Wih, Halig, and Tiv

According to the Voluspa,

First there was YMIR (and so etinkind; unhallowed existence; UNHALIG)

Then there was BURI (and so divinity; the hallowing force; WIH).

Third there was MIDGARD (hallowed existence, holy Creation; the culture of Man; HALIG).

And finally there was ASGARD (the pinnacle of Creation; the temples, the idols, the sacrifice, the sacral hymns, etc.; Tio/Tiv).

I use the word tio (Old Norse tiv) in a broader sense than is (immediately) evident in the Germanic lore, and more in line with the use of its Sanskrit cognate deva, which refers to a shining/heavenly god or anything of excellence.

We might regard things that are tiv as Plato’s “Ideal Forms” and they are by no means limited to the Tivar in the Eddas where we find scattered but constant references to the best of this or that, eg. the best of hounds, the best of horses, the best of bridges, the best of swords, etc.

These things understood as existing “in the heavens” with the Vear; while we only know their less than perfect manifestations.

So, while the temporal and/or cultural manifestations of these “Ideal Forms” can change and even die, the “Ideal Form” itself, which again has its origins and is rooted in the “otherworld”, is forever untouched by either fire, flood, or sword. Like the archetypal swine or goat slain in sacrifice, the dead hero or king, the Ideal Form can always remanifest.

The king is dead! Long live the king!

The once and future.

You get the idea.

What dies at Ragnarok is not the gods. That is not even what the term Ragnarok means.

Ragnarok means the judgement (-rok) of the Regin (the gods, the great judges).

What dies at Ragnarok is Man’s faith, the bridge that links Man and God is shattered. And so the cultural forms of the gods begin to droop and wither, severed as they are from the hallowing force.

But the Ideal Forms, the Hallowing Ones (the Vear) remain. Set Apart. Untouched. Timeless.

New Blog

And now for something not really so different…

Welcome to the Ethnic American

Tiw and the Wolf

There is no creature more closely associated with death, destruction, and man-killing in Indo-European thought than the wolf/dog. So it is not at all surprising that we should find Tiw, whose best (surviving) association is martial in nature, so closely associated with the wolf.

According to the Prose Edda only Tiw was brave enough to feed the Fenriswulf (Wolf of the Fens), and so earned the by-name “Feeder of the Wolf“; which no more means, simply, that Tiw regularly poured out the kibble-and-bits then the poetic kenning “feed the ravens” meant that a warrior was going out to sit on a bench in the local park and scatter seed for the birds. In both cases the kenning is based upon observed behaviors of the raven and the wolf in relation to the battlefield, and their natures as carrion creatures, as eaters of the dead.

And so, as with “to feed the raven”, the notion of “feeding the wolf”, meant to engage in man-killing, to make war.

This is the function of the warrior and god of war… to kill the enemy, and to thereby feed both wolf and raven.

The same poeticism is — not surprisingly given the overtly poetic nature of our sources, not to mention the chief god of our pantheon — to be found in Tiw’s other by-name, the Leavings of the Wolf, which does not refer, simply, “to everything but Tiw’s hand (which the Wolf bit off)”, but rather to what is left of a man after the wolf of death, the wolf of the grave, has had its fill. These connotations to the Fenriswulf are clear and evident in his siblings (Hell, the Wyrm), whose birth and relation form the background of the “binding of the Fenriswulf” myth as we have it from Snorri.

And what is left of a man after the wolf of the grave has had its fill is spelt out throughout the heroic poetry of our ancestors, ie. the name undying, but perhaps most memorably represented in the most well-known of the Havamal verse, “Cattle die, kinsmen die, and so shall you yourself, but I know one thing that never dies, the praise of one’s worthy deeds.”

That the “Leavings of the Wolf” is a kenning for glory is seen in Snorri’s reference to the use of his name (Tyr) in reference to men of exceptional boldness (and wisdom), in its poetic use in praise of warrior-kings, and in its ancient usage as a general word for any deity individually, and of all the deities collectively.

The root of this word/name traces back to the same root that gave us various words for the sky and day, as well as the names of various (ahem) “skyfathers” (eg. Zeus) including the prototypical Skyfather (ie. Dyauspita). And so at the root of the notion of (ahem) “god” as manifest in the word tiv and its Indo-European cognates, and which distinguishes it from any of the host of other words that also “mean god”, such as the word god itself for example (but also regin, vear, aesir, etc.) is the notion of “heavenly radiance”.

The line between godhood, that is tiv-hood, and glory, is clearly a very fine matter in the lore. In Sanskrit, this same word (deva) can refer to anything of excellence.

So, warfare. And death and glory. But not necessarily glory, the achievement of excellence, in regards to war alone as the association with knowledge and wisdom might indicate.

However, in Tiw’s association with the wolf, which dates at least back to the Vendel period as evidenced in at least three of the bracteates of the era, we see nothing that is not paralleled in Woden’s Eddic relationship with the wolf. In the Griminsmal for example we read that Woden feeds his wolves great chunks of meat, but that he sustains himself on wine alone… the great chunks of meat referencing the bodies of the battle-slain while the wine (of memory and toasting) references the heroic glory of the battle-slain.

It is as much on this point — ie. the relation of both Tiw and Woden to the wolf and specifically to the Fenriswulf, and to warfare itself, — as in the P.I.E. roots and I-E associations of the name Tiw, that academics theorized that Tiw once occupied a higher position in the sphere of warfare and the pantheon in general.

By the same virtue, others have speculated that Tiw was just another name For Woden.

Ancestral Journeys: Religion and Belief in Colonial America

We often get a view of the early Americans as a very puritanical peoples, likened to the caricature of various fundie groups that most of us today might very well have “heard all about”, or seen in some movie or on tv, but few of us have ever actually met or been forced to live among.

Certainly there were some of those back then too of course.

Nevertheless, the age that carried the first Europeans to pioneer North America, was one of great religious upheaval, of the kind that produces extremes at ends both conservative and liberal. Early Protestant surveys of rural districts in Germany reported that the folk were entirely given over to “superstitious practices”, which were no doubt a folkish evolution of the same “Germanic Santeria” that their ancestors had been converted to centuries earlier. And we are certainly familiar with many of the folktales, charms, and customs of the English, which, were their origin was clearly not among the learned, can likewise be assumed to have been holdovers of earlier layers of beliefs (Danish, Norse, Anglo-Saxon) that were no less a part of their own “Anglo-Nordic Santeria” that their own ancestors were converted to centuries prior.

Thomas Morton, while seemingly more a rascal looking to flip off the his puritan neighbours than any kind of believer, erected the first May Pole in North America in the 1630s. The early German settlers of Pennsylvania brought their “Germanic Santeria” with them from the old country, with the German edition of the tome “Long Lost Friend” by John George Hohman’s seeing first publication in 1820. Within a decade of that came the birth of Mormonism, with its highly mystical origins, and the known use of “folk magic” by its founder Joseph Smith. Indeed, by 1897 roughly 14% of the U.S.A.’s 72 million citizens, which is slightly more than 10 million people were reckoned “Spiritualists” with strong beliefs in the spirits of the dead and the ability of some to commune with them!

Not exactly a community of religious prudes, taken as a whole of course.

Indeed, my own ancestor, Edward Dimond, was born 1641, some 51 year before the Salem with hysteria of 1692, and just a short jaunt down the road from Salem in Marblehead, where he came to be renowned as the “Wizard of Marblehead”. It is said that he could often be found wandering among the graveyard at night and muttering to himself. Nevertheless, he was beloved by (most of) the folk, whatever else anyone else might have thought of him, for his bewitching of petty criminals and the magical assistance he reportedly lent to sailors in trouble at sea.

While the hysteria of 1692 did not turn a blind eye to Marblehead, it nevertheless left the Wizard untouched.

