Norse Mythology & Why Europeans Seek Ancestral Tradition - Alvi Gunilla
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Summary
Alvi Gunila is a Swedish YouTuber and YouTube vlogger who discusses all things related to Norse culture and mythology. In this episode, Alvi talks about the origins of the word "hello" and how it comes from Norse gods and goddesses.
Transcript
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welcome ladies and gentlemen i am lana thanks for joining us joining me from sweden is the
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lovely alvi gunila to discuss all things related to norse culture and mythology you are going to
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love it so welcome alvi thank you so much thanks for having me on i am very excited yeah i mean i
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really just came across some of your videos that you posted what is a few months ago i think you've
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been posting since just january of this year but i'm loving it i'm loving the vibe your delivery
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the things that you're talking about it is awesome so give us a little background to yourself and what
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inspired you to start making videos on norse folklore runes myths all of it yeah so i'm alvi
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gunila gunila is actually my riddle my middle name uh my surname is mcgrath because i have an irish
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grandfather actually but uh yes i am i began making uh videos on norse mythology and ancient history and
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so on because i i actually grew up in england uh my parents met there in england and decided to stay
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there for my childhood but i always felt quite disconnected from my heritage and felt that um
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even though england is great i just didn't feel very home there uh ever so uh i became extremely
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interested in scandinavia in general and being a spiritually interested person uh norse paganism was
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the obvious way forward an obvious interest that would come to me so i uh spent a lot of time
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researching about it uh too much time probably when i should have been out with friends
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and uh they're good no this is more important and then um and then when i moved to sweden three years
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ago i met a really great uh man you are who is now my fiance and he uh the best we just have the best
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yes yes he's as swedish as you can get his hair is basically white but he has uh arguably even
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stronger interests in um ancient scandinavian history than i do so it kind of snowballed from
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that and he said um he said to me uh alvi you have to use your gen z knowledge of technology to uh share
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this information with the world so um so that's how i began i began in january before that i was just
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posting some paintings i was doing but i posted my first reel in january and it uh exploded quite
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quickly that's awesome yeah one of the videos that we played one of the first ones i saw of you was
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the origins of the word hello which i think we should get into since it's the beginning of the show
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right so tell us about that yeah yeah so uh that that was one of the pieces of information that my
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fiance actually shared with me i didn't know this since before uh hello has very spiritual origins
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that not many many people know about uh it is um it means literally uh the whole uh so when you say
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hello or hi or in most indoeuropean countries they have a similar word ola for example uh it means that
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you want them to be whole uh to be in the good health um and also heil has the same origins uh so
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um uh i think that's just i think it's really beautiful that we have so many words and small
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pieces of the past in everyday things we say now that have existed for over a thousand years
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exactly we're just not even conscious of it we don't even think about that i mean i didn't really
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start thinking about it until you know early days of red ice when henrik was exploring you know where
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do words come from and the truth-seeking journey and it's like yeah we're not even taught to think
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about i mean especially as americans like where do these words come from just like the days of the
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week so let's get into that because some of the days of the week in english actually come from
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norse gods right yeah actually all of the days of the week however you know not many people know
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about this but uh most people know about uh friday uh the uh fly out there uh freya's dog uh most
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people know about this or like uh thursday thors is thursday but actually sunday which is the the
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first day of the week uh in ancient history uh is literally the day of the sun a celebration of the
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sun's return and in honor of the sun and uh monday is uh then the celebration of the moon instead uh
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monday in swedish the day of the moon so uh every single day of the week has uh pagan origins
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isn't that interesting it's it's never died out as i tell people oh paganism is dead no it's with us
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every day i mean the days of the week a lot of the planets a lot of the the philosophies i mean
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whether it's a norse pagan cultures we'll get into or graeco-roman civilization that this is really
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the uh the roots of western civilization right it's it's still with us the pagan gods and ideas are with
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us every day especially in in scandinavia it's just uh everywhere you go most of the the words are
