:44:53.700 and not inflict that upon the rest of people but for a lot of other things if you are struggling

04:45:00.100 with mental things i think by the way they categorize that and so here's kind of a

04:45:11.460 All over the place on it is what it is. So. OK. We have extended our diagnosis of mental health problems so broadly now that I'm confident that everyone listening to this broadcast could go in and get diagnosed with a clinical diagnosis of some kind of mental unwellness.

04:45:41.460 I think that's really good if it informs you of an angle of approach to fix a problem or to help

04:45:52.880 you get past something that's hurting you, but not if it enables you to lean on, you know,

04:45:59.740 oh, I'm a victim, I'm busted, you know, give me my disability and I'll just be mentally ill.

04:46:06.360 so it brings a second part of the question mental health problems and therapy i think therapy is a

04:46:15.820 great thing but i think we only conceive of it in the modern west as going to see a psychologist

04:46:25.860 or a psychiatrist and getting that type of therapy i think likely helps a lot of people

04:46:36.340 and i don't i have my own concerns about that in the political climate we live in because i think

04:46:43.300 a lot of their advice and training is unhealthy but pushing i i don't think that's a you know

04:46:56.180 i don't think that speaks to all people in mental health fields in fact i know it does

04:47:00.420 and i know some very good people in mental health fields that don't subscribe to that

04:47:07.700 but what i would say is that therapy

04:47:10.260 in its fundamental sense used to apply to a much broader range of modalities than

04:47:19.500 go to a psychologist and have them prescribe you drugs or read from their marxist book of

04:47:31.080 pc musings about stuff it very often involved speaking to your elders speaking to

04:47:42.000 trusted advisors in your community and in your family to help you

04:47:47.540 and also speaking to religious leaders and that's something that um

04:47:53.480 I think some people who listen to the show may not realize

04:47:56.800 in no way am i saying that uh anyone in the astro folk assembly gothar are licensed

04:48:05.360 therapists or you know im imbued by the state with the right to prescribe you mental health

04:48:12.360 solutions but we are very much empowered by the icr to do our best to help people

04:48:19.740 with spiritual counseling to help them through the problems they face in their life

04:48:25.020 and our gothar spend a lot of their time doing that

04:48:30.160 i think sometimes people are uncomfortable approaching them because they may not realize

04:48:36.980 and it's not something that we can often talk about or you know go on at length about because

04:48:44.540 confidentiality is important not because of hipaa but because of not being a dirt bag

04:48:52.380 and us doing our responsibilities as priests. 1.00

04:48:57.680 So it's not appropriate for us to advertise all of the hours necessarily

04:49:02.580 that are spent counseling members and non-members

04:49:07.020 with the different things in life that they're going through.

04:49:11.540 But that is very much a traditional role of the Gothar,

04:49:16.640 and it's something that your current Gothar spend.

04:49:19.420 i would say the majority of hours spent doing the job of gothi are spent counseling

04:49:32.860 that afa members and surprisingly members of the broader community that come to us with concerns

04:49:40.300 it's fun it's so i say it's funny or it's ironic it's not it's syncretic when we do this show it

04:49:47.660 crystallizes a lot of things so conversations fawn and i were having yesterday i believe

04:49:53.500 about you know someone that he was was giving counsel to that approached him with something

04:49:59.180 that wasn't you know an afa member but just somebody who needed somebody to talk to and

04:50:04.780 we've seen that a lot um i think all of us have dealt with that we do our best to provide

04:50:10.620 you know wisdom and counsel and and and help if folks will listen so yeah i think that

04:50:17.760 you know therapy has a clinical meaning within the united states you're in finland i it may i

04:50:23.520 might mean something there counseling from people that you trust and people that you recognize

04:50:30.700 as folks worthy of listening to i think is extremely valuable i do think that you know

04:50:38.840 actual clinical therapy is also very helpful depending upon the context and who is administering

