Asatru Folk Assembly - January 02, 2024


Asatru Holidays - January 2024 - Raud the Strong ｜ Þorrablót

Topics
Raad the Strong and Thorablot
Hosted by
Steve McNallen
Mentioned
Thor Roud Olaf Tryggvason Snorri Sturluson Raoul Destron Thorablot Blothmull Thorbrot
Rígsþula, a reading The AFA in 2023

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

98.3

Word count

1,045

Sentence count

60

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

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

On January 9th and 20th, we celebrate the Day of Remembrance for Rauld the Strong and Thorblot, and remember the hero who refused to turn his back on his gods, despite being tortured and killed for doing so.

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 .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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.