Speaking of “religious hysteria”: while 1692 was clearly hysterical and boasted 185 out of the total 308 witchcraft trials that took place in British North America since 1642, it nevertheless witnessed a mere 19 convictions resulting in death. In contrast the remaining 123 witch trials witnessed 37 convictions leading to death. In other words the case of the Salem witch-hunts as a gross, religion-driven travesty of justice, and Anglo-America as religiously intolerant to the core, is profoundly over-stated.

We might also keep in mind that it is not only the accusation of malevolent witchcraft that is (potentially) malicious, but also at times its practice; as our preChristian ancestors very well knew themselves. In fact, one need but look over at present day Africa to see the gross indecencies engaged in both to combat witchcraft, but also in observance of it.

They were not a bunch of promiscuous goddess worshipping college girls back then after all.

My great grandmother, Eva Lott, her great-great-great-great grandfather, was Edward Dimond Junior. He was baptized in 1687 and (formally) adopted into the Dimond kindred ten years after the end of (the brutal) Metacom’s War (1677). He was, either in whole or in part — ie. Edward Dimond Sr. “might only” be a spiritual ancestor — of the Naumkeag-Wampanoag population based upon the best available (DNA) evidence. Whatever the case, and to the point, his brother was Aholiab Dimond, who was himself the father of the famous 18th century Anglo-American seeress Moll (Dimond) Pitcher.

Moll was a classic Anglo-Nordic seeress of the caliber of Veleda as mentioned in Tacitus’ 1st century AD work Germania. Her gifts were not only sought after and praised among the common folk, but also by the wealthy and powerful, and it is said that not a ship would leave harbour without first receiving the blessing of her visions. She was in fact so renowned that nobles from Europe also sought her out for her gift of prophecy. And it is even said that George Washinton once visited her and that she prophecized his victory over the Crown.

She gives us a pretty good indication of the Christianity of Anglo-American culture at the time of the American Revolution, and the type of Christianity the Anglo-American Loyalist carried with them into what would become Upper Canada; where even a Mohawk who had chosen to remain “pagan” could nevertheless be described as pious by learned men of no more than a century later.

Here it is probably also worth noting that the Canadas only had between 4 (certainly) to 6 (possibly) Episcopalian minsters at work within it prior to 1791; when the fire-and-brimstone, saddle-minster, William Losse (of New York) began riding the newly formed and formally endorsed “Kingston circuit” through the lands of my Loyalist ancestors.

By 1817, the British Wesleyans began to arrive from the Maritimes, and by 1833 both branches of Methodism re-converged in the “Wesleyan Methodist Church”.

The Catholic Church wouldn’t establish itself west of Kingston, Ontario until the 1820s.

“In the early colonial period, religious resources had been either non-existent or very scarce. For many early pioneers, any church, sect or clergyman was often better than nothing at all.” — Religion, UpperCanadaVillage. com

As late as the 1810s, baptismal records show grown adults and entire families coming forward for baptism, just to give one an idea of scarcity of “formal religious resources” in the region at that early time.

It is from out of this culturo-religious soil that our Heathenry as Anglo-Americans began to slowly reassert itself. As it continues to do on into this day. And without a single drop of blood shed at that.

Thoughts and Ponderances on the thrall…

The thrall…

According to the mythic ideals found within the Rigsthula, the thrall caste of the elder hierarchy were representative, not only of the lowest rung in the tribal hierarchy as is often spoken of, but also of the first generation of men, Hence, the mean and dirty Thrall is the issue of parents whose names translate as “Great Grandmother” and “Great Grandfather”. The poem further relates how the god Heimdal — whose name directly translates to Brightness of the Home and implies the fire of the hearth and its own full range of connotations — visited the humble dwelling of Great Grandmother and Great Grandfather, where he graciously received their crude and simple hospitality. And of how nine months later Great Grandmother gave birth to a lad who was sprinkled with water and named Thrall. According to the poem Thrall and his issue “established the yard” (lögðu garða), and are attributed the qualities of a simple, but otherwise physically strong and fundamentally capable, self-sufficient folk accustomed to hard work and rude pleasures. The poem also quite clearly implies that they were both hospitable (within their means) and properly pious. Hence the manifestation of the spirit of kinship among them. Hence the sprinkling with water at birth; which is an ancient birth/naming/acceptance custom that long precedes the coming of Christianity to NW Europe.

And this picture of the thrall is not remarkably different than that painted in Tacitus’ 1st AD Roman survey of Germanic society where we read,

“Thralls in general do not have particular duties about the house and estate allotted to them, as our slaves do. Each has control of a holding and home of his own. The owner demands from him a stated quantity of grain, live-stock, or cloth, as he would from a tenant. To this extent the slave is under an obligation of service; but… To flog a thrall, or to punish him by imprisonment and hard labour, is very unusual“

A wise thew that last bit, in a hierarchical society in which every one was subject to someone, even if only to the community as a whole and its divine progenitor, and so not surprisingly found reflected in the nature of the Thing system. As we read in Tacitus’ work once again,

“Execution, imprisonment, even flogging, are allowed to none but the priests, and are not inflicted merely as punishments or on the commanders’ orders, but as it were in obedience to the will of the god…”

Getting back to the Rigsthula and its inter-generational (ie. not simply hierarchical) nature; as it proceeds we find that it is Grandmother and Grandfather, with the spirit of Heimdal between them, that give issue to Churl (Freeman), while it is Father and Mother that give birth to Earl (noble). And it is only to his latter, Earl, the mortal vessel most fit to receive and bequeath his divine blessings on the whole community, that Heimdal directly returns, first to test, and then to foster as his own.

Indeed, while Heimdal does again return to the first generation of Earl’s offspring, it is only to one of them. At it is to the last born at that, and all that implies regarding succession and worthiness. This lad is named Kon, called Kon the Younger, which, in keeping with the hierarchical theme of the poem, is word play on the Old Norse word konungr, which is cognate to the Old English cyning, from whence we get the modern word king. The word carries the technical meaning of “offshoot of (-ing) the related people (cynne, kin)” and perhaps even carries the implications of “Ing of the Kin”, ie. the embodiment of the god Ingui-Frey.

And yet, for all of what might be perceived as “preferential treatment” of Earl and King by Heimdal, we find the Eddic poem Voluspa opening with a call for attention to “all of Heimdal’s holy children, both high and low”, which we know from the Rigsthula includes the caste of thralls.

Thralls were not wretches, as they often regarded by modern Asatruar. Much less were they despicable nithings. At worst they were characteristically luckless in one manner or another (or many), but no less definitively then any other of the offspring of Mannus.

Of the upbringing of the various castes that made up preChristian Germanic society, Tacitus once again relates,

“In every home the children go naked and dirty, and develop that strength of limb and tall stature which excite our admiration. Every mother feeds her child at the breast and does not depute the task to maids or nurses. The young master is not distinguished from the slave by any pampering in his upbringing. They live together among the same flocks and on the same earthen floor, until maturity sets apart the free and the spirit of valour claims them as her own.“

And this is how life remained for much of the folk, under most usual circumstances; working and living and facing life’s challenges together. And even as far back as Tacitus, it was a dynamic hierarchy, in which the caste of one’s birth vouchesafed nothing, and the potential of the individual, as a child of Mannus, was given its due. A thrall could rise out of his caste, a churl could fall into thralldom, and being the first born of the reigning king was no safe assurance that you yourself would one day be king.

“A king’s son, an uppity thrall…”, after all.

While the Germanic peoples had been exposed to the international slave trade network since at least the time of Tacitus, and came to take part in it and fall under its dehumanizing influence no less than the “heathen savages” of Africa or the Americas — who likewise observed their own native forms of “slavery” — it is nevertheless worth noting that on the eve of the Norman Conquest that the thrall population of Anglo-Nordic England is reckoned to have been about 10% of the total population. Statistically this means that only one in ten Englishmen were slave-owners at the time; though in reality Anglo-Nordic dwellings were not defined by single person dwellings and slave populations would have been concentrated among the most affluent. Suffice it to say that the English have never characteristically been a race of slave-owners, and that our native culture was conducive to the maintenance of the humanity of the thrall, and so the overall health and integrity of the community.