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still uh um old norse words some have come from french and latin but still even in english i think
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it's something like a 25 percent of the most common words we use such as thing or give take someone
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are uh norse in origin yeah even england right you did a video on the pagan origins of england so tell
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us a little bit about that the angles a germanic tribe came from the angolan peninsula and then when
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they then moved to britain along with the saxons and the youths uh they uh went to go and to call it
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england which went on to england and they were having a uh their god that was their most uh that
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they were most devoted to is uh fray so uh this video was a little bit misunderstood by some people i
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explained it in a very over complicated way but uh england you could argue today is still uh under the
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patron uh patron god of fey nice so yeah so it comes it comes from the angles uh the the pagan
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angles gave name gave the name england that's so cool i love that i also had pulled up was it
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words that and this is kind of normie a normie website but still the 139 old norse words that
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invaded the english language right it says without the vikings english would be missing some pretty
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awesome words like berserk ugly muck skull knife die and cake and so i was going through some of
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these and i was like oh wow of course berserk we know you know she they're going berserk but even gun
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uh ransack which my middle name comes from also yeah oh your middle oh yeah yeah yeah that's right
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which is which is which means uh war war there you go war and hilder right battle so gun hilder war
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and battle of course that's going to come from the vikings you know but then there were other things
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in society and culture like bylaws and laws and skill and a lot of the times people think oh these
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are just you know brutes who didn't have any kind of order and couldn't do anything it didn't have any
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kind of uh organized you know civilization uh what can you say about that because i was looking at
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i mean modern democracy sucks but the vikings actually had a smaller better version of it
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i was just reading let me pull up a little passage here so how things worked in viking culture each
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meeting would involve a specific person who operated as a law speaker and was in charge of keeping mental
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track of all the previous legal precedents set by previous things there would also be a local
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chieftain who was responsible for helping make the final decision a dispute would then be brought
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forth and be heard in front of the entire community of freemen they would then get the chance to voice
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their opinion on the matter and unofficially cast their vote as to who they thought should be held
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liable for the trouble that had been caused so it was a smaller better local homogenous tribal version
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of democracy which everyone always loves more democracy but i think vikings actually had a good
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version of it right because if someone was causing trouble they could be um they could be kicked out
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they could be dealt with severely right yeah they had a really uh if we went back to the viking version
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of democracy i think it would solve a lot of things uh i am i really like the for example the direct
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democracy they have in switzerland and i think a lot of the problems with democracy now is that
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um we have one set of rules for millions of people how is that supposed to work how is it supposed to
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be that that those rules can just suit everyone and i think that's the difference of um the democracy
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they had in the viking times was first if um they called things when they get together and they talk
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about democracy and laws they were called going to the thing and uh then every every decision was
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decided by uh basically when they said okay should we vote for uh this thing uh and then maybe 10 people
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in the room say yeah and they say okay or we have this option and then 100 people say yeah and then
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that's how it's decided just whoever whichever side is uh more vocal and shouts louder and if then
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they're uh the leader that decides um no you've got bad ideas i'm going to go against that anyway and
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choose the other decision then they can be outlawed and that is a very big thing in viking society if
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you're outlawed because you are banished from society so you have to live completely alone and
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also it is completely legal to kill you so someone can just go out and kill you no consequences
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consequences good old days so uh yeah so this would okay i don't say that we should kill anyone but
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i think that this would solve all the problems if we just lived in smaller tribes and decisions were
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made for 100 people rather than millions of people yeah and it's it again it worked then too because
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you had ancestral connections you shared a dna you know you share history you share a culture whereas
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now multiculturalism all these people flooding in coming from all these different places different