04:50:45.560 it and their orientation but yeah we're at a spot where okay also syncretically i mentioned

04:50:54.520 this at the beginning of the program and i think it's really important one of the biggest keys to

04:51:00.360 things is living our concept of health is built around the idea of wholeness the more we have to

04:51:09.640 live separate lives and separate existence you know we can't be honest with our employer you

04:51:17.280 can't be honest with your family or you can't the more things that you can't be your your full self 0.56

04:51:23.320 with, the more mentally unhealthy, emotionally, spiritually, and eventually physically unhealthy

04:51:31.640 you are. Because we live in a day and age where we are encouraged not to be able to

04:51:39.640 be vocal about our true selves in so many aspects of so many of our lives, we've seen

04:51:47.280 a great deal of of you know unhealthiness with that coming together bringing your life into

04:51:56.160 focus where the pieces work together in harmony is a big part of healing

04:52:00.480 bringing the isere and your ancestors into your life into your family into your daily existence

04:52:09.520 it's a big part of healing and being part of a spiritual community like the astro folk assembly

04:52:17.840 in you know worshiping with your brothers and sisters in the afa seeking counsel of the gothar

04:52:23.760 being part of our group gift cycle with the gods is another really important part of of that good

04:52:30.640 health and uh yeah that's what i got on that it's fine do you have anything to add on that

04:52:37.840 while we're kind of in that no not not really the only thing that hit me was you said when you

04:52:46.000 said the question out loud um and i was thinking from the questioner i wonder too if there is a

04:52:53.280 general sense that people who are of the faith of the gods think that they can't show weakness

04:53:02.480 that they can't show or that it would be perceived as weakness and that and i was just kind of

04:53:10.320 thinking that along the lines perhaps and i'm not accusing anyone on here of being like this but

04:53:16.560 it reminds me of of where you might have these kind of shoulder pelt mohawk ponytail folks

04:53:24.080 who are like i can't show any weakness to the gods the gods you know i'm gonna prove to them

04:53:31.760 that um i you know i'm just a badass and i think that mentality whether it's major or minor in its

04:53:42.080 uh evocation of being is still flawed greatly i think that one is you know a true understanding

04:53:50.240 that the gods see into the very essence of creation itself in weird in orlaw there's no

04:53:58.960 getting around they see all of it so the point is as is what else her else here ago they said

04:54:07.760 you have to bring all of the cords of rope together into one binding or you will just

04:54:16.600 live a unnoticeable life that's all i wanted to say on that that idea so

04:54:28.960 A lot of people think like that.

04:54:32.140 A lot of people think that way with other people, too.

04:54:38.380 Truth is one of our core values.

04:54:45.760 Our gods are gods.

04:54:49.840 If you think you can fool them by trying to, like, flex on them and beat your chest, 0.94

04:54:56.520 and, I don't know, put ash on your face

04:55:03.380 or whatever you're doing, they see you.

04:55:08.980 Be strong in front of the gods if you are strong.

04:55:14.520 But don't be dishonest

04:55:17.180 because they see whether you are strong or weak.

04:55:21.900 Don't be weak and dishonest.

04:55:25.120 that's a thing you can be weak and honest about it and wanting to fix it right and that's you know

04:55:34.620 okay i can get with that but if you're weak and trying to sell me something that you don't have 0.58

04:55:40.700 and whatever then you're weak and laughable don't compound your problem

04:55:47.520 but it kind of goes also to his follow-up question uh what do you think of antidepressants

04:55:54.940 I'm asking as somebody who used to take those and have at times wondered if I should still be taking them.

04:56:01.800 Really and truly, and I do mean this, this isn't just a legal caveat.

04:56:10.100 We're not doctors.

04:56:11.920 You may very well have a chemical imbalance that might need some kind of medical intervention to help balance out.

04:56:18.900 I don't, you know, I think that it is very easy to take extreme positions because we get frustrated at one or the other.

04:56:31.160 People are very over-medicated these days.

