Gangleri – bookreviews

So I decided to look for non-Scandinavian sources about the prechristian faith, since I want to learn more about the faith of the region that I live in. There appears to be quite some books about Anglo-Saxon heathenry and this book has a very promising title. The book is of 1957 and is not particularly good. There is quite a bit of information about place-names in England, quotes from Anglo-Saxon poetry, etc. but for the larger part, Branston took the Icelandic sources to find similarities in mostly Anglo-Saxon texts, such as (of course) Beowulf or the charms. This way he finds Woden, Thunor and Frigg, references to Balder, he speaks about the beginning of the world and the end, etc. The first part is nice information about what he had been able to find about “who were the English” and “old English heathenism”, but the larger part of the book thrives a bit too heavily Scandinavian sources. What is more, the author has some theories that he needs to force onto the reader. One such theory is that the “Allfather” was originally not Odin, but the skygod Tyr and he even manages to place Tyr in Odin’s place where an eye is offered in Mimir’s well in exchange for wisdom. Towards the ends he keeps rattling on about the original matriarchal religion of old, having nothing to do with “Balder into Christ”, the title of the chapter. Conclusion: The Lost Gods Of England is not a boring read and it has some of the information that I am looking for, but I hope to run into some better books.
Note: this book does not have to be expensive to buy second hand, but I noticed that some sellers ask outrageous prices for the later printings. If you want to get the book, look around a bit and compare prices before you buy it.
1957 Thames and Hudson, no isbn in my copy

In several regards this German publication is like the Tyr Journal. An anual publication with three issues available in the form of a 450 page well-printed book with essays of different authors about paganism and related subjects and book and music reviews at the end. Those are the similarities, because there are of course more differences. The nice thing about the Heidnisches Jahrbuch is that is deals with contemporary paganism and its problems. No investigations of archeological evidence and myths to contruct a theory, but writings about how pagans of today can fill in their faith and practises. However the Jahrbuch does not come from a certain organisation, the authors seem to agree on two points: paganism is polytheistic and paganism is democratic. I personally disagree with both which makes it ‘difficult’ to follow reasonings here and there. The first article About the reception of germanic neopaganism in Germany nowadays is a nice piece about how different media report about paganism. Of course they display a lot of ignorance and prejudice. A critical article follows about the fact that people say: “but the Eddas say…”, while Kurt Oertel displays how flawed our sources and their translations are. For the rest: textual investigations, modern runestones, Frau Percht and the Perchten-movements that are popular today, headhunters; a whole range of subjects pass. The interpretation is often very philosophical or scholarly. One subject that one of course cannot avoid when talking about contemporary paganism is the link with conservative politics. The last and longest article takes about 80 pages to distinguish “völkische esoterik” from “germanic heathenry”. Pages and pages are filled with the history of prenazi “völkish” groups, antisemitism, racism all to prove that the supposed ‘pagan’ ideas of people from the past and present with these ideas are in fact Christian with a pagan varnish and not the least bit based on a polytheistic religion.
Heidnisches Jahrbuch 2007 was a nice read. There should be more publications about contemporary paganism, so I support the initiative. I have not seen the other two volumes of this publication yet, so maybe it was just this issue, but all three Heidnisches Jahrbücher are well available (through Amazon.de for example), so if you can read German and are prepared to pay a relatively high price for a publication like this, these series could be something for you.
2009 verlag daniel junker, isbn 9783938432068

“Pulp” is a word that kept flying through my head when reading this book. I ran into it cheaply, the description of pagan groups in the present day made me curious. The author starts with describing the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung “far from being a dispassionate observer, had been an active had been an active participant in the pagan revival” (p. 275) Jung saw Odin as an archetype and predicted two “Odinic experiments”. Following this idea, Rudgley starts with describing some old concepts, strange theories about the hollow earth, ancient and modern rune yoga, the rise of Nazi Germany, serial killers, Tolkien, the American white-power movements and towards the end a few pagan groups of today to close off with a few concepts such as the Web of Wyrd and Ragnarok. Rudgley manages to see the “Odic force” in all of this, throws a whole lot of rapid conclusions on a pile while trying to debunk modern myths such as The Spear of Destiny. Way too long descriptions of the content of books such as The Coming Race of Edward Lytton or The Turner Diaries of William Pierce, the ideas of (proto-)Nazis such as Von Lists, Kummer or Willigut and followed by wrapping up a subject in three lines. It is not that the book is a completely boring read. The information about the Wandervögel and similar groups of the time, the weird ideas of a few ‘occult Nazis’, groups that I never heard of like Stav, etc. are interesting in a way, but the grounds of the book are so far-fetched, the author makes a few such strange remarks, conclusions and mistakes and the writing style as a whole, makes this book nothing more than the enormous amount of “popular scholarly” literature like that of Baigent and Leigh, Ravenscroft, etc. that people love to read with the popularity of Dan Brown. If you want to learn about modern paganism, this book is not for you. If you want cheap literature for on the beach, you could consider this book.
2006 the random house, isbn 0712680969

