00:01:05.040The 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.
00:01:17.920Sheila and I just got back from Jambamut, sponsored by Burt, an AFA member in Oregon, as a gathering open to anyone interested.
00:01:27.200Our own folk builders, Kat and Mike Burke, helped organize it, and we mobilized AFA members in the area to help support the event.
00:01:35.200Thorgren and Katie went up with us, so the newcomers there got a good picture not only of Ossetru, but also of the AFA.
00:01:44.680At 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.
00:01:56.420AFA members from all across the area showed up to share food and conversation.
00:02:02.020A few days earlier, Asatruer from eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including AFA members,
00:02:08.100met in an open event to honor the gods and goddesses near Pipersville, Pennsylvania.
00:02:14.420This coming weekend, the Northern California Asatru meetup gathers in Sacramento, California,
00:02:20.420and while it is not just for AFAers, the AFA does have a strong presence there,
00:02:25.460and you can usually find Sheila or myself attending.
00:02:29.440You can find out more about it on www.meetup.com.
00:04:41.080The 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.
00:04:57.100All of which leads me to our topic tonight, Celts and Germans.
00:05:03.560Many of us, even if we are entirely European in our heritage, are a mix of several nationalities.
00:05:09.520For example, I have German, Irish, English, and Scottish roots.
00:05:20.180Here is an article I wrote some years back that relates to that question.
00:05:26.300The chieftain towered over his seated warriors in the smoky hall.
00:05:31.320Clatter and chatter faded, and all eyes turned to this mustachioed muscular figure who was their leader.
00:05:37.860Raising 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.
00:05:49.720All shouted their approval, and another warrior rose to his feet, lofting his drinking horn and praising the name of the Thunderer.
00:05:59.100The 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,
00:06:06.820served by the maidens of battle from the meat of the ever-reborn swine.
00:06:21.400The word picture painted here is of a feast among their cousins, the Celts.
00:06:28.180The mythic and historical background just given applies to both these peoples.
00:06:33.780Like most of us, it wasn't news to me that the two main tribal groupings of
00:06:39.600ancient Europe had a lot in common. Both are part of the greater Indo-European
00:06:44.580family. Their mythology shares a common structure, the material aspects of their
00:06:49.860culture are much alike, and the general heroic worldview unites both Celt and
00:06:55.920German. But this, as it turns out, is only the beginning. The distinction we make
00:07:02.840today between these two branches of our kin arise in no small measure from the
00:07:07.880observations of Julius Caesar. Essentially, he declared the tribes on
00:07:12.200one side of the Rhine to be the Germans and those on the other to be Celts. In
00:07:17.420actuality, of course, it was not that simple. Scholars now think that some
00:07:21.680groups we once labeled German were really Celtic. Other tribes might have
00:07:26.000belonged to either classification because we don't know what language they spoke.
00:07:29.780The clear implication is that the physical artifacts they left behind were indistinguishable,
00:07:35.780and that language is the only definite marker between the two.
00:07:40.780Physical appearance is no clue, because the Roman commentators describe the Germanic peoples and the Celts in exactly the same terms.
00:07:48.780Both were tall, tending toward the blond, and lightly skinned.
00:07:53.780The word Teuton, by the way, is cognate with the Gaelic tuat, meaning people or tribe, which certainly points to a fundamental kinship.
00:08:03.440For me, the clincher came when I read Hilda Davidson's book, Myth and Symbols in Pagan Europe, published by Syracuse University Press in 1988.
00:08:14.400Significantly, it's subtitled Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions.
00:08:20.680Page after page and chapter after chapter,
00:08:24.580she documents the similarities between the mythology, folklore, and ritual
00:08:54.040The Celtic Lu and our own Othin are much the same.
00:08:59.180Othin is father of the gods, keeper of two ravens, carries a magic spear, and has one eye.
00:09:06.420Lu is first in the Celtic family of gods, is linked with ravens, carries the spear of victory,
00:09:12.920and closes one eye when he performs fantastic deeds on the battlefield.
00:09:16.840The Nordic Thor, whose name means thunderer, prizes his mighty hammer.
00:09:22.840He rides about the heavens laughing in his red beard in a wagon pulled by supernatural goats.
00:09:28.840Taranis of the Celts, whose name also means thunderer, drives a chariot behind sacred bulls.
00:09:35.840He wields the thunderbolt, whose name in old Gaelic tongue derives from the same Indo-European root as the name of Thor's hammer, Mjolnir.
00:09:45.700Tyrannus, too, is pictured as having a flowing red mane.
00:09:50.440Tyr, as our tales tell, lost his hand binding Fenris the wolf.
00:09:55.340He used to be the sky god, scholars say, until Odin took his place.
00:10:00.100The Celtic Nuada lost his arm in battle against the Fomorians,
00:10:03.880and so Lu, the Celtic equivalent of Odin, became leader of the gods.
00:10:08.040In the domain of fertility and plenty, our own fray rules supreme among Asa folk,
00:10:14.840One 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.
00:10:25.380How about other characters described in our folklore?
00:10:28.880Giants? The Celtics have them, just as Asafolk do.1.00
00:10:32.740They're called the Fomorians, and the Celtic gods battle mightily against them.0.99
00:10:37.540Moreover, the role they play is pretty much the same, representing the forces of inertia and entropy in the cosmos.