A thrall, while characteristically humble of means and perhaps even ability, perhaps best defined once again as lacking luck in life, was nevertheless (and as a general characteristic once again) self-sufficient and quite capable under most circumstances of providing for themselves at a subsistence level.

In contrast, take your typical modern Westerner, high or low, no matter their religion or atheism, put them in a time machine and send them back to 7th century England or 1st century Germania… and thralls wouldn’t remain the lowest rung in society for very long.

Ancestral Journeys: The Black Loyalists, Canada, and the Specter of Racism

Following the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 (Treaty of Paris) some 40,000+ British Loyalists withdrew from the newly formed United States of America to settle in various parts of the British Province of Quebec and the Colony of Nova Scotia.

Among their numbers were some 3,000 Afro-American Loyalists.

These settled primarily in Nova Scotia.

You might have heard of them within the context of the modern political narrative; of their unfair and/or inadequate treatment by the Crown; of the race riots that took place in Nova Scotia between the Loyalists; and of their subsequent petitioning of a rough third of those black Loyalists to the Crown for resettlement in some more hospitable climes. This petition was acknowledged and granted, resulting in the founding of Freetown, Sierra Leone in West Africa.

We hear much less of course of the stress, the hardships, the suffering and frustration, that all of the Loyalists were under those first couple of years; already disheartened (to say the least) at having come up on the losing side of the war. And thus being forced to abandon the lands of their birth and upbringing, along with most if not all of their worldly possessions. And then to be effectively dropped in the middle of the vast North American wilderness, to watch one’s loved ones go hungry when the promised rations did not come in, and then to meet with typical government ineptitude and inefficiency in the surveying and assigning of land.

Naturally, people were a little bit stressed. And so things got out a little out of hand. At least here and there.  And on an occasion or two. With both sub-groups of Loyalists giving and receiving their collective lumps.

These things can happen among men; who can afterwards be men about it.

We also don’t hear too much today about how the 2,000 odd Afro-American Loyalists that remained in British North America fared after the departure of the fellows for Sierra Leone. You know, once order was brought to the chaos, foundation established, and folks settled into the patterns of their new lives and homelands. On this point the site blackloyalist.com states,

“Economically, the Black Community’s position showed improvement within the decade. Many Blacks completed their indenture terms and more Blacks working as apprentices began to qualify for trades. By 1812, employers could not find enough Blacks to fill available work and wages rose accordingly. During the war of 1812, Blacks volunteered in militia and formed three separate Black Corps.“

Now, as a descendant of the District of Mecklenburg Loyalists, I was a little taken aback by some of the complaints made, by people today I must assume, regarding the treatment of the black Loyalists. After all, we white Loyalists were also settled along ethnic and religious lines. We also starved the first few years. Some of us also left. We were also sent essential equipment that was entirely inadequate. In the case of some of us, receiving hatchets rather than proper axes as part of our initial supplies, with land needing clearing, cabins needing building, and winter quite literally coming. We also had to wait on surveys and deal with bungles, while the officers got better and more land. Some of us got lots (of land) that were basically useless. And we were also, particularly us Bay of Quinte folk, about as far as you could get outside of the established supply chain and still be considered part of it, ie. up two weeks (wilderness) travel, round trip.

We all had it hard.

But what really struck me from the quote above was the mention of trades, employers, and wages!

Seriously???

We didn’t have those things in 1812 Hastings county.

Maybe they had them in Kingston.

In fact, many of us fell into illiteracy for a generation or two, as we put our nose to the grind of simple survival and working toward the kind of prosperity that, in due time, ushers in things like trades, jobs, wages, and literacy. We bartered in labour with our neighbours and newcomers, and being so inconveniently situated in the supply chain, we were regularly low-balled by the merchants when we brought our produce to market; which is something I hear we made up for during the War of 1812.

But the point is that once we made it through the hard years, that were hard on all of us Loyalists, those that remained got our feet on the ground, settled and prospered.

While Afro-Americans are a rare sight in the historical records of the Bay of Quinte region (aka the District of Mecklenburg), they do appear here and there, and in much the same manner and capacity as most any other person in the region; being named in the censuses, being baptized, getting married, etc. As for Afro-American slaves, they simply were not a significant thing, as such, among us. It is said that Major Vanalstine brought some up with him after the war, but by 1793 the Act Against Slavery was passed in the second legislative assembly of Upper Canada, effectively Anglo-Canada, which prohibited the introduction of any more slaves into the colony, required that any existing offspring born to a slave woman be released upon reaching the age of 25 years, and even forbade voluntary submission to the state of slavery. And of course by 1834 the British parliament passed its Slavery Abolition Act which effectively brought an end to the institution within the British Empire.

And note here that slavery was a default institution found in all human societies; European, Asian, African, American, no matter. And it was the English that abolished it. Not the Coast Salish or Bantu peoples. Not the Jews or the Arabs or the Chinese. And for that matter, not the Greeks or the French or the Germans. Or even the Danes.

The English abolished slavery.

Everyone followed in our footsteps. Or in the case of the Arabs and of modern Africans themselves, they didn’t follow in our footsteps and slavery is still practiced in those regions today.

And I say this all with the grudging addition that the decision was inspired in no small part by Christian principles and long-standing Christian tradition; though we were hardly the only nation in the world to have been Christian at the time. Or Germanic for that matter!

And moreover, it came at monumental expense to us. And not simply in economic terms, but in pure flesh and blood human terms as well.

And from there, it was all downhill, with Canada’s Afro-American communities growing strong, stable, and self-sufficient, able to boast their own achievers and achievements, on through Confederation and into the 20th century. And this has left the authors of racial division having to stray off into immigration policy by this point  in order to build even the semblance of an argument for “Canadian racism” and all the word “racist” implies (or at least used to) to your average Anglo-Canadian of the 20th and 21st centuries.

While a 1911 declaration by Wilfred Laurier placed the immigration of any “negros” into the country on moratorium, this was largely because the Eastern Europeans, as a result of native climate, culture, and associated breeding, were deemed more fit to the task of developing the cold, windswept lands of the Canadian prairies. And of course within a decade a wave of “negro” immigration began to roll in from the Caribbeans all the same.

In fact, over the next 100 years to present, Canada has received over 800,000 black immigrants; with Jamaica and Haiti being its main sources, both overall and early on, and African countries coming more into vogue over the last few of decades.

Presently, less than 9% of the Afro-Canadian population is comprised of native Loyalists and other pioneering Afro-Americans of the late 18th and 19th centuries.

A full 91% of Canada’s Afro-Canadian population (1.2 million) is comprised of first or second generation immigrants; which will be the case for 50% of all Canadians by 2036 and, with the goal of hitting population 100 million by 2100, shall (ahem) “define” Canada by the end of the century.

Which brings us back around to the prevailing narrative that Canada is “racist to the core”.

Quite simply, while Canada is by no means perfect, as the prevailing political situation makes abundantly evident, the mere suggestion that it is racist, and specifically racist against black people, is entirely laughable and completely unfounded outside of isolated minutia and statistical games of smoke and mirrors. Not to diminish any tragedies any specific families or individuals might have actually suffer, or to turn a blind eye to honest statistics and/or specific incidences that should gives us all cause for concern, but the fact that horrible things happen in Canada, even for horrible reasons, is not evidence that Canada is thus a horrible country.

Over 800,000 black people did not chose to immigrate to Canada throughout its history to date because it is a horrible country that treats blacks poorly. Unless of course we are to assume that they were all incapable of making intelligent decisions? In fact, when compared to such black dominant, black policed, black ruled countries as Jamaica or Haiti, or even the “Rainbow Nation” itself (South Africa), a black person still enjoys more far more freedom from violence and oppression, along with a general higher standard of living and availability of opportunity here in Canada.

