Asatru Folk Assembly - January 02, 2024


Asatru Holidays - January 2024 - Raud the Strong ｜ Þorrablót


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

98.300514

Word count

1,045

Sentence count

58

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and folk of all ages,
00:00:27.440 Welcome to 2024.
00:00:31.500 Thank you for listening in today.
00:00:33.900 We're going to talk about the Days of Remembrance and Holidays
00:00:37.360 that are celebrated and honored in the Aussie True Folk Assembly
00:00:41.680 for the month of January.
00:00:46.280 Alrighty, let's get started.
00:00:50.340 January holds two special days recognized by the Aussie True Folk Assembly.
00:00:56.720 The 9th of the month, as always, holds a Day of Remembrance, and this month it is Rauld the Strong.
00:01:04.480 And then we follow that up on January 20th with Thorablot.
00:01:11.260 So, let's learn a little bit about these two very special days.
00:01:16.520 On January 9th, we celebrate the Day of Remembrance for Rauld the Strong.
00:01:21.620 So well known was the hero, Raad the Strong, that his story comes to us from several Icelandic
00:01:30.460 sagas, the most common of which is the Heimskringla, a chronicle of the kings of Norway by Snorri
00:01:39.320 Sturluson.
00:01:40.320 The story tells of a great seafaring warrior who had Thor and Seder on his side.
00:01:50.860 Around the year 1000, the zealous Norwegian king, Olaf Tryggvason, began an expedition
00:02:01.420 to North Norway to continue his Christianization of the pagan people.
00:02:08.060 Olaf found much success in his efforts, owing largely to his brutal methods of both torturing
00:02:17.020 and killing those who refused, but not all were swayed.
00:02:23.980 In Godoy, near present-day Bodo, lived the man Raud the Strong.
00:02:32.740 Raud was known to have a strong connection with the Sami people, and to own a remarkable
00:02:38.860 longship that was larger than any that Olaf himself owned.
00:02:45.640 The gold-plated dragon head is what many suppose the popular viking longship designs are based
00:02:53.980 on.
00:02:56.140 Upon hearing that Olaf was heading his way, Raad gathered as many men as he could and
00:03:03.540 led a great assault at sea.
00:03:07.520 Despite everything, however, Raad found himself overwhelmed and had to retreat from the battle.
00:03:15.520 The story says that Roud was able to sue Seder to call on the winds to speed him home safely while also blocking Orof Tryggvason's chase.
00:03:29.520 It was all for naught, however.
00:03:33.520 Though he made it home, Roud was eventually caught by Orof Tryggvason.
00:03:38.520 Despite the king's efforts, however, Raoul refused to turn his back on his gods despite
00:03:47.520 torture.
00:03:48.520 In the end, he was killed when a live snake was forced down his throat.
00:03:56.920 Many of Raoul's men following his example were also killed after refusing to convert. 0.52
00:04:06.040 So what can we learn from this story?
00:04:10.560 Some might make the argument that it is better to fight and die rather than retreat in shame. 1.00
00:04:18.480 In some cases this might be true.
00:04:22.040 For every one of us sitting here reading this, however, one of our ancestors made a different
00:04:28.920 choice.
00:04:31.000 The choice to convert saved our lives. 0.99
00:04:35.800 For many of our ancestors, death was the best option. 0.98
00:04:42.080 Which of us ever chooses to be killed in a horrible, painful way?
00:04:48.660 Was death the easier option?
00:04:52.220 We have to believe that for some it was.
00:04:55.240 For a rather strong, friend of Thor, it was.
00:05:02.500 To convert was to turn his back on his heritage, to turn on his honor, and to turn on his courage
00:05:12.320 and a warrior and a leader.
00:05:16.340 Our ancestors lived in a very different time.
00:05:20.640 They lived in a world in which men and women could be killed for choosing to remain loyal
00:05:27.100 to their gods.
00:05:29.680 We are exceptionally lucky that we live in a society that allows us the freedom to worship
00:05:36.560 our gods.
00:05:39.060 The very same society that allows us to worship our gods, however, does not do so without
00:05:45.020 stipulations.
00:05:48.120 That society, so unlike the sort of tribal society our ancestors lived in, would tell
00:05:55.580 us how to worship our gods.
00:05:59.060 They would tell us who is allowed to worship our gods, and if society would try to harm
00:06:05.660 us for choosing to be doing it differently, then they tell us we are allowed to do it.
00:06:15.300 We don't face the same torture and death as Raoul Destron for choosing to worship our
00:06:20.440 gods our way, but we do face the possibility of austerization from society.
00:06:28.700 Or even our families can turn their backs on us for disagreeing with the rules they've given us. 0.83
00:06:38.580 We are not free from the effects of the multicultural paradigm, but we don't have to bow to it.
00:06:48.220 Like Raad the Strong, we can stand tall and be proud of who and what we are.
00:06:55.700 We are as the true are, but rather strong, we can stand against those who would tell
00:07:04.540 us to turn our backs on what we know to be true.
00:07:10.360 We can live with honesty, with courage, and with honor.
00:07:18.620 On January 20th, we celebrate Thoroblot.
00:07:25.380 Thoroblot is an Icelandic mid-winter festival, dedicated to, as the name describes, Thor.
00:07:34.740 Thoroblot is named after the Icelandic month of Dori, from the historic calendar, and ran
00:07:42.620 from mid-January to mid-February.
00:07:46.800 Though Thorblot is a relatively modern social celebration in Iceland, there is reference
00:07:55.380 in the Fláteir book that states that the Kvinns offer a yearly sacrifice to Thóri
00:08:04.620 at mid-winter.
00:08:06.220 Typically, Thorblot is celebrated by gathering together and eating many of Iceland's traditional
00:08:14.020 foods and by singing, reciting poems, and telling stories.
00:08:22.340 Some good ways to celebrate Thorbrot include eating traditional Icelandic foods such as
00:08:29.860 Hecaro, putrefied shark, Blothmull, blood suet, filled sausage or black pudding,
00:08:42.540 Hruitsbrunger, ram's scrotum with testicles, Rundabagi, lamb's fat or sheep's fat, or
00:08:53.420 sweet buttered sheep's head. Don't worry if these are unavailable or simply not 0.51
00:09:03.200 to your taste, eating goat and goat products such as goat cheese or goat
00:09:09.020 milk are also appropriate options. Called by some as the cabin fever holiday,
00:09:18.280 Thoroblot is a great way to liven up the doldrums of midwinter.
00:09:24.840 So take some time to light a fire and make merry.
00:09:29.940 Have the folk tell stories or recite poems about Thor.
00:09:34.920 Eat, drink, and enjoy the company of folk and family.
00:09:39.940 well everybody
00:09:44.700 thank you so much for listening in
00:09:47.020 this month and we will
00:09:49.020 do this again next
00:09:51.060 month where we go over the next
00:09:52.860 set of holidays and days of remembrance
00:09:55.100 but until then
00:09:57.100 hail the gods
00:09:59.200 hail the folk
00:10:01.060 hail the
00:10:03.040 F.A.
00:10:04.520 and hail
00:10:05.460 Raad the Strong and hail Thor
00:10:07.860 We'll see you next time.