Asatru Folk Assembly - Celts and Germans (2010)

00:00:00.000 Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

00:00:30.000 This is Steve MacNallan of the Asatru Folk Assembly,

00:00:37.660 bringing you the latest on the revival of the ancient faith of Northern Europe

00:00:42.160 and the awakening of the European descended peoples everywhere.

00:00:47.460 The gods and goddesses never went away.

00:00:50.200 They are with us always, and now they stir,

00:00:54.060 and we reclaim our ancestral birthright.

00:00:57.400 A glorious dawn awaits.

00:00:59.240 Hail Our Awakening! Hail Ausatru Rising!

00:01:05.040 The ongoing spread of indigenous Germanic religion is nowhere seen more clearly than in the local gatherings being sponsored by the AFA and other groups from coast to coast.

00:01:17.920 Sheila and I just got back from Jambamut, sponsored by Burt, an AFA member in Oregon, as a gathering open to anyone interested.

00:01:27.200 Our own folk builders, Kat and Mike Burke, helped organize it, and we mobilized AFA members in the area to help support the event.

00:01:35.200 Thorgren and Katie went up with us, so the newcomers there got a good picture not only of Ossetru, but also of the AFA.

00:01:43.380 It was a great event.

00:01:44.680 At the same time Sheila and I were in Oregon, AFA folk builders Johnny and Julie of Tennessee and Dennis from Ohio hosted a meet-up in Newport, Kentucky.

00:01:56.420 AFA members from all across the area showed up to share food and conversation.

00:02:02.020 A few days earlier, Asatruer from eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including AFA members,

00:02:08.100 met in an open event to honor the gods and goddesses near Pipersville, Pennsylvania.

00:02:14.420 This coming weekend, the Northern California Asatru meetup gathers in Sacramento, California,

00:02:20.420 and while it is not just for AFAers, the AFA does have a strong presence there,

00:02:25.460 and you can usually find Sheila or myself attending.

00:02:29.440 You can find out more about it on www.meetup.com.

00:02:35.500 Come on by. We'd love to see you.

00:02:38.340 Certainly, people can practice ALSATRU all by themselves if they wish,

00:02:42.540 but the fulfillment of our faith lies in meeting with others who follow our way.

00:02:48.060 The Internet is valuable mainly as a tool for helping people find us

00:02:52.360 so that we can bring them into the AFA community.

00:02:56.760 Here's an email from someone we successfully reached.

00:03:00.460 Matt wrote, telling us why he joined the Asatru Folk Assembly.

00:03:05.020 For me, it is quite simple.

00:03:07.640 My ancestors spent hundreds and possibly thousands or tens of thousands of years

00:03:12.860 evolving in Europe, compared to the century or so

00:03:16.380 since my great-grandfather came to the U.S. from the Lake District of England.

00:03:20.580 There is no question for me. I am a European who happened to be born in this land and country.

00:03:27.640 My heart and soul, quite literally, are European.

00:03:32.160 You're right, Matt. No matter where in the world we live, all of us, Europeans and Africans, Asians, every branch of the human race,

00:03:41.720 are overwhelmingly the product of our respective ancestral homelands.

00:03:47.300 Johann Schuch came to America from Germany in 1754,

00:03:51.700 and Patrick McAnallen left Ireland in 1788.

00:03:56.220 I am descended from both of them.

00:03:58.500 My family has been on this continent for about 250 years,

00:04:02.520 which is pretty old by American standards.

00:04:05.380 Nevertheless, my ancestors were born, lived, and died in Europe

00:04:11.440 for more than a hundred times that span.

00:04:15.280 Their bones lie at the foot of the retreating glaciers of the last ice age.

00:04:19.740 They chipped stone into axes and hunted beasts now extinct.

00:04:25.040 Their eldest languages are lost to history.

00:04:28.280 When the very words Ireland and Germany would not be uttered for 10,000 years,

00:04:34.960 your bloodline and mine were already ancient.

00:04:39.260 We are Europe.

00:04:41.080 The bodies of our ancestors will be a part of the European soil until, in some distant age, the dying sun explodes and the earth itself becomes a blackened cinder, drifting in the void.

00:04:57.100 All of which leads me to our topic tonight, Celts and Germans.

00:05:03.560 Many of us, even if we are entirely European in our heritage, are a mix of several nationalities.

00:05:09.520 For example, I have German, Irish, English, and Scottish roots.

00:05:14.400 My family name, however, is Irish.