With some delay Wende 5 (the midsummer edition) of the Flemish “Odalist” “Werkgroep Hagal” is available. About 60 pages in an A5 booklet with a nice variety of subjects. An introduction to “Odalism”, early 19th century decoration on a roof tile that the author found on his roof, a text by Jan de Vries, European martial arts, an interview with formerTraditie chairman Stefaan and much more. Wende always makes a nice read (but where is the “ethnobotanic corner”?) with a different angle of approach than my own. Click on the cover to go to the website of Werkgroep Hagal for more information.

Just like with the Islendingabók / Kristni Saga this is not really a great read. In most cases you will read something like:

206. Kolbein
Sigmund of Vestfold married Ingibjorg, daughter of Raud Rugga of Namdalen and sister of Thorstein Svarfad. Their son was Kolbein who went to Iceland and took possession of land between Grjot and Deildar Rivers, including Kolbeinsdale and Hjaltadale.

About 400 settlers are described with a chapter each, which is sometimes a few lines, sometimes an entire page and on a few occasions a bit more even. Lists of names: blabla, son blabla, son of blala, daughter of blabla who married blabla and had the following children: blablabla. Further of course where they landed and where they lived. This information is divided of the four quarters that seemed to have been set up immediately. Sometimes you get some more information and every once in a while you get the information that was mostly my reason to read these texts:

85. Thorolf Mostur-Beard
Thorolf, son of Ornolf the Fish-Diver, lived on Mostur Island, and that’s why he was called Mostur-Beard. He was a great sacrificer and worshipped Thor. He fled to Iceland because of the oppression of King Harald Fine-Hair [...]. [...]he threw his high-seat pillars overboard. They had an image of Thor carved on them. Thorolf declared that Thor would come ashore where he wanted Thorolf to make his home, and he promised to dedicate his entire land-claim to Thor and call it after him. [...] He built a farm there and a big temple dedicated to Thor. [...]

The ‘trick’ with the “high-seat” is mentioned a couple of times, the same goes for the fleeing for Harald Fine-Hair and the worship of Thor (no other God is mentioned, besides a Freyr’s Godi one time).
It is nice to see that almost all settlers were still “pagan”, but the compiler of this work was not. Still he mentions facts without passing judgement. A funny quote is to be found in chapter 197 about Crow-Hreidar:

When they made landfall Hreidar went up to the mast and said he wasn’t going to throw his high-seat pillars overboard as he thought it a stupid way to make one’s decisions. Instead, he said he would ask for Thor’s guidance on where to settle [...]

Or:

Helgi’s [the Lean, chapt. 218.) faith was very much mixed: he believed in Christ but invoked Thor when it came to voyages and difficult times.

The settling period was clearly one of transition. There were also Christian settlers such as:

She [Aud the Deep-Minded, chapt. 97] used to say prayers at Kross Hills; she had crosses erected there, for she’d been baptized and was a devout Christian.

But the previous continues thus:

Later he kinsmen worshipped these hills, then when sacrifices began, a pagan temple was built there.

The Christian faith had not rooted enough among the settlers. The Landnámabók even ends with:

399. Christian settlers
According to well-informed people some of the settlers of Iceland were baptized, mostly those who came from the British Isles. [...] Some of them kept up their faith till they died, but in most families this didn’t last, for the sons of some built temples and made sacrifices, and Iceland was completely pagan for about 120 years.

In most cases there seems to have been no problems between pagans and Christians, but in chapter 320 (Ketil the Foolish) it says:

Ketil made his home at Kirkby, where the Papar had been living before and where no heathen was allowed to stay.

More interesting is -of course- to see what is said about ancient, pagan practices. The harvest for that is unfortunately meagre. Besides the high-seat pillars thrown into the water, the longest description of pagan practices is the following:

Thorstein Red-Nose was a great sacrificer. He used to make sacrifices to the waterfall and all the left-overs had to be thrown into it.

Other than this, there are a few mentions of the use of fire to hallow a piece of claimed land, a couple of sorcerers, people with “second sight” (Thorstein Red-Nose “could see clearly into the future” for example) and one time “land east of Grims River where no one had dared to settle for fear of the land-spirits” (chapt. 330). This is about it.
Other nice things are to run into people who I knew from sagas and of course this one:

Thord the Left-Handed and his wife had a daughter called Otkatla who married Sturla Thjordreksson, and their son was Thord who married Hallbera, daughter of Snorri the Priest, whose daughter Thurid married Laflidi Masson. Thord Sturluson had a son called Snorri who married Oddbjorg, daughter of Grim Lodmundarson, and their children were Fly-Grim and Hallbera who married Mag-Snorri.