04:56:34.800 They throw pills at you for every possible thing.

04:56:38.580 That is a problem.

04:56:40.700 That doesn't mean the answer is no pills ever for anything.

04:56:45.380 There's no reason to have that extremism.

04:56:47.600 you may have a situation where that's helpful what i think is

04:56:53.520 i think there's kind of two things

04:56:58.200 there are

04:57:01.440 permanent you need to be on a constant dose of something to constantly keep you in a

04:57:09.660 between the lines that I find more concerning or there's spot fix things like, okay, well,

04:57:21.260 if I find myself in a really bad spot, I'll break the glass, take this and it'll get me by and then

04:57:27.160 I'll move on to the next thing. I tend to favor that approach more if it's optimal. But again,

04:57:34.620 we're not doctors and you may be in a spot where that's better. What I do think that

04:57:39.620 you got in the chat room that was good pieces of wisdom, try to fix the stuff that's fixable first

04:57:46.240 and see what that does. Shoot, try to fix those things in general, even if you find yourself on

04:57:53.580 medical intervention. Fix the pieces that we talked about to make your life holistic.

04:58:02.920 It's really easy to think all the ways that you can't or you could never possibly or whatever.

04:58:09.620 yeah you can um yeah but my girlfriend wouldn't understand she's a christian and she's a liberal

04:58:17.300 and she's whatever cool get a different girlfriend that's way easier said than done tomorrow

04:58:25.860 but a year from now it's not a year from now you'd look back and be like man i'm glad i did

04:58:30.020 that before it got worse um yeah but my job my boss you don't understand you get a different job

04:58:39.620 I know that sounds like a big deal, but again, a year from now, you'd be really happy you did.

04:58:45.760 Man, but what about my parents?

04:58:47.360 They don't know I'm also true, and they wouldn't know.

04:58:50.240 Be also true.

04:58:51.340 Tell your parents.

04:58:53.000 It may be rough for a while, but likely on the other side of it, they will have a heightened respect for you as a man.

04:59:00.500 They will understand where you're coming from.

04:59:02.880 Even if they don't agree or they don't like it, they will have more respect for it than you being dishonest.

04:59:09.500 And we can tell.

04:59:11.860 It's one of those things with AI.

04:59:14.740 AI gets so good that it's hard to tell.

04:59:17.480 But the things that are an instinctual tell, we can sniff out something's just not right.

04:59:23.500 And if people are not being honest about who they are, something raises our hackles.

04:59:29.520 We may not know what it is, but like something's not right about that guy.

04:59:33.900 you would be surprised on an instinctive level how much of that goes away

04:59:40.480 when you just live right you're who you are you're honest about it there is a natural confidence and

04:59:47.960 a natural perception difference that other people have to you that makes your life better

04:59:55.060 one of the other things that i'd say about depression

05:00:00.580 sometimes we mistake real things for mental illness if you are horribly depressed because 0.77

05:00:11.600 your life sucks you should be like i don't want you to live there and stay depressed but there 0.50

05:00:18.520 are stimulus in life that the appropriate response is to feel bad about when we try to 1.00

05:00:26.840 numb ourselves to natural feelings that's a concern as well there's sometimes you need to

05:00:34.600 feel bad because it makes you try to fix yourself so you feel better there's sometimes you do messed

05:00:41.160 up things and you should feel guilty there's times to where you know something is tragic

05:00:47.880 in your life and you should be sad so feelings aren't just inherently bad and sometimes i think

05:00:56.040 we get signals in life that that's the case so fix the things in your life you can fix things

05:01:04.520 with your family fix things with you know if you find things that are messing you up try to address

05:01:11.000 those first and uh you know i don't think there's a hard answer again we're not scientologists we

05:01:17.400 don't have some you know any mental health medication is bad i don't think that personally

05:01:24.920 Certainly not. Oh, so, okay. As the position of the Astro Focus Assembly, we're not going to