00:05:16.820 Just how non-Germanic am I?

00:05:20.180 Here is an article I wrote some years back that relates to that question.

00:05:26.300 The chieftain towered over his seated warriors in the smoky hall.

00:05:31.320 Clatter and chatter faded, and all eyes turned to this mustachioed muscular figure who was their leader.

00:05:37.860 Raising the mead-filled horn high over the throng, he toasted the high god, the one who carries the spear and has ravens hovering about his shoulders.

00:05:49.720 All shouted their approval, and another warrior rose to his feet, lofting his drinking horn and praising the name of the Thunderer.

00:05:59.100 The others echoed him, and in the warmth of their camaraderie, they might well have been in the great hall where warriors go when they die,

00:06:06.820 served by the maidens of battle from the meat of the ever-reborn swine.

00:06:13.160 A scene from Viking history? 0.56

00:06:16.220 An evening in a typical Germanic mead hall? 0.88

00:06:20.020 No. 0.64

00:06:21.400 The word picture painted here is of a feast among their cousins, the Celts.

00:06:28.180 The mythic and historical background just given applies to both these peoples.

00:06:33.780 Like most of us, it wasn't news to me that the two main tribal groupings of

00:06:39.600 ancient Europe had a lot in common. Both are part of the greater Indo-European

00:06:44.580 family. Their mythology shares a common structure, the material aspects of their

00:06:49.860 culture are much alike, and the general heroic worldview unites both Celt and

00:06:55.920 German. But this, as it turns out, is only the beginning. The distinction we make

00:07:02.840 today between these two branches of our kin arise in no small measure from the

00:07:07.880 observations of Julius Caesar. Essentially, he declared the tribes on

00:07:12.200 one side of the Rhine to be the Germans and those on the other to be Celts. In

00:07:17.420 actuality, of course, it was not that simple. Scholars now think that some

00:07:21.680 groups we once labeled German were really Celtic. Other tribes might have

00:07:26.000 belonged to either classification because we don't know what language they spoke.

00:07:29.780 The clear implication is that the physical artifacts they left behind were indistinguishable,

00:07:35.780 and that language is the only definite marker between the two.

00:07:40.780 Physical appearance is no clue, because the Roman commentators describe the Germanic peoples and the Celts in exactly the same terms.

00:07:48.780 Both were tall, tending toward the blond, and lightly skinned.

00:07:53.780 The word Teuton, by the way, is cognate with the Gaelic tuat, meaning people or tribe, which certainly points to a fundamental kinship.

00:08:03.440 For me, the clincher came when I read Hilda Davidson's book, Myth and Symbols in Pagan Europe, published by Syracuse University Press in 1988.

00:08:14.400 Significantly, it's subtitled Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions.

00:08:20.680 Page after page and chapter after chapter,

00:08:24.580 she documents the similarities between the mythology, folklore, and ritual

00:08:28.920 of the Germanic and Celtic peoples.

00:08:31.900 I began making a list as I read,

00:08:34.180 and it wasn't long before I had a couple of sheets covered with scribbled notes.

00:08:38.280 I won't get bogged down in the minutia of these,

00:08:40.740 but some comparisons begged to be made.

00:08:44.040 To make the bulk of this material more easily accessible,

00:08:47.060 I've lumped my comments into some broad categories.

00:08:49.760 First of all, gods and goddesses.

00:08:54.040 The Celtic Lu and our own Othin are much the same.

00:08:59.180 Othin is father of the gods, keeper of two ravens, carries a magic spear, and has one eye.

00:09:06.420 Lu is first in the Celtic family of gods, is linked with ravens, carries the spear of victory,

00:09:12.920 and closes one eye when he performs fantastic deeds on the battlefield.

00:09:16.840 The Nordic Thor, whose name means thunderer, prizes his mighty hammer.

00:09:22.840 He rides about the heavens laughing in his red beard in a wagon pulled by supernatural goats.

00:09:28.840 Taranis of the Celts, whose name also means thunderer, drives a chariot behind sacred bulls.

00:09:35.840 He wields the thunderbolt, whose name in old Gaelic tongue derives from the same Indo-European root as the name of Thor's hammer, Mjolnir.

00:09:45.700 Tyrannus, too, is pictured as having a flowing red mane.

00:09:50.440 Tyr, as our tales tell, lost his hand binding Fenris the wolf.

00:09:55.340 He used to be the sky god, scholars say, until Odin took his place.

