Asatru Folk Assembly - Temple Unearthed in Norway 2012

When an intact pre-Christian temple was unearthed in Norway recently, archaeologists were overwhelmed with comments like unique and unprecedented splashed across internet news pages. The clear intentions of the ancestors were ruthlessly betrayed for mere money. Who owns the past?Who owns the gods? Is there a right to bulldoze an ancient holy site in Norway, or in Ireland for profit?

00:00:00.000 This is Steve McNallan of the Ausatru Folk Assembly, bringing you the latest on the revival

00:00:10.220 of the ancestral faith of Northern Europe and the awakening of the European descended peoples

00:00:16.080 everywhere. Our gods and goddesses never went away. They are with us always, and now they stir

00:00:24.840 and we reclaim our spiritual birthright.

00:00:29.020 A glorious dawn awaits.

00:00:31.740 Hail our awakening.

00:00:33.800 Hail Asatru rising.

00:00:39.560 I was intrigued by a recent story in the news.

00:00:44.460 The site was old, dating from the 5th century.

00:00:49.440 A circle of stones 15 meters across and a meter high

00:00:53.720 provided a central focal point.

00:00:57.320 Leading up to the circle was a processional road

00:01:00.020 that had not felt a human foot for a thousand years.

00:01:04.760 To one side, there had been a wooden structure

00:01:07.240 supported by pillars,

00:01:08.800 but the wood had disappeared long ago.

00:01:12.260 The entire array had been carefully,

00:01:15.620 lovingly buried in peat,

00:01:17.680 preserved from plow and from weather,

00:01:20.520 deliberately hidden from those who would harm it,

00:01:23.420 awaiting the day it would be safe to once again honor the old gods.

00:01:30.200 Surely, those who covered it must have thought,

00:01:32.680 the Christian madness will someday pass,

00:01:35.940 and our descendants will be glad that we have saved this for them.

00:01:41.840 When an intact pre-Christian temple was unearthed in Norway recently,

00:01:46.880 archaeologists were overwhelmed.

00:01:49.320 Comments like unique and unprecedented

00:01:51.960 splashed across internet news pages.

00:01:54.840 But now it has been demolished,

00:01:58.460 bulldozed to make way for a housing development.

00:02:03.780 Could the pagans of old,

00:02:05.920 as they tenderly buried the holiest place they knew,

00:02:09.560 have imagined a world where gold was more important than God's?

00:02:14.020 Where their own descendants would destroy their temple

00:02:17.400 so that the profane houses of workers would forever crush that which they loved.

00:02:24.340 When the steel blade of the bulldozer bit into the sacred earth,

00:02:28.820 the present spat on the past.

00:02:32.580 The clear intentions of the ancestors were ruthlessly betrayed for mere money.

00:02:40.040 What would I have done had I been magically transported

00:02:44.040 to the site of that crucial moment of destruction?

00:02:47.400 Had I been the bulldozer driver, would I have refused and lost my job?

00:02:53.860 Yes, I think I would have done that.

00:02:56.560 Had I been a bystander, would I have risked prison, injury, possibly even death to stop the machine?

00:03:04.600 I hope so.

00:03:06.640 I am only a man, not a hero.

00:03:10.120 But sometimes being a man is enough, especially if that man is doing the right thing.

00:03:15.760 As the poet once wrote,

00:03:19.100 And how can man die better than facing fearful odds

00:03:22.620 for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?

00:03:28.320 Money has carried the day.

00:03:31.240 The site was presumably private property

00:03:33.500 being developed by a corporation for profit.

00:03:37.220 I have no objection to profit.

00:03:40.220 But who owns the past?

00:03:43.100 Who owns the ancestors?

00:03:45.760 Who owns the gods? Is there a right to bulldoze an ancient holy site in Norway, or, as has also been done, to level an ancient stone circle in Ireland for profit?