05:01:32.300 countersign your doctors unless they're trying to gender reassign you. We'll countersign that. 0.58

05:01:39.120 But as far as medical intervention and whatever, that's not, we're not doctors and that's not what

05:01:45.020 we're trying to do. On a personal note, I'm not, I'm not that guy. I'm not anti-pills. I'm not

05:01:52.460 anti-pharmaceuticals i'm not anti any of those things everything is a nuanced

05:01:59.420 choice that you should you know think about what you're doing

05:02:04.540 take advice on what you're doing listen to your elders listen to your family

05:02:12.060 don't approach your mental health with trying to mask problems and approach it with trying to fix

05:02:19.180 problems where you can. There might be things chemically that are not fixable outside of

05:02:26.080 medication. I understand that. But there's probably a lot of low-hanging fruit that you

05:02:32.300 can actively engage yourself in making better in your life. And I would always encourage you

05:02:37.740 to fix those things. And that is, you know, there's no downside to that. The answer doesn't

05:02:44.940 have to be either or it can absolutely be both and i would encourage it to always at least include

05:02:53.020 actively fixing the things in your life that are making you depressed

05:02:57.660 it's fine do you have thoughts on that the only other thing i would like to add to that is don't

05:03:03.660 discount natural um things because pharmaceutical companies um whether you take a an anti stance that

05:03:16.700 they're clearly you know affecting doctors giving them money and what have you there that doesn't

05:03:23.260 mean you're powerless that doesn't mean you're hopeless we were speaking earlier about the the

05:03:30.460 power of microdosing psilocybin as a form of healing PTSD. Try to look around. There are

05:03:43.260 things that can help you, but if you do find yourself just in the medical route,

05:03:49.740 getting something from a doctor and it's causing you issues and you stop it too, I don't think we

05:03:55.580 are against that either again your countenance your control is very very important and if you're

05:04:02.060 starting to have dark thoughts and you didn't until you started taking this medicine and you're you

05:04:09.260 know you're worried but don't also discount the natural paths that are out there i i i'm very much

05:04:18.220 a supporter of those as well so yeah there we have that and then we have the last question of the

05:04:27.580 night and it's kind of on a similar theme here um final question is i have lustful thoughts that i

05:04:40.300 must choke down i have a girlfriend that i love but my mind wanders i've never cheated and never

05:04:47.100 plan to. Thoughts, any way to tie the lessons to Ausitru literature? Is it fun?

05:04:54.780 Yes. So we talked earlier about the mythic, allegoric, and greater tale. Knowing that Niflheim

05:05:09.020 is the proto muspelheim is the fire there is not an actual tree it is the circulatory system of the

05:05:18.460 of the of the universe and here's a perfect example that extends that and proves why the

05:05:27.580 stories of the gods passed down to kvasia were told to our ancestors and our understanding becomes

05:05:35.100 becomes bigger. And so Fenris, the fen-dweller, the wolf of the dark fens, or the dark places,

05:05:50.980 he's brought into the halls of the gods. He's brought in amongst them as a very small,

05:06:00.320 insignificant threat but over time as he is fed he becomes a a force something to be contended with

05:06:11.440 and when they do bind him they bind him in the middle world so they they take him out of heaven

05:06:20.860 and bring him into jotunheim and they place him around the black lake is what they it's

05:06:27.300 in the story but more so than that the black lake is connected to and there is a river that springs

05:06:34.120 from him and that river or excuse me the uh the river that he salivates into is called hope

05:06:43.820 the river of hope so he is poisoning the river of hope with his salivations as the sword is placed

05:06:53.500 in his mouth so his consistent kind of infecting of this river of hope and and his abilities are

05:07:07.180 still taking place and i have always taken that as especially since the river is literally named

05:07:15.180 hope and a lot of people always wondered why why is the river named hope there there's the

05:07:20.540 the black lake and the and the mournful cry and the the stone is is um you know is is the great