00:10:00.100 The Celtic Nuada lost his arm in battle against the Fomorians,

00:10:03.880 and so Lu, the Celtic equivalent of Odin, became leader of the gods.

00:10:08.040 In the domain of fertility and plenty, our own fray rules supreme among Asa folk,

00:10:14.840 One of his favorite beasts is the horse, which just happens to also be sacred to Doida, the good god, who is Frey's Celtic equivalent.

00:10:25.380 How about other characters described in our folklore?

00:10:28.880 Giants? The Celtics have them, just as Asafolk do. 1.00

00:10:32.740 They're called the Fomorians, and the Celtic gods battle mightily against them. 0.99

00:10:37.540 Moreover, the role they play is pretty much the same, representing the forces of inertia and entropy in the cosmos.

00:10:43.360 Valkyries find their reflection in the Morrigan, fierce goddesses of the battlefield who grant

00:10:51.020 victory, spin the fates of war, and serve the heroes in the afterlife. This twin aspect,

00:10:57.960 fiends of blood and death on the one hand, enticing lovers on the other, is found in both

00:11:03.040 cultures. Similarly, both Celtic and Germanic sagas tell of supernatural women warriors who

00:11:08.900 instruct and initiate the chosen heroes. Brynhild teaches Sigurd hidden magical lore. The female

00:11:15.980 chieftain Skathach, or Shadow, takes the Irish Kekulun under her care and makes him the warrior

00:11:21.920 he is destined to become. Sigurd and Kekulun are descended from Odin and Lu, respectively.

00:11:30.080 Consider the so-called lesser beings, the ones that seldom figure in myth and poetry,

00:11:34.320 but who make the life of the common man and woman more bearable.

00:11:38.260 The land spirits, for example, are alike in both cultures.

00:11:41.940 Elf lore and the connection of these whites to the ancestors 0.84

00:11:45.100 was recognizably the same to the ancient Teuton 0.96

00:11:48.260 and to his or her Celtic contemporaries.

00:11:52.760 How about religious lore and practices?

00:11:56.240 I referred to almost identical warrior paradises

00:12:00.300 in the scene which opened this article,

00:12:02.000 but the overlap between Celtic and Germanic lore goes far beyond this.

00:12:08.020 Bogs throughout northern Europe received sacrifices from Celt and German alike.

00:12:13.540 Weapons and armor captured in battle, food and beakers, miscellaneous items, 0.99

00:12:18.880 all were deposited in lakes and marshes in the same way,

00:12:22.580 to the point that we can't even tell which finds are German and which are Celtic.

00:12:28.200 When the Druids sacrificed to the gods in the old days,

00:12:32.000 The blood from an animal was sprinkled with a sprig of greenery on the assembled people so the divine energy inherent in the blood could be directly transferred to them.

00:12:42.000 In historical Alcetru, our forebears did exactly the same thing in the course of a sacrifice or blot.

00:12:48.000 Today, of course, modern practitioners of both religions use mead or other fermented fluid in this role.

00:12:57.000 Across the length and breadth of our European homeland, our ancestors honored the gods in the

00:13:01.880 open air, because we thought it inappropriate to shut them up into limiting, lessening structures

00:13:07.320 like the Christian churches. Similarly, in the earliest days, our representations of the gods 0.80

00:13:13.560 and goddesses were simple indeed, often carved from pieces of wood to which nature had already

00:13:19.320 given the basic shape, awaiting only a few refinements from human hands. These customs

00:13:25.160 accurately described Celts as well as Germans. Tribesmen of both groups used intoxicating drink

00:13:32.480 in religious ritual. Often this was mead, but it could be ale as well. And while we're considering

00:13:38.380 altered states of consciousness, let's remember the battle frenzy of the Odin-gripped warriors,

00:13:43.460 the Berserkers. In Old Ireland, the same warrior's madness was called the Farag.

00:13:48.740 Readers of the Norse stories will remember how Sigurd the Volsung killed the dragon Fafnir and roasted its heart.

00:13:57.280 When he burned his finger, he stuck it in his mouth and found that he could understand the speech of birds.

00:14:03.140 The Irish hero, Fergus, gained the same ability to understand bird talk when he singed his finger while cooking a salmon over a fire.

00:14:12.000 How about the overall map of the universe in their respective cultures?

00:14:16.140 When we look at the cosmology of both the Teutons and that of the Celts, we can't help but see the likeness.

