Asatru Folk Assembly - February 01, 2021


The Quest for the Hammer July 2007

Hosted by
Steve McNallen
Mentioned
Thor CastingWords Steve Steve McNallan Patrick Stewart Valhall
AFA Great Northwest Freyfaxi 2014 Twelve Days of Yule Day 10 December 2008

Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

125.2

Word count

948

Sentence count

41

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Steve McNallan has served in the U.S. Army National Guard for more than 30 years and is now employed in a juvenile detention center where he works with troubled youth. In addition to his work in Asatru over the years, he has been a classroom teacher, a corrections officer, and a freelance journalist.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords
00:00:30.000 Steve has served many years in the Army National Guard.
00:00:41.600 Steve is proud of his military service, and most who know him would agree that it has
00:00:45.760 largely shaped to the person he is today.
00:00:48.900 In addition to his work in Asatru over the years, he has been a classroom teacher, a
00:00:53.860 corrections officer, and a freelance journalist reporting from global hotspots.
00:00:58.700 Currently, he is employed in a juvenile detention center where he works with troubled youth.
00:01:04.220 Dear people, please give it up for Steve McNallan all the way from California.
00:01:09.440 A gift called for a gift.
00:01:11.100 And, of course, I have a gift to offer as a humble sacrifice for those who have made the larger sacrifice.
00:01:20.320 To Patrick Stewart and all the others who have fallen.
00:01:24.080 And the Valkyries on their steeds ride forth there through some battlefield where men fall fast.
00:01:31.200 Their horses fetlocked deep in blood they ride and pick out the bravest warriors from death
00:01:36.620 and take with them back at night to Valhall to glad the gods and feast in Odin's hall.
00:01:43.600 I'm Steve McNallan and I have an organization called the Al-Satru Folk Assembly. 0.89
00:01:47.720 also true for those of you who don't really follow such things too closely
00:01:53.080 is a native european belief that was practiced by our ancestors in ancient times
00:01:57.600 in central and northern europe
00:01:59.440 you may know it best in its scandinavian expression during the later viking age
00:02:04.820 but it's really much broader than that and much older than that
00:02:07.440 it was this belief that was carried to england by the anglo-saxons
00:02:12.820 where it laid the deepest roots for anglo-saxon common law
00:02:16.660 where it prepared the way for the institutions of liberty that we know today.
00:02:22.200 Representative government, limitations on the rights and the powers, rather, of authority.
00:02:29.380 It stood for the rights of freemen, the right to bear arms, and the rights of women.
00:02:35.920 And this heritage today we celebrate in its more modern manifestations of only a couple of hundred years ago
00:02:42.140 in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of the United States.
00:02:46.660 In 1972, the also true organization that I was heading at that time received official notification from the Internal Revenue Service that we were, in fact, a legitimate, authorized, no-kidding, 501c3 tax-exempt religious organization, therefore making us real.
00:03:07.980 That same year of 1972, I put on the uniform of a brand new second lieutenant infantry,
00:03:19.980 reported Fort Benning to begin my active duty tour.
00:03:23.980 Since that time, since that time, I've put in a total of 14 years, both active duty and reserve component,
00:03:30.980 National Guard actually wearing Army green.
00:03:34.980 And it is from these dual sets of credentials, more or less, that I come to you today with a proposition. And that proposition is simply that the symbol of our religion, the hammer of four, should be authorized and recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs for inclusion in the list of symbols that can go on the headstones of our fallen.
00:03:57.980 It's important to say perhaps just a little note or two
00:04:04.180 about Thor and his marvelous hammer
00:04:05.940 just as a reminder of the context of this
00:04:08.300 and why this is important.
00:04:11.120 Thor of all the northern deities
00:04:13.300 is the one most associated with strength,
00:04:16.340 with virility, with will to action,
00:04:19.460 and above all, with protection.
00:04:23.320 It is Thor with his hammer
00:04:25.380 that guards the realm of the gods
00:04:27.860 and the realms of us humans against the outside forces that would destroy the order and the
00:04:35.860 freedom and the peace that we have. Because of this very ancient association, Thor's hammer
00:04:42.560 rapidly attained a reputation, an aura if you will, of holiness, sacrality, of consecration,
00:04:50.560 of protection. Thor's hammer was used to bless the libations poured to the gods
00:04:57.560 and goddesses. Thor's hammer was used to bless the bride at weddings. Thor's
00:05:05.060 hammer was worn around the neck of those who followed the old ways. And about
00:05:14.060 About 1,500 years ago, we see the habit emerging of carving representations of Thor's hammer
00:05:24.060 into the massive stone monuments that guarded the graves of our fallen.
00:05:32.060 1,500 years ago. This is not a fad. This is not a new thing. This is not a recent development on the world scene.
00:05:44.060 And today, today in California, there is a modest rural cemetery, sits atop a knoll that is bedecked by oak trees.
00:05:59.060 And beneath those trees there is another monument, not 1500 years old, but just a few years old.
00:06:07.060 And it too bears the hammer sign.
00:06:12.060 And below that monument lies a Vietnam veteran,
00:06:17.060 paratrooper, recondo, proud,
00:06:22.060 and one of the finest human beings I ever had the honor of knowing.
00:06:27.060 So what we have here is again a genuine tradition.
00:06:31.060 1,500 years of tradition in which the Germanic peoples and those of us who follow the spiritual
00:06:38.900 path of the Germanic peoples have decorated the graves of our dead with the sign of Thor's hammer.
00:06:47.940 The hammer of Thor is not an option on the headstones of our veterans. We must make it so. 0.93
00:06:54.820 The ranks of Alcetru generally, and of the Alcetru folk assembly in particular,
00:06:59.540 contain a high percentage of veterans our values of honor courage and loyalty mesh well with
00:07:05.620 military service we are men and women who in life wear the hammer symbol around our necks
00:07:12.420 the hammer blesses our brides and our infants hallows our food and our offerings to the gods
00:07:18.260 should we not also be permitted to have it on our headstones guarding the remains of our holy dead
00:07:23.380 the quest for the hammer continues
00:07:26.820 to learn how you can help
00:07:29.060 please contact the
00:07:30.500 Alcatru Folk Assembly
00:07:31.740 at runestone.org