05:07:30.060 weight or the great burden and there's all this and then all of a sudden there's hope

05:07:35.740 and it's like yes but his saliva is dripping into hope and that being in the middle realm

05:07:45.980 and knowing that everything from from the vanir flow in and flow out same with the jotunheim

05:07:53.100 flows in and flows out that means that fenris's saliva is poisoning even the hope of of men so

05:08:05.500 what it really comes down to is about understanding your wolves understanding the wolf that is the

05:08:13.420 wolf that does create this hunger and i i thought of this because you said you had to choke it down

05:08:21.180 that specific usage of words was like this is the wolf and if there is there there are ways that you

05:08:29.980 can deal with this whether it's again reaching out to um your gothar on top of and i would say

05:08:39.660 multi-tiered um perhaps seeking commonality of folks online um the other is if it needs to

05:08:50.460 they're you know therapy or at least talking to someone counseling um

05:08:57.260 there's a multi-tiered level way that you can address the wolf that is and the wolf doesn't

05:09:05.580 it can be different for different people because again the the the point of of the whole entirety

05:09:13.420 of the story is that that the poison flows in two people through and and stops them or infects

05:09:22.220 inhibits their attainment towards the wholeness um even there while bound he is

05:09:29.900 salivating and and just sliming his his way in this external sense within you that can be bound

05:09:41.580 that can be removed but it does take great effort um so from a spiritual context i do believe

05:09:50.140 that fenrir is the wolf that creates or is the source the cosmic source of a lot of this

05:10:01.740 whatever it may uh formulate at whether it's a hyper fixation whether it's um

05:10:10.380 fatal fanaticism uh for lost causes or whatever it does whatever it needs to happen in order to keep

05:10:18.940 um the human soul from becoming whole and ascending to the gods that's all that matters

05:10:27.740 if you keep the souls away from the gods they don't have us to help them in the end

05:10:35.500 so it is important that you address this i i appreciate your candidness on it too and and

05:10:44.140 it is a problem it is a problem because it's so readily available um and and the other thing i

05:10:51.420 would say is to consider if there's a reason for it are you feeling this way because perhaps

05:11:02.220 there's something lacking in your life and i'm not trying to make any accusations but

05:11:07.900 But really looking at these things does require, as Al-Zahir Guthi said, looking at some painful truths.

05:11:15.060 Are you feeling this way because maybe your emotional and physical needs are not being met?

05:11:21.740 Or are they perfectly being met?

05:11:24.800 She's wonderful and everything is fine.

05:11:27.440 and you know 100 this is coming from within you and you need to to um address these issues and

05:11:35.440 learn your ways to bind and and move past this especially in the age of um so you know social

05:11:43.840 media or what have you where it's just it's everywhere and i really empathize with your

05:11:48.880 question simply because i have sons who are on the precipice of kind of entering into this

05:11:55.360 this world and it it purifies me at the um the fact that this this kind of

05:12:02.480 poison this saliva of fenris can seep in and and this hunger can just kind of come out of nowhere

05:12:10.800 and so i think one praying to the holy gods um and i i also now i'm just i'm thinking as i'm talking

05:12:21.040 there there is no accident that fenris is opposed or counter in juxtaposition to lord tier

05:12:31.040 noble virtuous and he is made unwhole by the chaos wolf the thing that was brought in

05:12:43.120 There's so much poetic, spiritual, and cosmic messaging going on in that story, but praying to maintain and to break down, find the wholeness and reject the chaos and the poison of it, and that may take multiple steps, and I certainly wouldn't be able to roadmap it for you here, but I think it should be done.