While I cannot find information on the homicide rate of Afro-Canadians in specific, it seems fair to assume that it is below the 4.22 (per 100,000) reported for First Nations women in 2017. Using that as our (admittedly questionable) number, this would still rank Canada as a statistically safer country to be black in than 33 out of the 54 odd countries that make up the vast continent of Africa. And of those 21 “safer” countries we find a motley assortment of predominantly Arab-Berber (ie. not black) North African countries, British ruled countries, happily small and homogeneous countries, and others that more than make up for their low homicide rates with state corruption and blatant violations of human rights.

Of the 18 African and Caribbean countries that Canada has actually drawn significant numbers (ie. 10,000+) of immigrants from, only four have lower homicide rates than the above number assumed for blacks in Canada, and they are themselves otherwise characterized by a dominant Arab-Berber demographic, and/or by wide-spread corruption and gross human rights violations. The other 14 range from somewhat more dangerous to much more dangerous, to the excessively more dangerous of Jamaica (murder rate 43.85 in 2018) and South Africa (murder rate 36.4 in 2018).

But speaking of Africa, remember those Loyalists that left British North America to found Freetown? Well, getting back to them and things we don’t hear too much about, we don’t hear too much about how they fared in their new African home. We hear virtually nothing for instance about how the black Loyalists were greeted upon arrival by lethal attacks from the indigenous (black) population of the region. But really, feel free to look into the history of Freetown yourself if you’re so inclined, and beyond citing its seemingly modest homicide rate of 1.71 in 2015, I’ll leave it at this quote from the site statecrime.org and its article Introducing State Crime in Sierra Leone,

“…long before the conflict (civil war), Sierra Leone had a history of corrupt regimes, the violent suppression of civil society, and state sponsored theft of national resources… Since the end of the conflict Sierra Leone has been regularly highlighted for acute levels of poverty and high rates of corruption. With a high infant mortality rate, a low life expectancy, and overwhelming unemployment, only in 2009 was Sierra Leone elevated from the bottom of the Human Development Index… according to the World Bank governance indicators, unemployment is increasing, while control of corruption and government effectiveness have been steadily decreasing since 2003. This is despite the creation of an Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) that is tasked with monitoring and stamping out corruption… in recent years there has been an alarming trend towards ethnic based violence.“

So, while Canada cannot be said to be without racism, because no country can, a few things are clearly in view for the astute (and not so astute) observer to plainly see. First and foremost, that far from being racist against blacks, Canada is, by any holistic standard, one of the best places in the world for a black man, and especially a black woman, to live. And two, that if significant racism does exist in Canada, most poignantly of the state endorsed variety, it exists against both First Nations and Founding Nations; the former of whom are due to be dealt with separately as the unique case they are, and latter of whom are experiencing it straight across the West, within their own ethnic homelands, and in direct contravention of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The UNRIP conveniently redefines the word indigenous to purposefully exclude ethnic Europeans in Europe. And this despite the fact that even the Anglo-Saxons for example have been in the British Isles for considerably longer than,say, the Thule-Inuit have been in the Canadian arctic, while the Normans have been in the British Isles themselves for considerably longer than the Bantu have been in South Africa. And finally, it is obvious that if racism is Canada’s biggest problem, then there are clearly exponentially bigger problems a country can have than “racism”.

Such as “whatever it is” that results in a homicide rate of 30+ for example or leads the world in child rape!

Not to in any way imply, as I trust is evident from my various blog entries here, any kind of blind faith in the state. Including the state of Canada. As a 21st century man of Anglo-Nordic heritage I don’t need to be told, by any one, about the dangers of an overweening and self-entitled state; much less by those marching in full goosestep to the beat of the prevailing doctrine of the (globalist) state. Our history as Anglo-Nordic peoples with the state goes way back. And even in the earliest of preChristian times a delicate balance of power existed between our proto-state/s and the folk; in which authority led more by respect born from example and less by command/power; in which the folk sat down at assembly armed; where, outside of the most extreme of crimes, the law was largely civil and fine-based; and where in the words of Tacitus, “good habits are (here) more effectual than good laws elsewhere“.

There is of course no wishing the “wolf of the state” out of existence. That genie has long since been let out of the bottle, and there is a world full of competing states, along with a host of wouldbe warlords, all mouths agape, that would promptly step in to fill any power vacuum left by its absence.  And indeed the wolf of the state is not without its objective virtues; even if they have generally tended to come via serendipity, required a heck of a lot of work and foresight, and violence and hardship, to beat into an moderately acceptable shape, and always carries with it a host of inherent dangers and evils that must constantly be watched and held to account lest it over-step its bounds and begin devouring its charges and contravening its very reason to exist.

We Anglo-Nordic folk are no strangers to historical injustices perpetuated against us by the state, and particularly by the elitist imperial/colonial/globalist state, from whose standpoint we Celto-Germanic peoples were among the first in a very long and very ethno-culturally diverse line/web of “savages” who “needed” to be civilized by any means necessary.

No, no.

I’m a pro-gun, small state, honest celebrant of true diversity kinda guy.  With an inherent, but nevertheless healthy mistrust of the state; so necessary to capitalize, in human currency, on the state’s functional value in the face of the greater world.

The abuse of power, the excessive use of force by the state on its citizens is everyones concern. The seriousness and ramifications of such affronts are done a grave disservice in the racialization of the issue, in which the BLM rhetoric regarding “standing as allies” against it involves, as requisite, that one condemn not only themselves, but their ancestors, and even their new born children as over-privileged, hate filled racists. And, well, that isn’t going to happen. And personally, that is the exact opposite direction that the current of my life has been carrying me, and the exact same direction the current of history has been carrying my folk (and yours) along in for almost 1400 years now.  And that kind of divisiveness from BLM and its ilk, in the face of such a serious and all-inclusive affront, is exactly what the wouldbe tyrant ordered.

If these types truly cared one wit about black lives, they wouldn’t be preaching to the converted about the value of life, muchless making mass generalizations based on skin tone. They would be carrying their message and directing their resources to where they are truly necessary; namely, the black populations of such places as Toronto, Chicago, and South Africa, as well as the snake-oil politicians, entertainment moguls, and social justice fanatics that promote thug-culture, attribute the characteristics of success and failure to skin colour, and sow the seeds of hatred and division both within racial groups and among we, the people.

“A king’s son… an uppity thrall… none should be so trusting as to trust in these.”

— the Havamal

Ancestral Journeys: Canadian Heathen

Over the past couple of decades or so I have increasingly stressed the importance of ancestral continuity and the, one might say blindingly self-evident reality that our folk did not cease to be with the conversion of the last king and the introduction of the diluting influence of “the Church”. Those first generation Christians are as much a part of our ancestry and ancestral legacy, indeed, as much a part of our identity, as the last generation among the parents or grandparents of us modern day Anglo-Nordic Heathens; ancestry and kin being a biological reality and not at all the social construct that many modern heathens, even on the Folkish side ironically enough, insist that it is.

Those historical Christians are our ancestors. They are not another tribe or folk. And their stories, both collectively and individually, are just as relevant to us, as modern folk of Anglo-Nordic belief, as those of the Icelandic sagas; which themselves are stories about the cultural “neighbours” of our personal ancestors and kin and as such offer “more branches than roots” and leave those aspects of the folk soul, those closest to us as individuals, dormant and un-nourished.

As a Canadian myself, the stories of the arrival of my ancestors, both personal and collective, and their deeds in the “New World” are every bit as important, from the standpoint of Anglo-Nordic belief in the New World, as the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons or Danes in Britannia over 1300 years ago, or, for the person of Icelandic ancestry, the arrival of the Norse in Iceland. And speaking as someone who long ago settled with the broad brushstrokes of ethno-cultural identity, as, at worst, where even the descendants of kings ultimately find themselves, I must admit that the knowledge of self gained via personal ancestry and lines of descent is palpable… stirring aspects of the soul one might not even known were there until actually quickened.

