Ásatrú Holidays - October 2025
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Summary
Today is the Day of Remembrance for Gauti Thorstein Grognarsdottir, a founding member of the Asatrullafelgith, an expert in Nordic studies, fluent in both Icelandic and English, a loving family man, a trusted friend of Svenbjörn Bientensen, and a founding gothi of the Odinist Asatriba Feregith. He passed away on January 21st, 2000.
Transcript
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ladies and gentlemen boys and girls and folk of all ages you know time it is it is October
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and it is time for the holidays holy days and days of remembrance of our folk
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all righty y'all it is the morning of the 4th of october and we've got a day of remembrance today
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so let's get down to it seems like i'm running late every month and today is the day of remembrance
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On the 23rd, the Day of Remembrance for King Eorik.
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And on the 27th, the Day of Remembrance for Reckwald Odeokarl.
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Alrighty, that is a lot of stuff to go over this month.
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My birthday's on the 28th, so I might be biased.
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Get to the nitty gritty, the details, and all the paragraphs of text that y'all love to hear me read.
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On October 4th, today is the Day of Remembrance for Gauti Thorstein Götgensen.
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Gauti Thorstein was born on October 4th, 1928 in Reykjavik, Iceland.
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He was an expert in Nordic studies, fluent in both Icelandic and English,
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a loving family man, trusted friend of Svenbjörn Bientensen,
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He passed beyond the veil and joined his ancestors on January 21st, 2000.
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which physically impaired him for the rest of his life.
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Many of the treatments at that time left him physically scarred and debilitated,
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but he was said to never pity himself for this.
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With more time on his hands, he dove into his thoughts and thirst for knowledge.
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Books, dictionaries, and later computer technology became a large part of his life.
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By all accounts, young Thorstein often spent more time in his mind than in the mundane.
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When he finished his primary education, he moved on to Reykjavik Junior College and then on to the University of Oslo.
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He studied history, Latin, ethnography, and sharpened his already great knowledge of our Nordic ancestors.
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He also learned a great deal about how to deal with the Icelandic parliament when making institutions legally binding,
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and this is where much of his work with the Ostrullafelgith comes in.
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It has been said that while Sven Bjorn Bintansson was the heart of the Ostrullafelgith, Thorstein was the brain.
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He led the charge to get the organization legally recognized by Iceland, and was present
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at the famous moment where Lord Thor knocked out power across the nation during the meeting
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where the Lutheran bishop finally gave the Ausatrullafelgith his stamp of approval.
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As a man with a substantial knowledge of Ausatru, Gotti Thorstein was the most trusted advisor
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of the Asatrullafelgith's first two Ásherjörgóðar, Svengjorn Bíntasinn and Jörmundur
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Íngí Hansinn, both sought his council regularly. He was also a leading voice of folkish Asatrú
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in Iceland, and is often cited as being the most outspoken proponent of recognizing Asatrú
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as the native faith of the Aryan people. Góði Þórstáinn was a man of great knowledge
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and ambition and piety, a beacon of right action for the folk of the Asatrullafelgith.
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Although he shouldered the heavy burden of tuberculosis and its consequences for his whole life,
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this never stopped his march to victory for the Aesir.
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May we all remain unbroken and undaunted in our loyalty to the Holy Aesir.
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And we follow that up tomorrow with a day of remembrance for Meister Guido von List.
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Meister Guido von List, born in 1848 on October 5th and passed away in 1919 on May 17th,
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was an Austrian paywright, author, and esotericist.
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He was the founder of Wotanism, which was an integral precursor to the reforging of Alsatru.
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Born on October 5th, 1848, he was the eldest son of a wealthy family in Vienna, the capital of the former Austrian Empire.
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As was the custom in the area at the time, his family was Roman Catholic and he was christened
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He had a happy childhood and enjoyed trips with his father to the Austrian countryside.
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On one such trip in 1862, he and his father visited the catacombs beneath St. Stephen's
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Meister von Liszt had come to strongly believe that there was formerly a shrine to one of
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He felt so strongly about this that he knelt before a destroyed altar and swore that he
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would one day construct a temple devoted to the Allfather.