00:03:59.440 the most important things

00:04:02.680 cannot be owned by anyone

00:04:04.760 I do not own

00:04:06.800 my family name

00:04:08.180 I merely borrow it to pass

00:04:10.980 on with added honor hopefully

00:04:12.700 to my sons

00:04:13.920 I do not own the genetic

00:04:16.880 and cultural inheritance left me

00:04:18.920 by my forefathers and foremothers

00:04:20.880 this too I have only

00:04:22.880 borrowed from my ancestors

00:04:24.540 they are not

00:04:26.520 mine to destroy

00:04:28.440 one of the old rune poems says that gold causes strife among kinsmen the wolf grows up in the

00:04:38.520 woods so what does this cryptic verse mean anyone who has sat in a lawyer's office to attend the

00:04:46.920 reading of a will has seen this family members do battle with each other to get money and they hate

00:04:53.320 each other for the rest of their lives and the wolf in the poem he is none other

00:04:58.840 than Fenris the wolf restrained only by the bonds of love and kinship that we

00:05:04.480 forge with each other from generation to generation and across the centuries

00:05:12.080 when the wolf is loosed Ragnarok the great battle at the end of this cycle of

00:05:17.620 time can only follow. In Norway the wolf is loose, the gift of one's ancestors

00:05:26.740 passed on for a thousand years, thrown away for a pile of money. Not that all

00:05:34.120 Norwegians would have plowed the temple of their forefathers, and not that America

00:05:39.160 is any better. We too have sold, given away, our inheritance. Materialism,

00:05:46.680 narcissism, alienation, and superficiality permeate our popular culture. Our laws,

00:05:54.600 although based on ancient codes, are corrupted by judges. Every man's thoughts

00:06:00.540 and every woman's thoughts are now the property of the emerging surveillance

00:06:05.220 state. Truly, this is the time foreseen by the seerists in the ancient poem,

00:06:10.680 Wind age, wolf age, till the world falls.

00:06:17.680 The temple so lovingly preserved by Norwegians a thousand years ago emerged in this time and place for a reason.

00:06:28.180 Ours is the time of awakening.

00:06:31.440 Awakening, that is, if the gods of honor and valor can win against the gods of gold and whoredom.

00:06:39.100 if men and women will remember their ancestors, and if blood runs true.

00:06:46.360 Across the north lands the ravens stir in the trees, great chieftains await the call,

00:06:53.300 heroes strive to be reborn, but we, their descendants, no matter where on earth we now live,

00:07:00.700 must call them if they are to awaken.

00:07:06.540 I call them.

00:07:08.280 I call on Odin and Frigga,

00:07:11.500 Thor and Seif,

00:07:13.260 Frey and Freyja.

00:07:15.180 I call on the ancestors all holy

00:07:18.560 and the heroes who sleep in the mounds.

00:07:22.600 Let us remember that we are the sons and daughters

00:07:25.560 of warriors and poets,

00:07:27.720 mystics and seers,

00:07:29.080 adventurers and explorers. Even now the old gods stir. Organizations dedicated

00:07:37.720 to the indigenous faith of the Northlands, called Alsatru or simply Our Faith,

00:07:43.000 or by many other names, exist in many countries. Like the emergence of a

00:07:49.300 forgotten Norwegian Hoff in 2012, they are here because a wind of awakening

00:07:56.100 blows through the branches

00:07:57.760 of the world tree

00:07:59.060 because it is

00:08:02.120 time

00:08:02.720 we will chain the wolf

00:08:06.460 this is

00:08:10.240 Steve McNallan of the Asatru Folk

00:08:12.080 Assembly, thank you for listening with

00:08:14.100 us today and please tune in

00:08:16.000 to the next edition of

00:08:18.020 Asatru Rising

00:08:19.580 you can reach us at

00:08:22.020 our website www.

00:08:23.720 www.runestone.org

00:08:27.080 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - March 03, 2021

Temple Unearthed in Norway 2012

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