(chapt. 140, not sure if this is the right Snorri though)

It is for these small treasures that I still advice you to read this text and the two mentioned earlier. I guess you now have an idea of the tone of the book, quite boring with tons of information that is of little use. To get a more complete picture with ‘real information’ next to the sagas and the main texts that we have, it is great to have translations of texts like these though.

1972/2006 Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, University of Manitoba Press, isbn 0887556981

There are some texts that I still need(ed) to read. The Íslendingabók was one of them, the Landnámabók is another (currently reading), the Flateyjarbók yet another. Grønlie presents translations of both The book of the Icelanders and The story of the conversion with a (too) lengthy introduction, a great many notes, a massive bibliography and a large index. Two short texts make a booklet of about a hundred pages. The first story is mostly about the colonisation of Iceland and the coming of Christianity, the second of course about the second subject. Both are really stories, more than the Landnamabók, which is mostly a long list of names and historical facts, but there are fewer clues in the texts than I hoped. A quote from both texts so you get an idea:

A great lawsuit arose at the assembly between þórðr gellir, son of Óleifr feilan from Breiðafjorðr, who was called Tunga-Oddr; he was from Borgarfjorðr. His son þorvaldr was with Hœsna-þórir at the burning of þorkell Blund-Ketilsson in Ornólfsdalr. And órðr gellir was the leader of the prosecution, because Hersteinn, son of þorkell Blund-Ketilsson, was married to þórunn, his sister’s daughter. She was the daughter of Helga and Gunnarr, and the sister of Jófriðr, who was married to þorsteinn Egilsson.

(Íslendingabók, p. 6)

Gizurr and Hjalti held another meeting with the Christians, and they said that also wished to hold a sacrifice of as manh people as the heathens. They said this:
‘Heathens sacrifice the worst people, and push them over cliffs and crags, but we shall make our selection on the basis of people’s virtues and call it a victory offering to our Lord Jesus Christ. We must therefore live better and be more carefull to avoid sin than before, and Gizurr and I will come forward as the victory offerign for our Quarter.’

(Kristni Saga, p. 49)

There are some things to be found here and I still advice you to read such texts yourselves, but the sagas are more enjoyable to read!

2006 Viking Society For Northern Research, university college London; isbn 0903521717

Here we have a very interesting book which is hard for me to review since most of what is in it, is quite new. The basis of this book are parts of the ancient Frisian (the very northern part of the nowadays Netherlands) juridical texts: lists with compensation tariffs. These list are simply like: the loss of an ear : so-and-so much money; a broken leg : so-and-so much money; etc., etc. These texts span the period from the 8th period (the Lex Frisionum, the basis of the texts under investigation here) to the 15th century and have hardly been investigated. Han Nijdam took the task for his dissertation to investigate the boeteregisters properly and put them in a large perspective to make clear what they had meant in medieval Frisia. In an area without central government with the monopoly of violence, the old (and universal) ‘system’ of the “feuding society” emerges. Damage to a person or a group (which is in fact the same) has to be compensated. This can be by equal damage to the offending group or (usually in a later stage) monetary compensation. (See my short article.) Nijdam walks historical-antropological paths to investigate the texts and give a very thorough view on the Frisian medieval society (cross-referencing to ancient Iceland). This book will teach you how the different kinds of bodies (physical, social and political) were seen, how honour and revenge worked, how the juridical system worked, mund and were and towards the end, how it comes that the loss of a limb can be compensated by money. This is treated very much in depth and is extremely interesting, since it also explains things we find strange in de Eddas or the sagas. Added to the book is a cd-rom with analyses of the texts. Of course the book is in Dutch (with many quotes in Frisian), but for the international readers, Nijdam presents summeries of all chapters in English in the end of the book. The book is not cheap, but worth the money and hopefully will sparkle scholarly interest to investigate these texts further. This is quite different from the (comparitive) mythological investigations that I often read. Nijdam goes much deeper into daily life, society, social workings, the worldview of the time and this book definately is a great addition to my library and my interests for the Germanic religion of that period.
2008 Uitgeverij Verloren, isbn 9789087040512

Scholars like MacCulloch and Jan de Vries were well aware of this, but the parellels have tended to be forgotten or ignored because most recent work on early religion has been firmly restricted to one side or the other.