05:13:11.060 i think it's worth doing and i think the first step is noticing it and if you've noticed it

05:13:16.680 then yes self-reflection on why where it's coming from and then moving from there so we

05:13:25.460 you guys have reached the portion in the evening where

05:13:31.320 you get you get some wild uh takes on some of these things

05:13:37.780 um first fawn it's you know after two in the morning yeah me i'm i'm a bottle of chianti in

05:13:47.300 um so but i think these things are related um in a lot of ways uh first kind of on the

05:13:57.960 antidepressant thing i see a little bit of comments over in the chat um exercise is good

05:14:05.720 helps. Getting your diet right helps. Getting out in the sunshine helps. Something I found in my

05:14:16.440 life helps a lot. Going to the gym helps me. I think the chemicals of it help, but also just

05:14:27.400 getting in a different environment to where I'm focused on something different takes me out of my

05:14:32.180 stresses of the day puts me into something where I'm focused on something that I like around good

05:14:37.980 looking people that are trying to do their best and make themselves, you know, succeed. It's a

05:14:44.400 nice, healthy atmosphere that way for me. You know, getting out in the sunshine. I love my

05:14:52.920 daughter to death, but I spend a lot of time with a five-year-old that there was a time in Aubrey's

05:15:00.220 life where, you know, because she was born during the COVID thing, we're like, man, she's a little

05:15:04.020 bit slow to start talking and stuff. Nope. Now we can't get her to stop. So there's like a constant

05:15:11.960 stimulus and it's a lot. And I'm just saying like normal life stuff, it ends up being a lot going

05:15:18.000 outside and being to where you do get the sunlight and that being outside, absolutely real. There's

05:15:25.520 something to that. Somebody over in the chat mentioned this, their experience. I'm not

05:15:29.300 this, counting it, so that they haven't known people who have been benefited by antidepressants

05:15:36.340 that they tend to make them very strange and have problems. I don't know people that over the long

05:15:44.480 term are necessarily benefited, but I do know people over the short term that are. And it's

05:15:51.560 kind of what some of my advice earlier, if there's stuff that gets you over a hump or gets you through

05:15:56.340 a tragedy or gets you through a rough patch i think that that there's a lot of room for that

05:16:03.940 but i think that when you're fundamentally trying to recalibrate it it does different stuff so like

05:16:11.700 with um stuff for adhd and things if your problem is you can't focus and you take special

05:16:20.340 mental health drugs to increase your focus very often you hyper focus and you obsess

05:16:30.420 you know somebody mentioned that antidepressants have a known link to suicidal thoughts and

05:16:36.100 tendencies and they do because it's tinkering with brain chemicals for a consistent like trying

05:16:46.980 to fundamentally alter it with permanency there's a lot of unknowns and a lot of unforeseen

05:16:53.780 consequence that comes with it but i have seen you know them help immensely in the short term

05:17:00.100 and we wouldn't ever presume here to give you medical diagnosis or whatever we're just giving

05:17:06.660 you a little bit of wisdom that we have on it and hope you do the best i don't think you need to

05:17:10.980 to find yourself feeling guilty, you know, try things out and find what's going to work best

05:17:16.960 for you. And I wish you the best in it. There are some suggestions that we have that I hope that,

05:17:22.360 you know, you consider, but, you know, everybody's brain chemistry is a little bit different. And I

05:17:27.380 certainly don't look down on anybody for any medical help they may need to get right with that

05:17:33.000 or for deciding that's not what they want to do. It's funny we're talking about that. It kind of

05:17:38.680 leads into this question about the lustful thoughts. One of the things with Ozempic is

05:17:47.000 we got fatties that don't know when to stop eating, because the natural tendency to know

05:17:53.760 when you're full isn't there. Hunger as an indication of, man, I need to eat some food,

05:18:00.720 that's extremely valuable. But the more we find ourselves in a place of unhealth to where

05:18:08.540 ravenous desires for things go beyond what's useful, it's worth being aware of that.

