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Category: General
Info-gathering Tips for Heathens
Getting your hands on good information for Heathenry is difficult, for a few reasons.
The problem with a lot of easily-accessible sources is that they are heavily peppered with subjective interpretations and put together by people who aren’t, at minimum, well-read. You don’t need a doctorate to know what you’re talking about, but you do need to know how to collect, sort and interpret information. (Which, incidentally, are the skills that get you degrees.) Anyone who doesn’t have those skills is a questionable source.
But resources put together by people with these skills tend to be locked behind paywalls or out of print. So what are your options?
Prestige and Puppy Love
Paganism is exciting when it’s new. There are gods! A whole bunch! Gods you can talk to! Sometimes they talk back and leave you cryptic notes!
And then you get used to it. Discernment gets better. You realize there is vastly less godphone going on than you thought–if you even have godphone, because sometimes your brain is giving you a helping hand by reinterpreting a very potent urge to do the thing. Your brain is supposed to pattern-match and fill in the blanks. You’re experiencing a feature, not a bug.
It is tempting (as I have regrettably done) to try and get more attention. Be it through harder work, expanding your skillset or just straight up pleading. After all, your gods love you, right?
Well, yeah. But not the way we love them. They’re bigger than us, and given the fact that we don’t interact with them like other beings, I imagine they keep a certain distance. Even in a framework where the gods are everywhere, and in everything, we don’t often get to carry a conversation with them like we do with humans. They function differently. And I think this distance is maintained out of love and respect for their willing servants.
Getting close, really close, to a deity is kind of (extremely) terrifying. They’re big compared to us. Not physically, per se. I don’t know how one can measure that by any acceptable metric. But it stands to reason among spiritual types that any entity that can tweak circumstances in your favor, when you can’t, must be more powerful than you. I can remember what I consider the first time I properly met Loki, where I said “prove it” and suddenly realized I could not breathe. I cried uncle and stopped trying to be sassy. I was not harmed, but I was definitely spooked.
I mention this because, while ecstatic experiences definitely give you a high better than drugs, they have an equal and opposite comedown. That drop will happen no matter what you do, and the further you prolong the inevitable, the worse it will get. It’s a balance thing. Balance isn’t constantly remaining in one state, it’s the fluctuation necessary to maintain the average. And you can soften where you fall through taking the steps to prepare for those experiences, but the fall itself is non-negotiable.
It sucks, but we’re physical creatures and tightly bound by the laws of physics. Managing an abnormal experience, which religious experiences are, sucks up our energy. That energy comes from the matter in our bodies and we suffer when it disturbs our equilibrium. Again, gods don’t function the way we do.
Sometimes our gods will wound us. Sometimes it’s discipline. Sometimes it’s by accident. Sometimes, for the very unlucky, it’s cruelty. But our gods will wound us if we get close enough. So will our community members, for all of the same reasons.
I’m sure it’s exciting to have the attention (from god and human alike) and subsequent community prestige that being able to claim these kinds of experiences brings. But I think it’s important for people to understand that this doesn’t inherently make something worthwhile. There is a lot of pageantry, braggadocio and just plain bullshit in the online pagan community. (Case in point, ain’t them some sparkly five-dollar words?) And because humans are social creatures, and social approval is such a vital part of our survival, we are going to feel terrible if we don’t measure up. We’re going to feel compelled to try and keep up with the neighbors. It’s a compulsion better not followed.
Because if your paganism doesn’t serve your higher powers, who is it actually for?
Quick housekeeping note: As of today, the blog is switching to a fortnightly schedule. In other words, posts will be every other Thursday until further notice.
A Random Theory About Útgarða-Loki
Disclaimers are important! So here’s mine. I am not an expert on Norse mythology. I am just a Heathen who moonlights as a big old nerd, and tries to read very old pieces of text until I am very mad about everything and start chugging mead in frustration. (I am inflicting this suffering on myself right now with scans of Computus Runicus.)
ALSO, because I am not an expert, with a robust scholarly background, and I am also not anywhere near old enough to have been around for when Haustlong and the chunk of the Prose Edda about it was written, this should be regarded as a curiosity. I have a post on that, too.
ANYWAY.
In the post about the Snaptun stone I took a guess that the story of Loki/Logi/Útgarða-Loki was originally a poem. Not just because the Prose Edda is Snorri transcribing linear narratives from poems, but because of the sheer amount of alliteration in the use of these names.
We don’t seem to have any traces of this poem beyond the narrative, if it exists. Snorri does not quote stanzas from wherever he is getting this story. So the claim that this is a poem is a logical–but technically unprovable–guess.
I’m going out on a limb that I desperately hope will hold my weight, is what I’m saying.
Útgarða-Loki might not be a name. In fact, I strongly suspect it’s a kenning. It even follows the standard format of genitiveY-nominativeX used in kennings (“Loki of the outer yards,” in this case) to obliquely refer to something that wouldn’t have otherwise fit the style a poet was using.