00:10:43.360Valkyries find their reflection in the Morrigan, fierce goddesses of the battlefield who grant
00:10:51.020victory, spin the fates of war, and serve the heroes in the afterlife. This twin aspect,
00:10:57.960fiends of blood and death on the one hand, enticing lovers on the other, is found in both
00:11:03.040cultures. Similarly, both Celtic and Germanic sagas tell of supernatural women warriors who
00:11:08.900instruct and initiate the chosen heroes. Brynhild teaches Sigurd hidden magical lore. The female
00:11:15.980chieftain Skathach, or Shadow, takes the Irish Kekulun under her care and makes him the warrior
00:11:21.920he is destined to become. Sigurd and Kekulun are descended from Odin and Lu, respectively.
00:11:30.080Consider the so-called lesser beings, the ones that seldom figure in myth and poetry,
00:11:34.320but who make the life of the common man and woman more bearable.
00:11:38.260The land spirits, for example, are alike in both cultures.
00:11:41.940Elf lore and the connection of these whites to the ancestors0.84
00:11:45.100was recognizably the same to the ancient Teuton0.96
00:11:48.260and to his or her Celtic contemporaries.
00:11:52.760How about religious lore and practices?
00:11:56.240I referred to almost identical warrior paradises
00:12:00.300in the scene which opened this article,
00:12:02.000but the overlap between Celtic and Germanic lore goes far beyond this.
00:12:08.020Bogs throughout northern Europe received sacrifices from Celt and German alike.
00:12:13.540Weapons and armor captured in battle, food and beakers, miscellaneous items,0.99
00:12:18.880all were deposited in lakes and marshes in the same way,
00:12:22.580to the point that we can't even tell which finds are German and which are Celtic.
00:12:28.200When the Druids sacrificed to the gods in the old days,
00:12:32.000The 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.
00:12:42.000In historical Alcetru, our forebears did exactly the same thing in the course of a sacrifice or blot.
00:12:48.000Today, of course, modern practitioners of both religions use mead or other fermented fluid in this role.
00:12:57.000Across the length and breadth of our European homeland, our ancestors honored the gods in the
00:13:01.880open air, because we thought it inappropriate to shut them up into limiting, lessening structures
00:13:07.320like the Christian churches. Similarly, in the earliest days, our representations of the gods0.80
00:13:13.560and goddesses were simple indeed, often carved from pieces of wood to which nature had already
00:13:19.320given the basic shape, awaiting only a few refinements from human hands. These customs
00:13:25.160accurately described Celts as well as Germans. Tribesmen of both groups used intoxicating drink
00:13:32.480in religious ritual. Often this was mead, but it could be ale as well. And while we're considering
00:13:38.380altered states of consciousness, let's remember the battle frenzy of the Odin-gripped warriors,
00:13:43.460the Berserkers. In Old Ireland, the same warrior's madness was called the Farag.
00:13:48.740Readers of the Norse stories will remember how Sigurd the Volsung killed the dragon Fafnir and roasted its heart.
00:13:57.280When he burned his finger, he stuck it in his mouth and found that he could understand the speech of birds.
00:14:03.140The Irish hero, Fergus, gained the same ability to understand bird talk when he singed his finger while cooking a salmon over a fire.
00:14:12.000How about the overall map of the universe in their respective cultures?
00:14:16.140When we look at the cosmology of both the Teutons and that of the Celts, we can't help but see the likeness.
00:14:22.140Both have a giant tree, the center of the cosmos, and indeed the framework in which all the worlds are found.0.91
00:14:28.140To Ausofolk, it's Yggdrasil. The Celts call it Bile.0.82
00:14:33.140The other key component of the universe in ancient Germania was the Well of Weird, containing the deeds that make up the past.
00:14:40.140Drinking from its waters gives wisdom, and Odin gave up one of his eyes for the privilege.
00:14:45.140As it turns out, the Celts have an almost identical well. Hazelnuts fall into it where they are eaten by the salmon of wisdom.
00:14:54.140In conclusion, a Viking of the 10th century would likely have felt comfortable in a Celtic ritual among the Gauls a thousand years earlier.
00:15:04.140Celtic 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.
00:15:17.900Indeed, one is inclined to say that there is only European religion and that the Germanic and the Celtic beliefs are two expressions of it.
00:15:28.340So what are the implications of all this?
00:15:31.440Well, it means that the Irishmen need not feel out of place calling on gods
00:15:35.660which are more often associated with Norway's fjords than the Emerald Isles, Hills, and Valleys.
00:15:41.660Ultimately, all of us North folk are kin.
00:15:45.040As geneticist Brian Sykes has pointed out,
00:15:48.000between 85 and 90% of the European genome is still derived from those hunter-gatherers
00:15:54.600who migrated north with the receding glaciers.
00:15:57.520The Celts, Germans, and the Slavs all split off from the Funnel Beaker people only about 5,500 years ago, a short time, relatively speaking.
00:16:09.120We are genetic kin as well as spiritual kin.
00:16:14.060Celtic-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.
00:16:26.380How often have you heard someone say, I'm a Heinz 57 blend, part Irish, part Swedish, with some English and some German thrown in?
00:16:36.740Clearly, that's not mixed at all, because the northern peoples are essentially one, in both their physical aspects and in their ancient religions.
00:16:47.800We mustn't let people divide us on the basis of superficialities.
00:16:52.920The catalogue of our similarities means we can use either culture to fill gaps in our