05:18:22.620 That's one of the problems. All of those things that helped us biologically when food wasn't

05:18:29.640 readily available and calories were hard to come by, we needed that indicator to keep us out there

05:18:36.220 on the grind getting healthy getting full and being big and strong and well nourished but then

05:18:43.180 when it got so easy to get we also see that now our many of our folk have a struggle of like when

05:18:49.660 to put the fork down because the same things that served us well in the past don't serve us well now 0.95

05:18:56.380 your you know hormonal drive to like need sexual gratification need the attention of women need to 0.52

05:19:04.860 to get that need filled makes a lot of sense. But now we live in a time where we're bombarded

05:19:11.040 with, you know, infinite free pornography and infinite casual sex options. And I'm not trying

05:19:22.940 to be vulgar. Please don't think that that's my intention. It's not. But our ancestors were in a

05:19:30.480 time where if you were able to find you know a young lady that wanted to interact with you

05:19:34.980 romantically you're fortunate and that's good and that's awesome and you can oh wait I found

05:19:41.500 somebody this chick's all right this is cool well now we have infinite at your fingertips

05:19:52.100 you know swipe left and have you know try to hook up with all these different people

05:19:58.340 And it's very askew to any normal socialization that any of the prior generations of our folk have ever had.

05:20:09.480 So it puts you in a very different spot.

05:20:12.240 And I think that we are always, you want to stay hungry and stay ambitious.

05:20:20.460 because in its best iteration, it makes you want to succeed, makes you want to achieve.

05:20:30.960 It, you know, keeps you striving to be your best self.

05:20:36.100 The same things that are the root of some of that are what make you want to be your best to attract a potential mate

05:20:42.960 or to be your best version of yourself for the mate that you have.

05:20:47.740 And those are all really good things.

05:20:49.780 but when there's an overabundance you always feel like you're missing out or like there's some

05:20:57.920 you know man i just got this one chick here and then but but what but wait i can do better but

05:21:04.360 there's you know i think of all the variety think you'll drive yourself insane with that

05:21:09.580 and you'll never be happy because there will always be we suffer and this is a real first

05:21:17.900 world problem but we suffer from far too many options today to where so many things in our

05:21:25.940 life are disposable and that's something that we all contend with and i mentioned it with food

05:21:31.640 with the ozempic but i think the same thing is with an overstimulation of sexual stimulus with 1.00

05:21:39.040 the appearance of a marketplace of endless you know women that are

05:21:47.120 eager to provide for you sexually which i don't always think is the case i think a

05:21:55.440 lot of that's an illusion but it's a very ever-present illusion around us

05:22:01.120 if you never stop to appreciate what you have and you constantly keep chasing this next thing that

05:22:11.280 you think you have an opportunity for you rob yourself of the chance to ever enjoy what you

05:22:18.340 have and you can very well find yourself chasing stuff that you'll never get and spending your

05:22:23.420 whole life chasing and none of it satisfied with where you're at and have high standards like i'm

05:22:30.400 not suggesting that you need to settle, but you need to pick something and go with it for a while

05:22:35.920 and give it a chance to be successful. One of the saddest things, and I know somebody like this,

05:22:44.780 I know somebody who, they're well into their 50s, I think they're probably getting pretty close to

05:22:50.640 60, but they can't settle down. They're always chasing some new young thing. They don't ever

05:22:57.640 know how to be in a relationship and be happy and be satisfied and you know age at all gracefully

05:23:04.600 in that so they're always chasing and they're never stopping to appreciate what they have

05:23:09.400 and you know that's cool when you're in your 20s there's something to it when you're in your 30s

05:23:16.780 it's getting a little bit sketchy in your 40s it's kind of embarrassing in your 50s and beyond

05:23:21.960 that it starts becoming a joke um so that's hard and i think you know all these things you wouldn't

05:23:29.160 have asked the question the question is more how to deal with it i think spawns likening and you

05:23:33.880 also ask for lower correlations is liking it with the ravenous nature of fenrir or most any of the

05:23:42.680 wolves in our lore the exception being frecky and gary that are brought into order by the willpower

05:23:51.960 of lord odin and i think that's kind of the story there is he is such a master of will

05:23:58.720 that he's able to tame these wolves that are ravenous um finding the willpower to do that's