The thought occurred to me when I was skimming something for another post and noticed kennings such as “ale-Gefjon.” But Ale-Gefjon isn’t literally Gefjon doling out alcohol. It’s Groa. There is no room in this narrative for Gefjon’s actual presence, let alone her doling out ale.
Gefjon’s name is used here as a general placeholder for “woman.”
So I imagine it’s well within the realm of possibility that Loki’s name could have been used similarly. Maybe, just maybe, “Loki” in the potential kenning “Útgarða-Loki” is being used as a placeholder for a Jotunn in general, or a deceiver in general.
Like Loki, Útgarða-Loki weaponizes the neutral. (Fire, thought, age, the sea; whereas Loki weaponizes speech and–depending on source–mistletoe.) He deceives the gods who wander into his territory. His deceit unravels. And in this story, Útgarða-Loki is the driver of conflict and the mover of the narrative. Compare this to the “mover of stories” function that Yvonne S. Bonnetain ascribes to Loki–you can read a translation of the summary here.
He takes on the role that Loki ordinarily fulfills in his tales. But he is a total outsider from the perspective of the gods and the skalds that center their narrative. While Loki is considered somewhat of an outsider, and a transgressor, he is counted among the Aesir and is portrayed as belonging in Asgard. Útgarða-Loki is not.
And he is not Loki, himself. Just similar.
I’m not invoking the overblown and ridiculous innangard-utangard dichotomy, by the way. That concept is a wild misinterpretation of the actual concepts of whether something falls within, our outside of, a given boundary. Usually a fence. A house. A town. Útgarðr can be a little more ~woo~, but mostly just conveys an idea of something being “way over yonder.”
The actual identity of Útgarða-Loki has not been definitively solved. I am nowhere near qualified to definitively solve it–and that’s not how it works, anyway. This is just my two pieces of hacksilver.
A Few Favorite Examples of Norse Mythology and Culture in Media
The Almighty Johnsons
This is a show that takes place in modern-day New Zealand. The main premise is that there are families descended from Scandinavian immigrants, who carry on a tradition of serving as vessels for Norse gods.
The focus is on the Johnson family and their Norse god hijinks, but there are also major Māori characters whose portrayals are about on par with the Johnsons and other “Norse” characters. Every major character is well-developed and charming, even if most of them are jerks. (Except the guy who carries Loki. He’s pretty much just a jerk.) Even minor characters get to experience significant development as the series goes on.
And without giving too much away, there’s an important plot involving the gods-as-humans dynamic with Māori deities, and a main character’s mixed (and hidden) family origins.
There are moments where this show can be insensitive at best. More eye-rolling casual misogyny than I’m usually comfortable with, for one. And there are instances of casual racism in the show coming from the Scandinavian-New Zealander characters regarding Māori characters. But that plot is an important exploration in who has the right to approach–or be, in this case–a Norse god. As it turns out, “purity” isn’t an issue and the gods pick the person after all. It’s a show that will ultimately piss folkists off, and there’s a lot to love about that.
I’m not sure where else to get it outside of New Zealand, but it’s available on Netflix here in the US.
Norsemen (Vikingane)
This one is probably best suited for people who like Vikings, but prefer slightly more historical accuracy, and humor over drama. This is a Norwegian show which takes place in the Viking age, and was simultaneously recorded in spoken Norwegian, and English. The first season of the English-language version is available on Netflix.
A lot of the humor in this show is graphic and rather edgy, with jokes that rely on death, injury or casual treatment of rape. (Which, luckily for this show, fit the setting well enough to fly–the 790s were rough.) But there are also moments with extended jokes that obviously required research, like an almost-lawyerly insistence from a character that he was totally the active partner, and therefore bottoming wasn’t ergi.
I don’t normally go for edgy humor unless it’s equal-opportunity, self-directed or expertly done in the correct context. Norsemen has managed to meet those standards, though I do still have some issues with language that uses disability as insults. No media is perfect.
Peter Madsen’s Valhalla
Given some news articles from the past few months, I feel the need to specify that this is not the Peter Madsen who did that horrible thing involving a submarine.
Valhalla is a 1986 animated film based on Peter Madsen’s comic series of the same name. The movie focuses on the Gylfaginning, specifically the passage which describes Thor gaining Thjalfi and Röskva as servants, and their contests with Útgarða-Loki.
With the exception of Quark–an original character from the series–this is one of my favorite animated movies, and especially one of my favorite movies that involves Norse mythology. It’s definitely geared towards children, but cuteness and humor don’t actually have an age limit. And while it takes a few liberties regarding characterization and plot, it does a really great job of being loyal to the source material.
Also, the soundtrack is great.
It’s hard to get hold of a copy of this film. I have yet to find a DVD available, though you can still buy Madsen’s comics. Your best bet is probably finding a stream online. Not ideal, but short of petitioning for DVDs in multiple region formats, there’s not a whole lot else to be done.
“A Kick in the Asgard,” from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
Once upon a time, this show was a double-feature called Grim & Evil. I actually liked the Evil con Carne half better, but I was clearly in the minority seeing as they dropped it.
In this episode, Billy is swapped with a very high-strung Einherji who decapitates topiary, and angrily mumbles in what I can only describe as the “Sesame Street” dialect of Old Norse.