Such was my experience in the wake of Allhallowstide 2019 anyway; having scrolled by a Ancestry.ca advertisement offering free access to military records leading into Memorial Day and deciding to check it out to see if I might be able to find something on my long lost father. It’s nothing that I haven’t done before on the internet, engaging in casual, whimsical searches for information on my father. And so I was actually quite surprised when, low and behold, I actually found something this time around! And this led to touching base with my father’s first wife, and then his younger brother, and finally to connecting with my half-sister (from his third wife).

Moreover, it really opened up my knowledge of personal ancestry, and gave me a much better appreciation of my history as a Canadian

As for his patrilineal heritage, that is, the direct Martin line, it runs back to my great-great-great-great grandfather, James Martin, who was born in 1777, some two years into the American Revolutionary War, and seems to have grown up in the state of Delaware; which itself had barely signed off on its own declaration of independence, which had a strong and active Loyalist population, and which was largely under British control from 1777 to the end of the war in 1783. He arrived in the township of Thurlow, in the Mecklenberg District of the British held “Province of Quebec”, in 1790 when the township was receiving its first wave of “United Empire Loyalist” and other “Late Loyalist” pioneers; the distinction between the two being, those had had declared their loyalty to the Crown prior to the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, and those who demonstrated their loyalty… some time thereafter.

Exactly what prompted James’ removal from Delaware — or wherever else he might have hailed from — to Thurlow is anyone’s best guess. The division between Loyalists and Patriots, all more or less of the same stock, with much the same cultural values, sensibilities, idiosyncrasies, and expectations, is often over-stated by politicians and their historians and teachers, and while gross abuses certainly took place, here and there, and were perpetrated on both sides, no sooner had the war ended then those whimsical ideological “divisions” melted away and the old familial and cultural bonds reasserted themselves. Bonds that continue to exist even into the present day, and are the reason why, despite wars (1812) and raids (Fenian), the Canadian-American border has still managed to remain the worlds longest unprotected border; though present circumstances are, and quite rightly, challenging the nature of that border.

The best that can be said is that, whatever the motivating influence, James was likely among the “large number of Loyalists from the United States” that arrived in the township in 1789, among whom we find the names, Russell Pitman, Archibald McKenzie, Solomon Hazelton, __<illegible>__ McMichael, William Cook, Sedic Thrasher, Asa Turner, Stephen and Laurence Bagley, John Taylor, William Reed, and his sons, Samuel, William, John and Solomon, Richard Smith, John Longwell, Conelly, and Sherard.

Early records also show a John Martin as a soldier in Sir John Johnson 84th regiment, the men and families of which populated the early Mecklenburg settlements, and who might be the same as the John Martin that settled on concession 5, lot 1 of the Sydney township in 1790, which neighbours Thurlow to the west. It has been suggested that James might have been his son.

Whatever the case, among the previously mentioned names, two are of particular interest. The first, and most pertinently, Richard Smith, a United Empire Loyalist who was the father of James’ future wife, Mehitabel Smith (born 1790). And the second, more frivolously, being Sedic (or Zadoc, or simply “Old Man”) Thrasher. He appears alongside James as a co-witness in an early land deal record, but is most notable for the fact that he gave his name to Thrasher’s Corner, as the sight of a legendary encounter he had with two fully grown black bears, in which he reportedly killed both with a cudgel!

But to give a clear sense of the circumstances of those early pioneers, it should be stated that, prior to 1784, everything west of Montreal, and certainly the Mecklenburg District, was heavily wooded, undeveloped wilderness, sparsely occupied to various, ever-shifting degrees by the natives of the region, and frequented hitherto only by a relatively small number of French fur-traders operating out of Fort Cataraqui (future Kingston). Of the initial 40,000 Loyalists that evacuated the U.S. at the close of the war, most of whom went to the Maritimes, a mere 10,000 were settled along a tract of land that stretched a rough 850 kilometers from the St.Lawrence littoral west of Montreal over the northern shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Eerie to finally touch the banks of the Detroit River. There were no roads, with the original settlers reaching their destinations and otherwise traveling by bateaux, and even the most easterly of the townships, Kingston, was over 200 kms outside of the supply network.

Effectively, the early Loyalists found themselves in the same position as their Colonial forefathers of some 150 years earlier; which brings to mind the words of Mr. D. W. Allison, a former MP for Lennox county, who in 1884 said,

“These men were not inconsiderate youths; they were men, most of them of mature years, and some advanced in life, who won for themselves comfortable independence in a country south of us. At what they conceived to be the call of duty, they were ready to sacrifice everything that men commonly hold dear; resign the wealth they had accumulated, forfeit their prospects — their own and their children’s — for sake of their loyalty to the flag under which they had served, and under which many of them had fought and bled. That was not an ordinary act, and men who performed it were cast in no ordinary mould . Nowadays it is far too common to judge a man’s acts by the standard of mere material success. These men had something nobler and loftier before them.”

While the Crown most certainly did its best to reciprocate their loyalty, and not simply in free grants of (untamed and largely inaccessible) land, but also in terms of essential tools and supplies, including a promise of three years of rations, these tools at times proved to be grossly inadequate, such as sending hatchets rather than proper tree-felling axes — not at all a small problem when you have land to clear and cabins to build! — while the promise of rations did not last much more than a year. This not only led to much suffering and starvation, but also to more than a few Loyalists packing it in and returning, at the earliest available opportunity, to the relative comfort and luxury of the United States.

While Kingston immediately had a mill up and running by 1784, it would not be until 1790, the year of James’ self-attested arrival in Thurlow, that Capt. Myers finally built the first grist mill in Thurlow; thus laying the first stone in the foundation of the future city of Belleville and sparing the local yeomen a grueling 40 mile overland trek to the mill at Napanee. The following year would see the first (official) Methodist saddle-bag ministers begin to ride their Kingston circuit, with the first Methodist meeting house in the Quinte Bay region, Adolphustown to be specific, being built by 1792, but it would still be a decade or more before the infrastructure of early 19th century civilization slowly began to catch up with the Loyalists. During this formidable time, many of the offspring of the Loyalists fell into illiteracy, as luxury was sacrificed for the demands of necessity, while church records from the early 19th century, show numerous individuals, and even entire families, coming forth to be baptized.

Nevertheless, by 1791, the Loyalists had gently brushed off the (largely) “benevolent dictatorships” of the military leaders that had guided them into their new lands and saw them safely through the hardships of the first years, in favour of men in whose position they themselves had some say, and asserted their English identity in the formation of Upper Canada (modern day Ontario), as a political entity quite distinct from the enduring and predominantly French nature of what was thence forth to be known as Lower Canada. By 1792, the District of Mecklenburg was renamed the Midland District, and the counties of Addington, Frontenac, Hastings, Lennox, Ontario, and Prince Edward were established within it.

For all of that, by the outbreak of the War of 1812, no more than a dozen structures stood on the site of what would grow in to city of Belleville, and while a dirt road now ran the length from York to Kingston it is said to have been largely impassable for much of the year. The population of Belleville had yet to reach 150 people, the township of Thurlow as a whole could have been no greater than 1,500, while the entire Midland District had as yet to reach a population of 15,000. By way of contrast with Lower Canada, the population of the city of Montreal alone was at this time around 15,000.

The far off settlement of York, which would grow into the city of Toronto, had a population of less than 1,000 people in 1812, while Bytown, which would grow into the city of Ottawa had, maybe, half of that, with the total population of Upper Canada being no greater than 77,000. As for Kingston, its population stood at just over 2,000 and it had already resumed the importance as a strategic military position it had enjoyed under French occupation.