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Over the next 15 years, Myservon Liss joined the family leather business.
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During his free time, he sketched and wrote countless pages about pre-Christian Germany,
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as well as hiking and exploring the various Roman and Germanic ruins around the countryside.
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He even spent midsummer nights alone on top of the Gieselberg hillfort as a sign of devotion to the faith of his ancestors.
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When his father passed beyond the Vale in 1877, he left the leather business and became a journalist.
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He wrote for many nationalist publications, as he was a big proponent of folkism,
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mostly covering the practices and culture of the rural Austrian people.
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He also spoke to various groups about the ancient priesthood of Wotan, which was his
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While his information was likely fragmented, he was clearly devoted to the Aesir and was
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doing his best to bring more people home to their birthright.
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In 1902, Meister von Liszt's ideas of Alsatru developed a more occult and esoteric component,
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many people now call Armonism. He received cataract surgery and was left blind for nearly
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an entire year. During this time, he relentlessly studied Germanic language and the sacred runes.
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Once he regained his sight, he immediately wrote a manuscript explaining that the runes
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were the original language of the alien people. He claimed that a new futhor of runes came
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to him via vision during his blindness, and these are now known as the Armin and Runes.
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Although Meister von Liszt passed away in 1919, he spent the rest of his life promoting
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his Armin and Runes and spreading what he knew about Alcetru to his folk.
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His devotion to the Aesir was so deep that he held that troth until he passed to the
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While his version of Alcetru was something of a rough draft compared to what we have
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now. His writings and sketches provided an invaluable pathway to everything we have now.
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His interpretation of the runes is still used to this day in esoteric work, even practiced
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by many in the AFA. While my servanlist did not build a temple to vote on as he promised
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in the Catacombs of St. Stephen's Cathedral, a man named Stephen McNallan did devote to
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Hoff to the All-Father, a mere 96 years later in the United States. This temple to Votan
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is Odenshof, founded in 2015 by the Alstro Folk Assembly, and it contains a dedicated
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shrine to the memory and works of Meister Von List himself. May we never fail in remembering
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where we came from. May we honor forevermore the brave men who laid the bricks so that
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we could walk this sacred path. Hail, Meister Gudow Von List.
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And following that is the birthday of the very man who founded that Hoth, our founder
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Anyone who has raised a horn in honor of our ancestral gods has done so because of, or
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in spite of, Stephen McNallan," said the Ausheri Goethe Matthew Favell at Ostara in the South,
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This month, we celebrate the birth of our founder, Stephen McNallan, before he became
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the father of modern Alcitru, before he started a religious movement on his own, before the
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He says, On a more intimate level, I chose my parents well.
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My father was a hardworking Irish Catholic oil hand who had come to Texas for the oil
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boom some years earlier, and my mother was a loving, kind, and intelligent woman who
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significantly bought me the books I wanted and read them to me.
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Founder MacNallan developed an interest in pre-Christian religion in college after reading
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In 1968 or 1969, he dedicated himself to the worship of the gods of Europe.
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In 1969-70, he founded the first Alcetru church in the world, the Viking Brotherhood, which gained tax-exempt status in 1972.
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He began writing and distributing the rune stone, which was hand-typed and copied on a mnemograph machine.
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At first it was a private thing, and then I began quietly promoting the religion, which at that point I simply called Norse Paganism, as I had no name for it.
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About the time of my graduation from college, I started a minuscule publication called The Rune Stone.
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Within a year or so, August 29, 1972, I had received recognition of the Viking Brotherhood as a tax-exempt religious organization.
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After reading Magnus Magnuson's book, Hamer of the North, where he first heard the word Alcetru,
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Founder MacNallan began to use and promote his religious ideal as Alcetru rather than Odinism.
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At some point during his time in the U.S. Army, Founder MacNallan began to adopt the belief that Alcetru was a religion of the peoples of Europe
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rather than being a religion for all, thus adopting folkism.
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In 1976, after being discharged from the army, he renamed the Viking Brotherhood to the Alcetru Free Assembly.
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After seeing what American Alcetru had developed into, which denied the Alcetru was a uniquely ethnic faith,
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Mr. McNallan stepped back into the Alcetru scene, establishing the Alcetru Folk Assembly.