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interests different religions different and we're supposed to all be united under this democracy
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like no way and everyone has a say all of a sudden no it's a nightmare it doesn't work yeah
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no it's just not working at all right now but i hope i hope that we'll find out a better way
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to make it work yes and i think talking about things like this is important just becoming tribal again
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right just thinking of your own just being ethnocentric i'm a full believer of going back to
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tribal communities yes there was another word that came up there's a couple other words i wanted to
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bring up here old norse words hell you know we always i always thought growing up you know christian
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that hell was a bad place i'm gonna burn in hell so what can you tell us about hell hell is actually
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the name of a goddess in norse mythology she is uh described as being half alive and half dead
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she is very similar to persephone uh you know she is uh uh she is the ruler of this uh the underworld the
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keeper of the dead and um uh she is uh not inherently good and not inherently bad uh and it also has the
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same uh roots as hello for example it can also mean uh whole yeah some other words here let me pull up
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ugly and happy and anger yeah anger comes from old norse happy i didn't know that
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ah but yeah i think it really shows that they are having the exact same mind that we are having now
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that they have every they saw things are ugly they were happy uh they they uh they were as civilized
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as we are now i believe i really believe they have the same emotions the same uh fears and love and
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everything it's uh really obvious when you go into the etymology like yeah they were human the same as
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us they were just raping and pillaging i mean that's what i grew up always hearing like in american
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you know history class like the only thing you learn about pagan or vikings is that they were just
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raping and pillaging that's it they wore these cool helmets turns out they didn't really wear those
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either right no no and unfortunately even a lot of popular media with vikings now for example i i
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really loved this series when i was younger but the vikings tv show shows a lot of uh just violence
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uh over the top violence and is kind of glorifying it also which i think is quite harmful to the view
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of the our pagan ancestors that they were okay with doing things such as burning children alive and
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uh but basically completely polyamorous all the time things like that it's just it's a real shame
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because a lot of people even i know believe that that is the way things were in the past yeah they
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weren't just when people hear the word pagan or heathen and i know these are our terms i want to ask
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your opinion on those terms but people have this view that's like oh they're just out in the the woods
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having orgies you know having these mushroom trips like all the time like that's all they did right
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yeah yeah there's uh uh definitely the stereotype that uh pagans have and it is much due to media and
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also uh as i mentioned i have respect for christianity but uh it has come a lot of this
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stereotypes from christianity actually from uh when christianity took over in europe that a lot of pagan
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traditions and the i the general view of pagans was very damaged uh because of course they are like
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we have this uh much better religion uh this these guys that came before they are they suck they're
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really bad they were doing awful things adultery murder so uh yeah it's it's uh still living on
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today but um hey i forgot i was looking at the words here freckles in english freckner so are you
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telling me uh vikings had freckles yeah i think i definitely i have freckles myself but uh it's
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interesting freckles actually are more common in england they are in sweden when i when i came to
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uh sweden i was surprised people oh why don't you have freckles and i was like oh yeah no one else
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no one else seems to have them but uh i guess it was maybe more common in the past i'm sure and then
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uh henrik you didn't know this one we mentioned ugly earlier but oh gligger and old norse i like
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that one i don't know it just really hits it oh gligger did you know it sounds offensive
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yeah it sounds bad it really sounds like it's harsh yeah i know i like it it hits hard you know
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so let's pull up your thread on beautiful old norse words we should still use now there's some
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beautiful words here let's start with this first one how do i say rocker rocker am i saying that
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correctly yeah good uh yeah that's uh all of these words i think are uh are really showing uh how deeply
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they thought in the past uh that these are words that we don't even have today which is showing that
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we actually have a slightly worse vocabulary in some ways than they were having and the other thing
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that i noticed it's just like the russian language is uh what i noticed with old norse it's very soulful
