Gangleri – articles

I am currently reading a very interesting book about “Compensation Tariffs” in medieval Frisia. Of course I will review the book when I finish it. The book speaks about the “feuding society” in which honour is of high value. The author explains the ancient idea of honour very well.

Compensation systems, of which the Old Frisian penalty lists are an example, appear in many societies. [...] The meganism flourishes in a society without a strong (central) authority – in which the government has the monopoly of violence – and where free men form a constitutional state. Such a society

Many times I have thought about the subject and recently there has been discussions about it: does the focus of many European “pagans” not lie too much on the North? Does the term “Asatru” not refer to much to the god of the ancient Scandinavians? Why do we refer to “Odin” and “Thor” and not to the same gods in our own tongue? What actually do we really know about these local versions of the old faith? I have tried to to make some sort of inventarisation and initial investigation into a subject that proves to be quite difficult…
Continue reading Regional religious history

Der Germanische Schicksalsglaube by Walther Gehl (1939)

A couple of things made me want to have a look at the explanations that I was offered of the terms “Ørlögr” and “heilagr” and this book was suggested. I got a copy through my library, so I had only 3 weeks to study the book. The Germanic Belief In Fate is a very interesting work, offering tons of information about the subject. Gehl does not really work towards the explanations that I was after, but there are things to work with. I want to introduce you to this book and because…
Continue reading Germanic concepts of Fate

I had plans to write about the subject for a while. There is a small group of people familiar with a particular line of thought. Current events (summer 08) make that these ideas may fall victim to forgetfulness, so I decided to speed up my plans somewhat. On the other hand, there seem to be people who think that Traditionalism and “paganism” is a combination growing in popularity in certain music scene circles. I personally have my doubts about that. In any case, what you will learn below is a hypothesis of its own.

I do not intend to…
Continue reading Traditionalistic Asatru

Great news for everybody who keeps hearing of Jan de Vries, but unable to read German or Dutch. Northvegr.org has put a very lengthy article by De Vries in English on their website. The article appeared in a Finnish scholarly magazine in 1931 and is called Contributions to the study of Othin especially in his relation to agricultural practices and popular lore.

This article of almost 80 pages sheds light on a great many different aspects of Wodan/Odin. You can read about “agricultural practices and popular lore”, but De Vries also writes about his role in Scandinavian mythology (was…
Continue reading Jan de Vries in English

Today I ran into the review of the Tyr Journal on Northvegr. In quite strong words the reviewer Ári Óðinssen takes distance from the content of this journal.

we should not be allowing the voices we hear in this publication to be the only voices pushing the edge of philosophy in this age. They are, by our silence, representing us. I repeat this to make it clear: they are, by our silence, representing us…

Óðinssen seems to think that Tyr stands for a radical traditionalist form of “Asatru”, while in my own idea, Tyr is a “radical traditionalist” publication…
Continue reading Heithni

A few months ago I had a little talk about the story of Thor and Loki who travel to Utgarda Loki for a selected group. This little talk took a couple of months in preparation and I have yet to start working on the reworked version of the in depth analysis, but I thought it might be nice for you to show a few aspects of the story here.

The story

The story in short goes that Thor and Loki (for an unknown reason), decide to travel to Utgarda Loki, which is both the name of a kingdom…
Continue reading Thor and Loki in Utgarda Loki, an interpretation

On my article about Irminsuls I get comments which are mostly questions about the Externsteine. Since it would be silly to put the information and images in the comments under that article, I decided to make a separate piece about the Externsteine. Nothing in depth, but with a few images that you might not have seen yet. Most images are from a book that I also reviewed, so I probably make copyright violations. Risking that, here some images and short information. I have visited the Externsteine several years ago, probably before I had a digital camera, so nothing here is…
Continue reading Externsteine

I have been working on a talk about the story from the Prose Edda in which Thor and Loki travel to Utgarda Loki. Since the talk was in Dutch, but the text is hardly available in that language, I translated the text for my ‘audience’. Maybe some Dutch speaking people will appreciate the translation to be available, so I decided to post it here. The translation is based on the English translation of Anderson (http://www.northvegr.org/lore/prose2/014.php). I decided to keep the ‘viscous’ writing style intact. I consider posting the result of my endeavors too some time.

De Avonturen van Thor…
Continue reading Thor in Utgarda Loki

In Tyr journal volume 3, there is an article from the hand of Nigel Pennick about the “Web of Wyrd”, three fates, Norns, etc. In this article he mentions the term “Ørlög” a couple of times, but he seems to mix up this term with “Heilagr”.

