Asatru Folk Assembly - June 05, 2024


Asatru Holidays - June 2024 - King Athanaric ｜ Midsummer


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

108.30767

Word count

973

Sentence count

53

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
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, you know what time it is.
00:00:27.720 It's a new month, it's June, so let's talk about the holidays, holy days, and days of remembrance for our people.
00:00:38.660 As I said, it is June, and in June we have two very special days.
00:00:45.060 As always, on the 9th of the month we have our Day of Remembrance, and this month it is for King Thanarek of the Visigoths.
00:00:53.860 and then we'll follow that up officially on june 20th is midsummer and as always we observe these
00:01:04.800 holidays if they fall on a specific day we observe them on the third saturday of the month so that
00:01:11.860 would be the 15th all righty ladies and gents let's get down to it and learn a little bit about
00:01:20.000 our holidays and Days of Remembrance, and we'll start with King Ithanaric.
00:01:29.260 On June 9th, we celebrate the Day of Remembrance for King Ithanaric of the Visigoths.
00:01:36.920 King Ithanaric, King of the Visigoths, ruled his people from 369 Common Era until he died
00:01:45.000 in 381 Common Era.
00:01:48.520 Sometimes called the first and greatest king of his people,
00:01:53.000 Ithanaric was a staunch Gothic pagan.
00:01:57.200 Viewing it as his responsibility to foster and promote the faith of his people,
00:02:02.580 he went so far as to execute over 300 Visigoths 0.86
00:02:08.180 that had converted to the Christian faith.
00:02:11.260 Their Gothic culture was paramount, and he feared that the advent of Christianity would destroy it.
00:02:21.380 During his twelve-year reign, Athanaric fiercely defended his culture against the advance of the Roman Christian conversion.
00:02:31.100 In the early years, he allied with his fellow Visigoth king, Fridegger, to stop the encroachment of the Roman legions into their lands.
00:02:41.260 While the two were allied, the Goths managed to stave off the Roman armies.
00:02:47.640 For unknown reasons, however, Fritigern turned his army against Thanaric, causing the Gothic Civil War.
00:02:56.660 In the early stages, Thanaric won every encounter he had with his one-time ally.
00:03:02.200 This prompted Fritigern to turn and request aid from his former Roman enemy, Emperor Valens.
00:03:11.260 Even so, despite some advances, Fritigern lost the war.
00:03:18.300 The Gothic Civil War took a toll on the land and the Visigoths, however, and when the Huns
00:03:25.420 began to invade shortly after the end of the Civil War, Fritigern appealed to Emperor
00:03:31.100 Valen to allow him and his people to cross Indo-Roman land.
00:03:36.260 The appeal was answered, but only for Fridegger, who had since converted to Christianity, and
00:03:43.460 his followers. 1.00
00:03:45.740 The rest of the Visigoths were left to fend for themselves.
00:03:50.100 Despite his best efforts, King Athaneric was unable to hold his ground against the ruthless
00:03:55.260 and better-provisioned Huns.
00:03:56.980 In the face of starvation, Athaneric led his people into the Alutis Valley, modern-day
00:04:04.080 Transylvania, where they settled. In 380 Common Era, Athanaric was deposed and removed himself
00:04:12.860 to none other than Constantinople and the lands of his once upon time enemy, the Roman Empire.
00:04:22.200 The new emperor, Theodosius I, accepted Athanaric to the empire graciously.
00:04:28.840 Upon his death, some two weeks later, Aetheric was buried in state to show Theodosius' respect for the Gothic culture.
00:04:40.500 So, what can we learn from this story?
00:04:44.640 King Aetheric stood his ground in the face of all that would have torn him down.
00:04:50.040 He recognized the importance of maintaining the culture of his people and saw the dangers of conversion for what they were.
00:04:58.100 In these modern times, it is even more important to view authentic struggles for what they were,
00:05:04.600 and to remember that the preservation of our people and our culture is so very paramount.
00:05:12.680 It's about roots. It's about connections. It's about coming home.
00:05:19.520 Let us always strive to make sure we have a home for our folk to come back to.
00:05:28.100 Again, we follow that up, officially on June 20th, but more often honored on June 15th, the third Saturday of the month.
00:05:41.100 We have Midsommar.
00:05:44.200 For us, Midsommar is considered the official beginning of summer.
00:05:49.000 But for our ancestors, who only recognized two seasons, winter and summer,
00:05:56.740 Midsummer was the middle of the season.
00:05:59.640 The common factor between our ancestors' celebration and ours is the summer solstice.
00:06:07.080 On Midsummer, we celebrate the longest day of the year and the shortest night.
00:06:13.200 The dark and cold of winter is firmly past, and the days are full of vitality and life.
00:06:24.080 But first, we celebrate.
00:06:28.180 The best-known symbol of midsummer is the bonfire.
00:06:33.060 In Europe, bonfires are still lit and burned the whole night through.
00:06:38.520 Men and women gather to celebrate the warm days and the successful planting season by dancing around the bonfire.
00:06:49.880 Many people focus on love and fertility during the summer solstice,
00:06:55.100 with folk traditions that include picking wildflowers and putting them under one's pillow to dream of the person they will marry.
00:07:03.140 Couples often jump over the fire during midsummer to be blessed by the gods and the ancestors.
00:07:12.140 The planting season is finished.
00:07:15.140 The hard work that began with the blessing of the tools of the charming of the plow,
00:07:20.140 and the planting of the seeds after Avstara has been finished.
00:07:26.140 Now we tend to the growing crops and revel in the beauty of life.
00:07:31.140 we could take a momentary break from the difficulties of life
00:07:34.380 to embrace that which makes the hard work worth the effort.
00:07:39.820 As the reverie comes to an end, however,
00:07:42.760 we must take the time to remember that the days will now begin to shorten once again.
00:07:48.340 Winter will come, and our hard work is not yet done.
00:07:52.400 Well, everyone, that's it for June.
00:07:56.920 Next month will be a bit of a longer episode
00:07:59.040 Because we have an extra day of remembrance
00:08:01.500 But until then
00:08:03.840 Hail the gods
00:08:05.840 Hail the folk
00:08:07.560 Hail the AFA
00:08:09.880 Hail King Thaneric
00:08:12.960 And hail Balder
00:08:15.520 It's midsummer
00:08:16.580 Good night everyone
00:08:19.000 Good day
00:08:29.040 Thank you.