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it's very deep it's very mystical so i always hate when people say what is you know there's no
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spirituality in paganism or or you know the old ways or the old i'm like what so we'll get into that
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later but i want to read a few more of these okay you got to say the next one for me or log
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or log okay the deep etched fate of all beings woven long before birth and binding even the gods
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to its unseen threads i mean that's beautiful now where did you find these i think i think
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uh all of these i uh found i have a book that every time i have uh find something interesting i always
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write it down so i have a very thick book with all this information and now and i don't remember where
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i find all of it from but it's from a lot of uh a lot of years of just uh researching reading books
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listening to people uh that have the same interests as me talking to me uh things like that so i have
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a connection of a collection of favorite words that i have written down in that book i love it or log
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okay and what's the next one you got to say these for me oh you can't say hey third the radiant glow of
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honor a name for the untarnished spirit of those who live with integrity and dignity i mean am i
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going to remember this i think this one is this one is especially beautiful because it shows that
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uh they were having a lot of honor viking society was uh really based on honor um uh if you didn't
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have honor you could be banished from society and that is not a way that we are living now now you can
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do whatever basically and yeah you get away with it so it feels like it was a concept of honor is
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yeah it was an honor culture right and uh and i think that's why we're scandinavians high trust
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society also originates from and now that that's being taken advantage but yeah it's kind of
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paralleled with the japanese culture in that sense too of the honor culture and both cultures take off
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the shoes before they go inside right well as you yeah exactly it's a concept of uh uh doing things
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for others not expecting anything in return but you build up your honor and then if people if you
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have high honor people trust you more the more willing to do things for you i think uh this really
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works in small tribal societies where if money were to just stop existing for example that people just
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they just help each other out of kindness and honor that's rather than having to buy services
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all the time uh it's you know the new agers always talk about being an authentic person you know well
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that's what that was an honorable person is is a real person who lives up to their word who who is a
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a moral person as well someone that you can count on and look up to and this just again goes to prove
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that they did have a code of ethics and morals that they live by i mean we learned these things long
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before the bible like you don't lie cheat steal you know steal your friend's wife or whatever because
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you will get kicked out of the village and you will lose your honor right yeah exactly or people will
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just dislike you and leave you alone and then you have no one to help you in times of need yeah and
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then you can freeze in the winter yeah so what is what's the next one let's see
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louver i said louver it's so hard to see liver okay liver liver okay henrik how would you say this
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i know henrik's in the control room he's listening louver it says a word as soft oh it's soft a word
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as soft as a lover's whisper meaning dear cherished or deeply beloved by the heart it sounds like love
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obviously right yeah they probably have the same uh origins that makes sense the root and then let's
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see what's the next one huger huger an old norse belief huger represents the essence of a person their
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thoughts feelings and consciousness combined it's the inner self that perceives and experiences the
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world i mean this is like this is prototype new age thinking too right i mean like yeah spiritual
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transcendental yeah the new age spirituality is rediscovering basically what uh pagans were
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believing in a thousand years ago i i know that there is a lot of uh judgment for the the new age
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community uh myself also sometimes it's a bit silly but uh it is i really like this quote that
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we have forgotten more than we will ever know and uh it really feels like this is just uh uh
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rediscovering concepts that they already knew about in the past um we if you dig deep you see that we
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have explanations for every new age concept now there is explanations for it a thousand years ago in
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almost every culture i guess we could rename that old age then instead of new age right they're just uh
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taking some some parts of it but then they're leaving out the most important part which is
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the people right your folk that originated it came from your folks soul and spirit and mind and and
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their essence that gave birth to these ideas yeah and it's generally yeah that's why you see uh