05:24:06.780 difficult but i think that the best thing or the i guess most important piece of advice

05:24:14.280 is something that's fond mentioned that you know i was mentioning on other mental illness but it's

05:24:19.120 important. Take a hard look at what's broken. Are you just

05:24:26.320 young and horny and that's just your situation? That's

05:24:31.040 understandable. But look at the situation that you have. Are

05:24:39.300 your needs being met realistically and in a way that

05:24:43.580 can make you happy in the long run? And how do you get

05:24:46.800 there. Is your girlfriend someone that is going to be able to meet those needs in the ways that

05:24:59.800 you need them met for you to have happiness in your life and in your relationship? If not,

05:25:06.400 it's not fair to you and it's not fair to her either. So having those conversations and working

05:25:13.420 that out to where you have a fulfilling situation is important. You're a guy, I don't think you're

05:25:24.520 ever going to be in a spot where you don't have a certain yearning for variety or lusting after

05:25:32.120 different things. I think everyone does that to a degree. Noticing whether that is problematic or

05:25:39.960 not is it is something that you need to have that conversation with yourself internally and

05:25:50.440 what i've seen a lot of people do is try to be noble in a spot where it's just not going to work

05:25:57.000 spend a lot of their life trying to beat a square peg into a round hole

05:26:01.960 whole, pun not intended, and be, make both parties unhappy trying to force something

05:26:15.760 to work and then falling short of it, rather than finding something that both parties involved

05:26:22.600 are actively happy, fulfilled, and in a sustainable way to build a life that they're both happy

05:26:31.300 with. I think trying to angle towards that and having a long, hard look at that is your

05:26:40.280 best bet, but it is probably the least comfortable of the options available to you. But that's

05:26:49.480 my thoughts on that. That is our last question of this evening. Thank you for being with

05:26:55.240 us tonight. Thank you for your questions. Thank you guys for being here for all seven of these

05:27:02.640 episodes of the Volsaka Saga. It's long. Some of our lore pieces are long. I feel the need to like

05:27:14.160 mention that and say something about it is what it is. But I'm glad you guys stuck with it. I hope

05:27:19.560 it was beneficial to you guys. It certainly was for myself. I have enjoyed this immensely and I

05:27:26.960 look forward to our next lore episode. I am not sure what we are doing next week. I need to consult

05:27:35.400 Svan and I also need to consult our new father, folk builder Chris Savage from Michigan. As I

05:27:44.740 mentioned, we're supposed to be doing a different show. He was going to co-host with me, but he just

05:27:48.840 welcomed his little baby daughter into the world just yesterday, so he is still getting used to

05:27:56.620 that. I do want him to get on for that show that we were going to have. I think he's the perfect

05:28:01.840 guy for it, and we'd love to present that to you. It'd be awesome if we can do it next week,

05:28:07.140 but if we can't, we'll figure something else out, and we'll get him on here when we can,

05:28:11.380 but yeah, stay tuned

05:28:13.620 if you can make it to any

05:28:17.560 or all of the upcoming

05:28:19.720 events, either midsummer

05:28:21.300 at Odenshof

05:28:22.540 Sigur Bloat at Sigurheim

05:28:25.100 or 0.90

05:28:26.400 Freyfaxi at Baldershof

05:28:29.520 love to see you there

05:28:31.120 it's absolutely worth it to make the effort

05:28:33.660 I hope to see

05:28:35.520 all you guys there

05:28:36.520 but either way

05:28:39.400 until next time

05:28:41.240 Hail the Iseer. Hail the Folk. Hail the AFA. Remember, victory never sleeps. 1.00

05:29:11.240 Transcription by CastingWords

05:29:41.240 Thank you.

05:30:11.240 Thank you.

05:30:41.240 Thank you.

05:31:11.240 Thank you.

05:31:41.240 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - June 12, 2025

6⧸11⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 153 - Völsunga Saga, Part VII

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