As for the War of 1812, James Martin’s name regularly appeared in the rolls for the Hastings County militia between the years of 1812 to 1814, but whatever state of readiness that news of the Battle of Crysler’s Farm or the capture and sacking of York, both in 1812, prompted in the men of Hastings county, the entire affair soon came to be regarded, and quite happily given their strong and enduring ties with their American brethren, as a non-starter that served no higher purpose than to keep them away from their homes, families, and work in the fields; thus resulting in a number of desertions, which were, nevertheless, met with due leniency on behalf of the Crown.

In all ways, James seems to have been a capable, contributing and respected yeoman of Thurlow, and his name has survived in five land transactions in the surviving records of this early epoch — most of which went missing with the outbreak of the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 and the desertion of a certain clerk who shall go unnamed — in the capacity of grantor, grantee, and witness, over the two year leading up to the birth of his son, my great-great-great grandfather, John Martin, in 1816.

The last appearance of James in the historical record comes in 1835, where he sells his property in Thurlow and is also named in the marriage record of John. However, by the time his wife, Mehitabel, made her own land petition in 1840 — her status as the immediate offspring a United Empire Loyalist entitled her to 200 acres — she was a widow.

Here it is interesting to note a couple of things. First, that Mehitabel made her 1840 land petition from the township of Tyendinaga (which neighbours Thurlow to the east), as this is where John’s eldest son, Thomas, was born in 1846; and in all likelihood also his daughter, Mehitabel (1847), and my own great-great grandfather, John Francis (1848). And second, that a James Martin is named as one of the pioneers of the township of Hungerford (which neighbours Tyendinaga to the north), which received its first wave of settlers, some 15 families, in 1826 to 1828. While there is no way of knowing if this was my James Martin, and with the scenario certainly begging us to wonder what the prospect of starting over — literally from the scratch of undeveloped, forested wilderness — might have looked like to a 57 year old man, it is nevertheless in Hungerford that we find John and each of his children no later than 1860.

And on a fairly decent plot of land at that!

Who knows, maybe James “chased” the frontier? Or at least enabled his son too? He certainly wouldn’t be the first of our kind to do so.

And indeed by the year 1860, civilization had come to at least the southern reaches of Hastings County and the Great Migration had all but ran its course. The first macadamized road, running from Napanee to Kingston was completed in 1839, to be followed by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1856, and in that time the population of Belleville swelled to 7,000, that of Kingston to 17,000, and all of Upper Canada to almost 1.4 million. Even Hungerford had grown from a population of 646 in 1839 to somewhere in the ballpark of 4,000 in 1860 and was now linked to Belleville via a gravel road.

As for James’ religion and ethnicity; while his son John was both baptized and then married as a Roman Catholic — on the same day, with the same witnesses and by the same priest — this conversion did not long outlive his wife, my great-great-great grandmother, Margaret Young; who died within a couple of years of my great-great grandfather’s birth. In the first census testimony, John’s religion is stated as Methodist, as per many of his fellow Loyalists in Mecklenburg. And as was the case with each of his descendants until my grandfather married a (French) Catholic woman and briefly brought Catholicism back into the family. I myself was baptized a Catholic as a baby. And yes, as a Anglo-Nordic Heathen, of course it shows! That said, we should not be too quick to jump to conclusions as to what their Christianity meant to them, or what it might look like to us if we could actually see it, growing as it did out of the culture of the 13 Colonies with its seers and astrologers and hexenmeisters — among which I can boast an ancestor or distant relative or two! — and a hearted willingness to concede that pagans, pagan Mohawks to be specific, could also be considered pious at the same time!

As for James’ ethnicity,  while future census testimony dances back and forth between English and Irish, DNA testing, on both my half-sister and myself, shows a greater presence of English and Danish than it does of “Irish” (Gaelic), and so this might represent some conflation of facts, equally true, each in their own measure, akin to the Anglo-Norman heritage of Galway or the Anglo-Scottish heritage of Ulster.

And that about ties it up for this entry, so let me leave off with a quote that very much captures the sense of what I have drawn from a knowledge of my own Loyalist past, and as someone who can also boast an ancestor who was in fact a captain in the Continental Army and spent four years in a Canadian “dungeon”,

“what these men sought to prevent was a division which France sought to foster between the great portions of the English race. I believe the Loyalists, and the people of Canada who derive their inspiration from them, can best do justice to the spirit of their forefathers by doing what they can to bring together in a union all the English-speaking races in the world… if not under one Sovereign, at any rate in one alliance offensive and defensive...”

— Sir Richard Cartwright, 1884

 

Good day, eh!

 

 

Germanic Belief and Religious Tolerance

The preChristian Germanic peoples have often been characterized by historians, particularly by early Catholic historians,  “hateful of a higher religion, and so, like spoilt and envious children lashed out to destroy it”. We hear the same thing, though mostly from modern historians, about their character and regard for Imperial Roman civilization, but, while fundamentally similar, that is a matter best dealt with separately and on its own.

As for this supposed intolerance of the Germanic people for Christianity; it is best exemplified in the martyring of Sabbas and other Gothic Christians in the latter half of the 4th century AD.  According to the 5th century AD historian, Sozomenus,

“Athanaric’s men placed an idol on a cart and conducted it to the tents of those who were thought to be Christians. Suspects were ordered to worship the idol and to offer sacrifice. Those who refused were burned in their dwellings.”

That however is just a snap shot of a moment in history.

In fact, the Goths first came into contact with (Arian) Christianity in the mid-3rd century AD via their raids into the eastern Mediterranean region, from which they carried home many Christian slaves. And within the space of 100 years, the Bible had been translated into Gothic and Christianity had grown enough among the ethnic Goths to invite the serious attention of their kings and nobles.

Strange is it not? That a people supposedly so “envious” and “hateful” of a foreign faith would not only allow its presence but also its proliferation within their community. Indeed, when Athanaric’s men began their persecution of Gothic Christians a number of their non-Christian kith and kin, for better or worse, attempted to shield or otherwise hide the Christianity of their loved ones from the King’s men. Good ol’ St.Sabbas however denounced got wind of this and utterly denounced such Christians. And so went and got himself (among others) martyred.

It is worth noting that Athanaric’s distaste for Christianity was not a general phenomenon, directed against all Christians, but was directly mostly against Gothic converts. It is also worth noting Sabbas’ own willful contempt for the customs and community of the Goths. It is nothing at all unfamiliar to us from the earlier interactions of Christianity with the Roman Empire, when zealous converted went out of their way to blaspheme the state divinities in hopes of being fed to the lions and becoming a martyr for the cause. And it is also all too familiar from later interactions between the Continental Germanic tribes and Christianity; as perhaps best characterized in Willibrord’s baptism of a number of converts in the sacred spring on Fosites Island, followed by his slaughter of a number of sacred cattle for a subsequent feast. For this, Willibrord was brought before the Frisi-King, Radbod, to face capital charges for sacrilege.

Yes. Our ancestors most certainly had blasphemy and sacrilege laws. More properly, they had pious thew, they were what the Anglo-Saxons called aefast, while the law was an offender’s best hope of not being executed on the spot by an outraged mob.

Just ask Willibrord.

As for Sabbas and his ilk, they refused to partake of the sacrificial meat served up at the holy tides, which is of course tantamount to publicly rejecting the community,  refusing to take part in its spirit. He refused even just a token sign that, “despite your different beliefs, you are one of us”. The kingly hostility that he and his invoked was less a matter of a rejection of the Gothic divinities, though it was that too, and much more a rejection of the (holistic) community itself, gods and all. Basically, they proclaimed themselves to be subversives; more than happy to profit from their position among the Goths, but utterly reluctant to embrace that community and take part in it’s sacral identity.