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generally european people white people who like new age ideas i think they're it's there it it speaks
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to something in them right from something old yeah and i think it's a shame also that uh when for
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example scandinavians or people from the british isles that they usually look uh out elsewhere to
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find spiritual answers they look into which i i think i i also have uh uh respect for other uh for
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example hinduism there is a lot of similarities or buddhism for example but you don't have to
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you can take examples from them and influence from them but you don't have to look elsewhere when
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your ancestors have been having exactly the same insights and um if you dig deep into it then you
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will find that you can find all of that in your own land at home oh 100 percent all of it it's right
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and it drives me nuts when i see european people going to they're going to go to an ashram in india
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or the buddhist temple or some you know african thing or some ayahuasca trip when it's like it's right
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there on european soil whether it's slavic or celtic or or norse or you know greek like we have
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so much to pull from so so much amazing mythology and and quite frankly a lot of it has been ripped
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off and pulled and used in other cultures right yeah that definitely a lot of paganism has been
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taken for example basically every uh holiday that we celebrate now halloween christmas easter
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uh all of those are pagan holidays to begin with every single one of them and midsummer which we'll
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get into but i wanted to read a few more of these let's see eye gear the restless soul of the ocean an
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ancient giant who tides cradle ships and swallow them whole i like that one that one's pretty cool
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uh let's see yeah that's it yeah you like that one kind of like the idea of well that's kind of
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like water nymphs right and ocean gods and spirits and isn't there a serpent in norse mythology a water
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serpent yeah yoga mother yeah yeah he is uh he is the the child of loki uh we don't ask how that
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happens but he is the child of him anyway and he is uh the world serpent there is there is a lot
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in the norse mythology to do with the sea which makes sense because they were seafaring people
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so they were equally terrified of the sea as they were amazed by it yeah um so there is a lot of
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spirits and uh gods and goddesses in connection to the sea i love it it's so fun now this is a good
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quote you pulled up from the hava mall speak only when you know that your words are greater than
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silence and that's something that we definitely don't hear too today so what are your thoughts
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on this yeah this this is uh this was something that i uh feel very strongly about and when i saw
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this quote first in the hava mall i was thinking yes this is exactly what people nowadays need to hear
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it's uh uh nowadays it's so much just talk and talk and talk and making yourself seen making yourself
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hard without thinking very much before speaking um and uh we have created a society that it needs to
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be that way you know if you want to build yourself up career wise um if you want to uh just be popular
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have friends you have to just speak speak speak all the time and we've become quite bad at listening
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i think and listening is uh is uh uh is the most important thing because that's how you learn
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you don't add anything you don't uh gain anything from speaking you gain from listening
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yeah yeah there's a there's a time just to shut up but now everyone gets to be heard they're online
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they are you know instagram influencers and all this stuff but there's a lot of crap but you can find
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yeah i think yeah it's this it's a social media is a really uh double-edged sword it has really
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amazing things on there uh i've learned so much that i know from social media there's so many
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uh problems that otherwise would never be talked about if it wasn't for social media but also
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so much uh rubbish so much rubbish it's so much it's dangerous when just everybody can speak
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and uh everyone can be heard there are some people that yes maybe shouldn't be one thing i think of
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when i hear this from havamal is thinking before you speak and maybe not saying everything that
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comes to your minds kind of editing yourself a little bit um you know holding back a little bit
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having some self-control before you spew out all your thoughts and all your ideas on people right which
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is smart that's a smart thing yeah yeah exactly i think oversharing has become very common now
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there is you know you see posts online of people saying way too much information about themselves
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saying about their relationship problems and uh their if they're like in detail about their illnesses
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and things and it's uh uh some things should be kept yes exactly so let's talk about some of your
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favorite norse traditions what are those and then of course we'll get into midsummer if that's not