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The emphasis on folk to differentiate from the universalist lie that threatened to take hold of our ancestral faith
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And I wrote also true and native European spirituality
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We purchased a permanent building which became Odenshof
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In 2016, after leading the Austro-Free Folk Assembly for 20 years,
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and started the next phase of my service to my gods and to my folk.
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he has remained an active participant at Odenshoff
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with charitable giving and continuing in any way possible,
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It is often said that we stand on the shoulders of giants, and none are more giant than that of our founder, the first Al-Sheri Yagothi.
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Thank you, and happy birthday, Mr. McNallan, from all of us in the Al-Sheri Yagothi Folk Assembly.
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And following that, on the 18th, the third Saturday of the month, Vedernate, autumn has officially started.
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The days are noticeably shorter, the nights are noticeably cooler.
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The trees are ablaze with the colors of fall and the crunching of the fallen leaves underfoot has begun.
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This was a time of drawing in close, of hearth, and home, and family.
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For our ancestors, this was not an autumn festival, but a quiet winter rite in which the female spirits were honored in a rite called Disabrot.
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Today, Vedrnedr is often seen as a death of the physical world, the world we can see, and the reawakening of the intangible.
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It is a deeper feeling and connection to the things we know to be there.
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This is the time we honor Ardysia, our female ancestors.
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We remember that without our ancient mothers, we could not be.
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Our ancient mothers, with strength and determination, raise the next generation against odds we
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With the harvest finished, there is a quiet lull before we turn our minds to the hectic
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Now is a good time to turn inward in introspection and to self-improvement.
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It is also the time to meditate on things of a more spiritual nature.
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And we get a few days rest before on the 23rd of October is the day of remembrance for King
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Georic, newly announced at the beginning of July of this year as one of our heroes.
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King Georic of the Tervingi Goths, father of AFA hero Athanaric, was raised during the
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4th century in the Eastern Roman Empire's city of Constantinople. There was a statue
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erected there in his honor. Outside of these facts, we know nothing of his personal life.
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The only other fact about King Ioric passed down to us is that he, like his son Ithanaric,
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recognized Christianity as a foreign faith that would weaken his people by severing their
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According to Oxentius of Durastorum, he led a concerted effort in 347 and 348 to root
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Since being Alcitru and being a goth were the same thing, these goths that abandoned
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the Aesir were seen as betraying their gothic identity.
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King Eoric dealt with these betrayals seriously, punishing these traitors with death if they
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The story of King Eoric is short on details, but just as grand as one of our heroes resisting
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He refused to submit himself or his people to the universalist poison, choosing instead
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to fight it relentlessly for his gods and folk.
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And finally, I know there's been a lot this month,
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but he was executed in 1484 and almost certainly lived his entire life in the 15th century in
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Sweden. His second name, Odia Karl, means Odinsmann. We know precious little about his life
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outside of the case which is recounted here. Reckvald was put on trial on October 27,
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11th, 1484 for having stolen from a number of churches in the southern portion of Upland.
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He robbed the churches in Skeptuna, Markams, Orkesta, and Valentuna.
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Stealing from a church during this time was sacrilegious, yet Reckwald did this without
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fear as he knew that he owed no allegiance to the foreign Christ.
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Once on trial, Reykjavald openly admitted to being a pagan, saying that he had been a devout
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follower of Lord Odin for seven years by that point.
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All this implied that some number of Swedes still held troth with the Aesir, 500 years
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after much of the nation had converted to Christianity.
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Reykjavald Odiakarl was of course found guilty by the Christian Swedes and was burned alive.
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At once, did he attempt to apologize or betray his loyalty to the Aesir, and he died as he
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had lived for the last seven years, as a man of all of them.
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And with that, it brings us to the end of the month.
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But you don't think I'd let you get off that easy, did I, you?
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Winter Nights in New Hampshire, beautiful, beautiful October weather in New England.
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I'm sure the trees are just bright orange and reds and yellows.
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It's going to be the last Winter Nights national event, not at the home of Frere.
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And this marks the celebration of Winter Nights.