Centuries later in the Viking Age, King Hakon the Good of Norway would find himself in a similar predicament when presented with the sacral mead at one of the holy tides; which caused a lot of concern among the gathered. He found a way around this Christian inspired reluctance by making the sign of the cross over the draught before taking it, while his confidants explained that he made the sign of the hammer over it.

This saved the king from an ordeal not entirely unlike that of wretched Sabbas, and born of much the same reasons.

Nevertheless, from Clovis of Frankland to AEthelbeorht of Kent to Penda of Mercia to Angantyr (Ongendus) of Denmark to Radbod of Frisia, we see time and time and time again Heathen kings receiving Christian missionaries with a right good will; extending protection to them, provisioning them, giving them the freedom to preach and win converts, sending them off with noble youths to be educated in the foreign beliefs, and treating them about as well as anyone could honestly ever hope or expect to be treated.

Not all of these kings ended up converting. And forsooth, not all of them remained at all friendly to Christianity; as one might expect when you extend every hospitality to a guest who then goes on to repay you by “destroying your house”, but, while Germanic ethics are not at all above “putting one’s best foot forward”, they ultimately hinge on reciprocity.

In fact, it was never the Germanic peoples who had any baleful preconceived notions about Christians or had any kind of special, or even common, hatred for them, or any other religion or culture. History itself utterly refutes such an absurd suggestion. And one need not look very far to discover where the inherent contempt for foreign beliefs comes from. It is clear and evident in historical Christianity. Not so much in our regard for outsiders, their culture and belief, save in reactionary retaliation for assaults on the heart and soul of our people, and the integrity of our community.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

“(King) Raedwald (of East Anglia) was long ago made acquainted, in Kent, with the sacraments of the Christian faith, but in vain; for on his return home, he was perverted by his wife, and certain perverse teachers, and having been turned aside from the sincerity of the faith, his last state became worse than his first, so that, after the manner of the Samaritans of old, he seemed both to serve Christ and the gods which he before served: and in the same temple had both an altar for the sacrifice of Christ, and a small altar for the victims offered to demons.”

— Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation

“King Penda himself did not forbid the preaching of the Faith to any even of his own Mercians who wished to listen; but he hated and despised any whom he knew to be insincere in their practice of Christianity once they had accepted it, and said that any who despised the commandments of the God in whom they professed to believe were themselves despicable wretches.”

— Bede, the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation

“Early in spring King Olaf went eastwards to Konungahella to the meeting with Queen Sigrid (of Sweden); and when they met the business was considered about which the winter before they had held communication, namely, their marriage; and the business seemed likely to be concluded. But when Olaf insisted that Sigrid should let herself be baptized, she answered thus: — “I must not part from the faith which I have held, and my forefathers before me; and, on the other hand, I shall make no objection to your believing in the god that pleases you best.” Then King Olaf was enraged, and answered in a passion, “Why should I care to have thee, an old faded woman, and a heathen bitch?” and therewith struck her in the face with his glove which he held in his hands, rose up, and they parted. Sigrid said,”This may some day be thy death.””

— Snorri Sturlusson, Heimskringla

 

Indigenous belief, Christianity and Ancestor Worship

An interesting question was asked over the chat in yesterdays Mimir’s Brunnr; How do you reconcile indigenous ancestor worship with generations of Christian ancestors?

I’d like to say the question baffles me. As much as the Christian denunciation of Heathenry as our ancestral faith because, “your ancestors were all Christian!”.

I’d like to say it baffles me, the sheer narrow minded, intellectualized and artificial nature of both the question and denunciation, but if I did it would only be by virtue of hindsight. Indeed, it is something I continue to wrestle with even today, for all that Wyrd has already taken care of all this for us.

I mean, we might have a problem with it, ie. Christianity, but there we have have, not only in the last, what, 50 generations or so of our ancestry, but outward and surrounding us in the present-tense, among our family, friends, and community.

We either have Christianity surrounding us among our folk, or we have the product/s of our culturo-historical experience with Christianity; of which we people of Anglo-Nordic belief are ourselves one example of.

Whether you can reconcile it in your mind or not, well, like “horns and horses” or “goats and thunder”, THERE IT IS. All of a piece in the heritage set at the foot of your cradle.

Something that I spotted out fairly early on as a Heathen was a tendency, perhaps subconscious as was the case with me, but a tendency nevertheless to imagine that the adoption of different gods somehow made us an entirely different form of man from our generations of Christian ancestors. And it only takes a sideways glance at 50 mph to see, historically, where this emphasis on ideological differences comes from. Who was it, historically, that imagined their ancestors were a completely different form of man? Such that they called them soulless, godless, lawless savages, and (ahem) “refused” to even bury their dead in the same graveyards as their ancestors?

So, while there is an ideological division there, certainly worthy of our thought and consideration, it was not born of our “folk-soul”. And it should never be allowed to define our folk-soul, which would, by its very nature, attempt to define our folk-soul out of existence.

And certainly, while I am none too sure about your own ancestors, mine weren’t exactly the “Church Fathers” demanding, under threat of law, that my ancestors bury their dead, not in native graveyards, but in Christian graveyards. My ancestors, Christian though they many have thought themselves, if only by virtue of there having been no other viable option at the time, lived under the yoke of the Church Fathers; where they never felt quite so comfortable as the Church Fathers told them they should, and so ultimately landed us where we, as people of Anglo-Nordic belief, are today, ie. not under the yoke of the Church Fathers.

Certainly, I don’t doubt that I have my ancestors, some of them quite immediate, who might conceivably have been quite mortified at my rejection of Christianity. But then, my maternal grandfather was a church-goer, not a “holy-roller”, but a man who behaved as though he had an obligation to get out there with the community every Sunday and spend some time thinking about God. He also use to tell me that “the Old Man is cracking his whip again!” when a thunderstorm was rolling in, bought me the first book I ever found on the runes (Tony Willis’ Runic Workbook lol), and seemed interested in my initial writings on Anglo-Nordic belief — “you’ve got some pretty deep thoughts there!” — while he was out here on Vancouver Island visiting just prior to coming down with cancer, et al.

When I call upon my ancestors and make offerings to them, I call upon them all. And much like the living, there might be some who want nothing of it. That is their choice, for them to make. Enjoy sheol, I guess? But on my end, as a person of Anglo-Nordic belief, it is offered to all, in thanks and remembrance of all … be they Anglo-Nordic of any kind or otherwise (eg. Christian, Slavic, Mi’kmaq).

The wheel keeps on rolling. As ever.

The Twinfaced Figure from Thy

Ah yes, the “Thy figure”. Part of a Nordic Bronze Age find in the region of Thy, Denmark.

It was actually quite a thrilling find, from earlier this year (2019), and for a few different reasons. One was its timely arrival, coming as it did on the tail end of research I had been doing into the Divine Twins (Alcis, Hors and Hengist, etc.) and the Nordic Bronze Age. Incidentally, if you have not read “The Rise of Bronze Age Europe”, you know nothing, John Snow. But another reason for the thrill was the fact that the find was quite monumental. Stuff like this isn’t uncovered every day! And here I had a discovery unfolding in real time, right before my very eyes, where I was getting information on it as fast as anyone else not actually participating in the excavation itself! And of course, here on the local level there is the entire back story regarding my initial impression on it and the back-and-forth between myself and a certain prominent Youtuber in the Anglo-Nordic community; who seems like he could be a very interesting and informative chap if he could get over himself and his academic credentials long enough to have a conversation. I refrain from naming names, as he remains my favourite Youtuber among the handful of likely suspects — which I say with the caveat that I’m not at all too keen on the rest of them — but he knows who he is. And we do have mutuals. And of course, when you’ve been a part of the Anglo-Nordic (Heathen) community for as long as I have, ie. 30+ years, you just get tired of the consistent flow of desperate, insecure, and utterly effeminate drama that, collectively, has defined it since I first stepped in.

Yawn.