Thus says Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson in her conclusion (p. 217). I must say it was very refreshing to see the Germanic (both continental and Scandinavian) and Celtic worlds treated together, not just to compare, but more like two branches of the same tree. Ellis Davidson has delivered a splendid work with an approach that I have not seen often, but also with very ‘practical’ subjects that I had not seen written about so extensively. “Sacred landmarks”, “ceremonial drinking” (the first time I saw the work symbel in a scholarly book), “feats and skills”, “Scandinavian land-spirits”, “the community of the gods”, just to name a few of the many short chapters. This is no book with vague assumptions, floating theories and spacey druids, it is scholarly, but not boring, and trying to make something of the little information that we have without inventing things. Ellis Davidson goes so far that she does not even really pose theories on certain things (I will come back to this), she merely presents what we have. Being very well read, you will not be disappointed by what that is, from myths to sagas to folklore, allways weighing the source.
However she refers to him many times, Ellis Davidson is critical about the theories of Georges Dumézil. She roughly follows Dumézil’s structure, but still manages to shove Heimdall and Balder under the Vanir (p. 221/2), with arguments of course, but without leaving a structure that she writes (p.222) “[...] were kept up as long as they fitted the background of men’s lives and the nature of the lands in which they struggled and fought for survival.” “Even if some of his theories do not fit the Scandinavian and Irish material in detail” (p. 222 again), I personally prefer the structure and the comparitive possibility it gives of Dumézil. Since Ellis Davidson does not (all the time), she sometimes comes to conclusions which I cannot follow. Anyone is entitled to his/her own ideas of course and inspite of this lack of structure, this little book of Ellis Davidson is a must-read for anyone interested in Germanic and/or Celtic religion and society, especially reenactment or reviving groups.
1988 syracuse university press, isbn 0815624387

see here for two more quotes

I was looking for something on Amazon when I ran into this book. The subject may be surprising to many, but not really new to me. The Dutchman Farwerck has written about the subject extensively in 1970 and I have touched on the subject in a couple of articles. I was curious what Runegilder Flowers/Thorsson has come up with.
Rûna Raven books are usually thin (this one is about 70 pages), A5 format, photocopied and not cheap to get to Europe ($ 22,- if I remember correctly). Unfortunately there no longer seems to be European distribution to cut the costs for us over here a bit. In any case, Flowers opens with a personal account of his very brief encounter with Freemasonry. He might have better looked for a lodge that fitted him instead of just turning to the local one. Flowers traces roots (not the roots) of Freemasony in the Northern European guild tradition. Not new perhaps, but he uses some arguments that I do not remember to have encountered earlier, mostly references in old texts about certain practices. The author compares Masonic rituals with Norse rituals, presents a translation of Guido von List’s Origins and Symbolism of Freemasonry (1910) (yes the Armanen fellow, not a great text but some nice references) and calls out to all “worthy brothers” to help to restore the original spirit and mission of Freemasonry and to non-Masons to not let Freemasonry die out. Flowers being a scholar is open about the problems with some of his arguments and tries his best to present good evidence, but still I have the idea that he jumps conclusions here and there. Of course this is just an initial investigation that some time somebody should finish (or should we just translate Farwerck into English?). The greatest feat of the booklet, by the way, is that Flowers mentions an early work that has dealt with the subject and of which I had not heard yet: Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry: as connected with ancient Norse guilds and the oriental building fraternities by George Fort (1884). Something to look into.
2008 Rûna Raven Press

When I ordered this book, I did not know that it is a translation of an English work. I prefer to read a book in the original language, especially in this case, since my English is better than my German. It was soon clear that The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-) Germanic Männerbünde (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph No. 36) is an expensive thing to buy. Amazon has it for $ 150,- second hand, while the German translation costs € 20,- new! I had ran into the book on Amazon Germany some time, but when I saw that it was published by a New Age publisher, I did not immediately buy it. A friend had heard good things about it, so I decided to take my changes. In the first third of the book, Kershaw thrives heavily on Otto Höffler and Mircea Eliade, but this gets better and more and especially more recent investigations are quoted. Kershaw has created a nicely readable and not too large book (300 pages) with a quite comprehensive look to the subject of “Männerbünde”. Of course written about are the Wild Hunt, sacred warriors, rites de passage and initiations (which she sometimes mixes up), wolf- and dog-symbolism, celebrations, werewolves, etc. etc. All is presented scholarly (but I have the idea that Kershaw mostly compiled other people’s ideas), with gigantic footnotes, references and sources. In some subjects I miss information, but at other times Kershaw comes with a nice (new) angle. Kershaw does not really follow the ‘Dumézilian’ structure (but apparently Dumézil is not thought off too highly in academic circles these days), so she sometimes makes comparisons which in my opinion are not possible. A very large part towards the end is about Indian mythology and I fail to see the significance of the subject here and there. Kershaw’s book might not be the ultimate book about the subject, but as far as I know the only one readily available and a fairly complete one with some nice new theories, so a highly adviced reading for people interested in this subject. Too bad that ones more, you will have to read German if you want to study a subject like this.
English version 2000 institude for the study of man, inc. isbn 0941694747
2003 German translation by Baal Müller, arun-verlag, isbn 9783866630192 (second printing 2007)