00:14:22.140 Both have a giant tree, the center of the cosmos, and indeed the framework in which all the worlds are found. 0.91

00:14:28.140 To Ausofolk, it's Yggdrasil. The Celts call it Bile. 0.82

00:14:33.140 The other key component of the universe in ancient Germania was the Well of Weird, containing the deeds that make up the past.

00:14:40.140 Drinking from its waters gives wisdom, and Odin gave up one of his eyes for the privilege.

00:14:45.140 As it turns out, the Celts have an almost identical well. Hazelnuts fall into it where they are eaten by the salmon of wisdom.

00:14:54.140 In conclusion, a Viking of the 10th century would likely have felt comfortable in a Celtic ritual among the Gauls a thousand years earlier.

00:15:04.140 Celtic religion deviates from the so-called Asatru norm no more than do, for example, a priestess of Freyja in Iceland and a warrior pledged to Votan in Germany a thousand years earlier.

00:15:17.900 Indeed, one is inclined to say that there is only European religion and that the Germanic and the Celtic beliefs are two expressions of it.

00:15:28.340 So what are the implications of all this?

00:15:31.440 Well, it means that the Irishmen need not feel out of place calling on gods

00:15:35.660 which are more often associated with Norway's fjords than the Emerald Isles, Hills, and Valleys.

00:15:41.660 Ultimately, all of us North folk are kin.

00:15:45.040 As geneticist Brian Sykes has pointed out,

00:15:48.000 between 85 and 90% of the European genome is still derived from those hunter-gatherers

00:15:54.600 who migrated north with the receding glaciers.

00:15:57.520 The Celts, Germans, and the Slavs all split off from the Funnel Beaker people only about 5,500 years ago, a short time, relatively speaking.

00:16:09.120 We are genetic kin as well as spiritual kin.

00:16:14.060 Celtic-Germanic unity flies in the face of the sometimes heard assertions that, since Europeans often boast roots in different countries, were somehow of mixed ancestry.

00:16:26.380 How often have you heard someone say, I'm a Heinz 57 blend, part Irish, part Swedish, with some English and some German thrown in?

00:16:36.740 Clearly, that's not mixed at all, because the northern peoples are essentially one, in both their physical aspects and in their ancient religions.

00:16:47.800 We mustn't let people divide us on the basis of superficialities.

00:16:52.920 The catalogue of our similarities means we can use either culture to fill gaps in our

00:16:59.120 knowledge of the other.

00:17:01.100 As we reconstitute the tapestry of our ancient Asatru beliefs, there will be holes where

00:17:06.720 the moths of time and persecution have done their work.

00:17:10.980 But if we know the common pattern and how it's woven in the Celtic material, we can

00:17:15.800 patch holes in the Germanic culture with greater confidence.

00:17:21.600 The bottom line is this, despite our many distinct cultural features, as well as our

00:17:28.720 unique historical journeys of recent centuries, the diverse peoples of Europe remain in many

00:17:34.980 respects one.

00:17:37.100 This is especially true of the Germans and the Celts. 0.84

00:17:41.700 By all means, don't feel guilty about drinking your Guinness from a Viking drinking horn

00:17:48.040 or honoring your Celtic ancestors using Norse forms.

00:17:54.260 Whether you're Danish or Dutch, German or English,

00:17:58.100 Scottish or Swedish, the Asatru revival has a place for you.

00:18:03.540 You may be eclectic to Northern European, 0.57

00:18:06.680 but that doesn't make you a so-called mutt.

00:18:10.600 Your noble ancestors deserve a better description than that.

00:18:15.580 If you are ready to find your way home to the spiritual path of our forebears,

00:18:21.140 the Asatru Folk Assembly invites you to join our community.

00:18:25.820 Please visit our website at www.runestone.org,

00:18:32.240 read our Declaration of Purpose,

00:18:34.020 and if what you see there speaks to your soul, we're ready when you are.

00:18:40.340 Together, let us write the next chapter

00:18:43.140 in the history of the sons and daughters of Europe. 0.78

00:18:48.680 Only when we realize we are a river

00:18:51.360 will we stop drowning in puddles.

00:18:55.860 This is Steve McNallan of the Asatru Folk Assembly,

00:18:59.340 www.roomstone.org.

00:19:02.860 I'll be back next week.

00:19:09.460 We'll be right back.

Asatru Folk Assembly - March 03, 2021

Celts and Germans (2010)

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