That said, it’s a funny story; which will no doubt bleed its way in to anything I write on this subject. And which I feel obliged to mention, at least in passing, because, well, as I suppose on immediate reflection, we apparently love our drama?

But on to the Thy figure itself…

Perhaps the first guess to be thrown out there on this find, and certainly the most interesting, was its striking resemblance to the Roman representation of their own native deity, Janus. His worship is believed to reach back to prior to the foundation of the Roman Republic (509 BC), and the earliest depictions (and all later ones) show him as doublefaced. He is believed to be uniquely Roman and — at least on the surface and to those unable to see the theme underlying various expressions/depictions — unknown to the Greeks; though both the Hindus and the Slavs did worship multifaced idols/gods.

In doing some cursory reading on Janus, I was immediately struck by his associations with the arch-way or door and all that implies in terms of liminality and duality, ie. beginnings, endings, cycle of the day and year, ie. passage of the sun, etc. He also apparently had an association with the dancing youths of the cult of Mars known as the Salii, themselves a descendant of the old Proto-Indo-European *koryos (adolescent males in training). As with Mars’ own offspring, the progenitors of Rome, Romulus and Remus, I would suggest that Janus represents an evolution of the “god-concept” embodied in the P.I.E. Divine Twins, who are also associated with youths, thresholds, liminality and duality.

That said, it is highly unlikely that the Roman Janus was at all an influence on the Thy figure, which itself predates not only the Roman Republic, but also Germanic-Roman contact (Negua helms, Cimbrian Wars, 2nd century BC) and the strong influx of Roman material goods that began soon after the time of Julius Caesar (1st century BC) by centuries. As such, it would be more plausible, if equally unlikely, to suggest that the Thy figure influenced the Roman Janus rather than vice verse.

Most likely the similarity is simply a matter of the spontaneous evolution of thought, belief and expression along similar lines, owing to a common Indo-European heritage, rather than the tired old matter of “who got what from whom?”.

Naturally, in considering both the Thy figure and Janus, the mind is drawn to the Old Germanic god, Tuisto, whose name is rooted in the concept of two, and who was mentioned as co-progenitor (alongside Mannus; see Yama and Manu in the Hindu tradition) of the Germanic peoples by Tacitus.

As for my own initial impressions…

Compare the horned helmets of this twinned figure (above) with the Vikso helmets (below). Also from the Nordic Bronze Age. And deposited as a pair.

Also compare with the Grevensvaenge figurine (below). It is also a product of the Nordic Bronze Age and was originally part of a large ensemble that included this figure’s twin; who would have knelt beside his brother in the ensemble.

And also compare with the Fogdarp yoke (below); which, you guessed it, is also from the Nordic Bronze Age. Note also, in comparison to the Vikso helms, they “youthful” eyes, and particularly the “beak” set between the eyes (ie. nasal region) of both.

These Lads were a big deal over the course of the Nordic Bronze Age. And indeed over the European Bronze Age in general.

They are perhaps best remembered in the Indo-European context as the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, but find parallels throughout the Indo-European world; most notably, outside of Anglo-Nordic belief itself, in Hinduism (Ashvins) and Baltic belief (Ašvieniai, Dieva deli).

That they maintained some degree of pan-Germanic prestige following the collapse of the Nordic Bronze Age (c.500 BC) into the early centuries of the Migration Age (beginning c.300 AD), can be inferred from the dual brother-kings found at the head of a number of tribes in migration, ie. liminality, the most famous of whom are the mytho-historical Hors and Hengist, who are said to have led the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britannia.

One of the cool things about the Fogtdarp Lads — which, like all of these artifacts, I’ve never had the luxury to examine first person and only know through “display” type photographs, and so turned out to be quite the thrilling discovery, relating to some research I was doing at the time — is what you see from a birds eye look at them (below).

That is the Nordic Bronze Age “Axe of Heaven” symbol, which you can read more about here, and should keep in mind as very relevant as we progress.

Now it has been argued that, “The Grevensvaenge idols are twins, two separate entities, but the Thy figure is two-faced, so completely different.”, which, along with another criticism that I shall touch on later, represents analytical reductionism at its finest.

The fundamental idea expressed in the relationship of the Divine Twins can be perceived in the Baltic word *jumis*. This is the name that the Baltic peoples gave to their own version of the “horseheaded gables” — called “Hors and Hengist” by their Germanic neighbours in northern Germany — and its companion “runic” symbol. Not to mention one of their native divinities. The word jumis means “two grown together as one”. It is cognate to the Latin gemini — and the aforementioned Yama, twin of Manu — which was itself identified with Castor and Pollux by the Greeks.

And no, I don’t think that it is also cognate to the Old Icelandic Ymir, which, as far as the speakers of Old Icelandic were concerned meant “Noisemaker”, and within the Eddic context no doubt understood as “Bellower”.

The doublefaced Thy figure is an expression of the same notion, the same theme, that is the essence of the Divine Twins, and reflected not only by the twin idols of the Grevensvaenge ensemble, but also in the twin heads (common “body”) of the Fogtdarp yoke, and even centuries later on Gallehus horn B; where utilitarian half loops are found on both of the Lads depicted thereon, and via which a chain or leather string could be run to make a carrying strap, but which also expressed the fundamental unity of the two.

This of course also relates to the two-horsed chariot of the Indo-Europeans.

In Indo-European myth the essential unity of the Lads is perhaps best represented in Greek myth, in which Castor was mortally wounded, and so Zeus gave Pollux the option of sharing half his immortality with his brother; such that the two would spend half the year in Hades with each other, and half in Olympus with each other. This as opposed to Castor spending eternity in Hades, while Pollux would spend eternity in Olympus, ie. apart from each other.

Needless to say perhaps, Pollux chose to share his immortality with his twin brother.

Anyway, the Grevensvaenge figures, the Fogtdarp yoke, the Thy idol, the Gallehus horn twins, all different expressions of the same underlying theme, ie. of the Divine Twins.

Another criticism that came out,as alluded to above, was embodied in the question, “what do horns have to do with horse-gods???” Now, as an honest question, it is a very good question. After all, the association, like goats and thunder — or even poetry and immortality? lol — is not immediately self-evident or at all easy to explain. And yet, as a question meant only to derail, we have this image from a Minoan sarcophagi found on the isle of Crete and dated c.1,400 BC,

But why go back to 1,400 BC Crete, when we can simply look over at the Vendel Age bracteates of NW Europe, where images of horned horses abound?

So, you tell me, what DO horns have to do with horses?

That is to say that, whether we appreciate or understand the association ourselves, the association is an observable fact. As such, like goats and thunder, the onus is on us to, first accept the evidence, and then, more poignantly, to try and understand it.

Our lack of understanding does not invalidate the evident association.

And so, in answer to the question, “what do horns have to do with horses?” the answer is an obvious, “the Divine Twins. That is what horns have to do with horses.”

Within a couple weeks of the above mentioned criticisms the CT scan of the full find was released. Prior to this we saw the Thy figure itself along with an axe head embedded in the soil.

But with the CT scan, the question about horns and horse gods was brought to an abrupt end. And the exchange deleted.

And the CT scan was eventually followed by more pictures. Here’s one,

Hmmm. So what DO horns have to do with horse-gods? Or perhaps more accurately here, what do horses have to do with horned-gods? And axes to boot?

The sacral and hallowing power of the Alcis, the twinned sons of God and divine champions of Man. That is what horses, horns and axes all have to do with each other.

How did I know, prior to the CT scans? Well, how does anyone “get the joke” so to speak? Certainly not by reducing it to its component parts and analyzing them in isolation from one another or the larger context it exists in. In regards to humour, we have a word for that approach.

Humourless.

Suffice it to say that it wasn’t a lucky guess. Nor any presumption of “knowing it all” on my behalf; no matter how much “Wyrd” might have conspired to paint me as omniscient on this matter.

Reckon wisely, my friends! And hey, lets be whole out there!