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your favorite norse tradition yeah uh well i would say that actually my favorite norse tradition would
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be easter uh because in the if if anyone who's lives in scandinavian or has been to scandinavia
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i think the most beautiful time here in scandinavia is spring it just is when it when the when the ice
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just melts away and it starts getting warm again like one of the few months that you actually have
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warmth and it's it's blooming everywhere a lot of people have the view of scandinavia that it's just
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kind of icy plains everywhere but it is extremely hot and beautiful and uh easter is the celebration
00:27:33.920
of the spring solstice when uh the sun is coming back and it's a really ancient uh tradition also
00:27:41.740
yeah i mean when i lived up there i loved it after the long dark winters it's like ah things are coming
00:27:48.540
it's even more special when you've endured the the cold long dark winter and you can really imagine
00:27:55.280
also a thousand years ago when they were just living in their uh wooden kind of uh simply built
00:28:03.800
houses and they had to just survive through the winter which many of them unfortunately didn't do
00:28:08.260
then when the snow starts melting the first flowers come it would have been you would have just been on
00:28:13.840
your knees praying this to the sun you know you can really see why so much uh norse paganism is sun
00:28:19.880
worship oh yeah when you survive this kind of navy in winter all about the season and also easter is
00:28:25.880
easter is connected to freya also uh the goddess freya uh so uh yeah yeah i just i think it's just
00:28:35.080
it's the most beautiful uh tradition so what do you think about uh christians borrowing from that
00:28:41.680
with the whole easter egg hunt and fertility aspect still being alive or the jesus story how that
00:28:47.440
connects do you have any thoughts on that yeah both eggs and the idea of bunnies or has come from
00:28:54.300
paganism actually uh they're both signs of fertility and uh i'm uh how i feel about christians uh borrowing
00:29:02.500
it i feel i feel i guess i feel glad that at least it's surviving in some way because uh we we don't know
00:29:11.000
it could possibly be that it would have died out completely unlikely but you know at least it's
00:29:15.420
surviving in some way and there is people uh like me and like others that are able to uh say remember
00:29:21.880
remember where this tradition comes from originally yeah you'll never kill the source ever so let's talk
00:29:27.380
about midsummer because that's coming up here it's literally around the corner and i saw you know
00:29:32.360
we're having a midsummer celebration and i saw the weather is going to be horrible which is very
00:29:37.940
unusual and henrik's like oh it'll be just like a swedish midsummer you take the table in you take
00:29:42.620
it out you take it in you take it anyways let's talk about what midsummer is yeah midsummer is a
00:29:50.420
pagan tradition that was always traditionally celebrated on the summer solstice now it's
00:29:55.960
celebrated on the closest friday to the summer solstice uh um but uh traditionally it was always on
00:30:01.660
summer solstice and it is a real celebration of uh the sun uh really because it's the the longest day
00:30:08.320
of the year which is in sweden extremely long it's still it's uh what is it's nearly nine o'clock uh in
00:30:15.200
the evening here now and it's still bright outside on a midsummer it's the longest day of the year and
00:30:19.580
then it is light all night here in sweden the entire night um and uh there is uh in in pagan times they
00:30:29.440
were doing things such as uh sacrifices uh to the gods but they would uh despite what people think
00:30:35.520
they would eat the animals afterwards so it's not like a sacrifice and then waste um and light bonfires
00:30:40.940
to resemble the sun and to honor the sun's energy and now midsummer uh in sweden has become uh a little
00:30:49.460
bit less uh serious it's become a lot of people have somewhat forgotten the origins it's a dancing around
00:30:56.300
the maypole which by the way the maypole is a phallus symbol it's a silver uh to show uh fertility
00:31:03.460
it's a fertility symbol so people dance around that and sing uh children songs and wear flower crowns
00:31:09.980
uh and drink a lot of schnapps uh too much schnapps mostly and um uh there is a tradition that some
00:31:19.260
people still do today which is you pick seven different wildflowers from around uh your house and
00:31:25.420
then you put them under your pillow on midsummer eve and then you're supposed to dream about your
00:31:29.960
future husband i love that that's beautiful so are you going to do some maple dances because we were
00:31:37.500
practicing some of those yesterday yeah yeah i will i will definitely be doing that i will be uh
00:31:43.740
uh going to my fiance's countryside house that his parents are owning and then the whole village that
00:31:50.040
gets together and we have the the bear maple and we tie branches and flowers to it and then we play
00:31:57.300
music as we are lifting it up and then for hours we are dancing around it and uh my fiance my fiance will
00:32:03.760
be playing nickel half of them also which is a traditional swedish instrument so it's really nice
00:32:08.640
to see it's a lot of uh families children everywhere uh it's it's the best time of year i think
00:32:16.460
yeah uh i have my fiance here so he can play a bit of nickel halfa quickly it's a very uh the most
00:32:23.220
traditional swedish instrument so he can play a quick song perfect i love it what a treat thank you so
00:32:28.360
much uh it's not very tuned probably uh this is very spontaneous but here's uh a song that was played
00:32:40.000
for the swedish king gustav the third when he was um traveling around sweden in the late 1700s being a
00:32:46.580
a prince and he was uh visiting different cities and the foundries and such around sweden his uh soon to
00:32:57.480
be kingdom and this was played for him by a nickelharpa player uh on love's debut in a traditional style
00:34:38.580
I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much. That really takes me back. I like it. Gets me in an old mood.
00:35:03.260
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening.
00:35:09.100
Well, that was beautiful and a nice unexpected surprise. So thank you for that. I think that's a perfect way to end part one here. Join us in the member section for part two. We're going to talk about what paganism is. Young people turning to Christianity. Americans remembering who they are and how also how Marvel movies are appropriating Norse gods. So join us in part two. We'll see you on the other side.
00:36:04.020
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We appreciate you all. We appreciate you all. We appreciate you so much. And our producers, Charles Turner Jr., Johansson, Leroy DeMond, Eyes Open, Single Action Army, Lord H.P. Lovecraft, Trevor, Der Schwab, Shane B., Alcyon, The Boo Man, and Aurelian.
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