In this short text I use different spellings for the word, when quoting Pennick I write “Ørlög”, which is probably the most correct spelling, but not too easy to type. Besides, a final -r to the end would probably be even more correct. Easier to type is “Örlogr”. In this way you will…
Continue reading Örlogr and Heilagr

All can understand how frightened the bonde became when he saw that Thórr let his brows sink down over his eyes. When he saw his eyes he thought he must fall down at the sight of them alone.
Prose Edda verse 45

Did you ever wonder why it is that many Thor’s Hammer symbols have eyes on the upper part? As you can read in the quote that opens this short article, there is something about those eyes of Thor. The sight of them alone makes the farmer whose son Thialfi broke one of the bones of one of…
Continue reading Thor's eyes

A while ago I was paging through some book (that I cannot find anymore…) and my eye fell on the famous “Rökstenen”, the runestone named after the place where it stands: Rök. On top of the background and on the top of this stone are some very interesting bindrunes. I have seen similar symbols on a variety of places. Would this be coincidental or is there some kind of connection between the different findings? Or whatever their connection, could they possibly tell something about eachother?

Rökstenen

Since the Röke runestone is rather famous, there is quite some information…
Continue reading Bindrunes, galder and housemarks

My Gods of the ancient Northmen has some extra articles added to the original, French text. One of these texts is about the Rigsthula in which Rig (who is usually equated with Heimdallr) brings forth the three levels of society. Another text is completely dedicated to Heimdallr. Heimdallr is probably the most difficult and mysterious Gods of Northern Europe. Even though the text is of 1959 (after a lecture of 1956) and of course by Dumézil, there are still some new (to me) and thought-provoking ideas in it. Regard my short text as an insufficient summery of the theories posed…
Continue reading Dumézil on Heimdallr

Körmt and Örmt,
and the Kerlaugs twain:
these Thor must wade each day,
when he to council goes
at Yggdrasil’s ash;
for the As-bridge
is all on fire,
the holy waters boil.

Grimnismál 29 Bellows translation

This strophe is often interpreted very literally: Thor cannot pas the Bifrost bridge because is he to heavy, too plump and too ‘fiery’. I wonder if that is all that is to this line. There are some interesting references in other texts that may refer to something that you can call “Thor’s disgrace”. In other words: what did Thor do that he was…
Continue reading Thor's disgrace

Some time ago, a friend after reading my article about Odhinn, had a nice suggestion. What if the missing arm is supposed to be missing and what if there is a big significance in the fact that Odin misses his left arm, and Tyr his right hand? I was already aware of the ‘pair’ Tyr/Odin, but hadn’t given this idea a thought. The suggestion soon proved to be just a suggestion. Another image clearly shows breaking-traces on the arm and hip, so it is clear that this particular image of Odin originally has two arms. The start was there, though…
Continue reading TyrOdhinn

I remember yet the giants of yore
Who gave me bread; in the days gone by
Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the Tree
With mighty roots beneath the mold.
(Völuspa 2, translated by Ari Óðinssen)

This is the second verse from the Poetic Edda. “Nine worlds I knew, nine in the Tree”. The nine worlds come back in Northern mythology more often, such as in Alvíssmál 9 in which the dwarf Alvis says: “All the nine worlds I have travelled over” and also Vafthrudnir has travelled to nine worlds (VafÞrúðnismál 43). Because the concept is rather vague, it…
Continue reading The nine worlds in nordic mythology

A while ago I was reading a collection of articles by Karl Theodor Weigel. The man speaks about folkloristic habbits and symbolism that goes back to the prechristian religion. He gives symbols representing the years, such as I have shown you in my article “Odhinn, God of the year”. Towards the end there is an image of a Christmas-bread from Lauterbach Hessen, Germany (left) “that strongly reminds of the god in the wheel, in the course of the year”. That is the same symbolism as that I gave to Odin with his two arms on the hips. The…
Continue reading Freya or Brisingamen

The beginning of this tale is, that Balder dreamed dreams great and dangerous to his life. When he told these dreams to the asas they took counsel together, and it was decided that they should seek peace for Balder against all kinds of harm. So Frigg exacted an oath from fire, water, iron and all kinds of metal, stones, earth, trees, sicknesses, beasts and birds and creeping things, that they should not hurt Balder. When this was done and made known, it became the pastime of Balder and the asas that he should stand up at their meetings while some

Fire, a concept that is very present in Northern mythology and also a concept that I have broken my head over for some time now. The symbology is multi-layered and however I still haven’t fully worked out the subject, I want to present some thoughts and come to an interpretation of some elements of Northern mythology.

Creation

There are two primal forces in Nordic myths, two forces that are known under the names, “fire” and “ice”. Before there was anything, there was Ginungagap, a “yawning gap”. In the south of it, fire ‘resided’ and in the north, ice…
Continue reading Fire in Northern mythology

Recently I wrote an article with thoughts on the symbolism of the posture of the famous statue of Odhinn. I am sure you understood that this article is not meant to say that this is what the statue ‘means’, the article contains "thoughts on symbolism". Other writers will say that this posture of Odin is a ‘cultic posture’. More funny even is that there is a statue of Thórr, found in Schmedt an der Oder (so he will have been called "Donar" or something similar), with the same posture as Odin in the statue that my other…
Continue reading Thórr, God of initiation