Having taken his place in Asgard, Billy gets a quick tour of Valhalla. Odin introduces him to Thor (who is, I think unfortunately, really obviously based off of Marvel), and Loki, who has bright red hair and shoots rubber bands at people.
Everyone is wildly out of character, except maybe Loki, but the entire thing is absurdist anyway. Asgard doesn’t have a rootbeer fountain.
Would be cool if they did, though.
On DVD, you’d be able to get this episode with anything that has season 3 on it. But the whole thing is on YouTube, too.
Not Quite There, but an Honorable Mention: Overwatch
So…there are no actual figures from Norse mythology, or portrayals of Old Norse culture in Overwatch. But the game has a few references to Norse mythology!
For example, Torbjörn is a person of very short stature with a knack for tinkering, in an obvious reference to the duergar of Norse mythology. And his name even means “Thor-bear!”
I strongly suspect Junkrat is also inspired by Norse mythology–or at least, later interpretations of it. His character design is very similar to the way Arthur Rackham drew Loki in his illustrations for “The Ring of the Nibelung.” These images came after the misconception of Loki being a fire deity took hold and spread, so a character designer looking at fire-related imagery for a pyrotechnic (and pyromaniacal) character would be forgiven for picking up that influence.
And I’m willing to tolerate it, because it’s a pretty niche artistic shout-out, and Junkrat has some very endearing trickster traits.
Reporting on Heathenry, Responsibly
This would probably be considered a companion post to the role we can play in improving the image of Heathenry.
We know Heathenry has a racism problem. Anti-racist Heathens, myself included, consider this a significant problem that needs to be addressed. Our religion continuing to be hijacked by extremists, violent gangs and white supremacists is a really big deal.
But I am conflicted about the way journalism portrays Heathens. Racism seems to be all anyone wants to focus on, even though there’s a whole lot more going on. Most of the time I find a news article about a Heathen that’s not from a specifically pagan-geared source, it seems the writers go out of their way to mention–or talk to–the racist Heathen contingent.
Take Dylan Sprouse, who may very well be the most visible celebrity Heathen. Here’s an interview about when he started a mead brewery.
Somehow the writer thought it was necessary to drag in a mention of Stephen MacNallen, even though Stephen MacNallen has nothing to do with brewing mead. The writer openly admits that Sprouse satisfactorily addressed their concerns, and still brings it up anyway.
And sure, Sprouse citing his ancestry as what drew him to the faith can signal a cause for concern. It’s certainly one of the doors where racists get in, and we should be mindful of that.
But there are plenty of decent, inclusive and perfectly safe Heathens who are drawn to Heathenry by that, or who discover it after the fact–including Heathens that are as anti-racist as you can get. That is a very different phenomenon from saying only people with the “right” ancestry are allowed to participate. The former is an interesting coincidence, the latter is blatant racism.
These things warrant further investigation, not leaping to formulaic conclusions.
In the spirit of investigation, I scoured Dylan Sprouse’s social media for this post, using the same metrics I use for evaluating whether any other heathen is “safe.” I like to think I’m pretty good at picking up on signs of danger like that, and I turned up absolutely nothing. The only troubling thing I found was that he loves Hidden Valley Ranch dressing way too much.
And that’s not even harmful, it’s just…odd. Like, I checked. Ranch dressing isn’t a known dogwhistle for anything. He just really, honest to gods, loves ranch dressing.
Journalists approaching Heathenry also seem to give more text and time to folkists and white supremacists. That one recent New York Times article (“Who Owns the Vikings?”) was a particularly infuriating example. It failed to even answer its own question about who Heathenry belongs to (though I recognize that it is usually editors, not writers, who choose the headline), and spent most of the article length talking about the nationalist Heathen group. Somehow the article had room for an unfinished tangent about recruitment in farmer’s markets (?), but not enough for more than a few token paragraphs about Forn Sed–the vastly more progressive group of the two mentioned in the article.
I am angry about it.
Inclusivist and anti-racist Heathens exist. Often loudly. We go out of our way to educate people on why racism has no place in our faith, and to drive the point home that Heathenry is wide open for anyone willing to do the work. We have exhaustively explained, time and time again, exactly why Heathenry is open. The bolder among us take it upon themselves to confront racist Heathens more directly.
We don’t do this for our health, and we sure as Hel don’t do it for fun. We do it because it’s important, and it’s unfortunately necessary.
So why aren’t they talking to us?
The things that scare us also tend to fascinate us. I suspect that is what drives that tendency to bring up or focus on extremists, no matter how irrelevant they are to the actual subject matter. Journalists are human, and racism is frightening. Rightly so. Nobody should be comfortable about something that is objectively dangerous.
But journalists are also professionals with a responsibility to tell the truth, or at least be sincere about their biases, and to be fair and balanced in their coverage.
When journalists fixate on interviewing nationalists and supremacists, they amplify those voices. They help that agenda spread, and they do this at the expense of progressive voices actively working against it. This is in spite of inclusivist Heathens actively reaching out to journalists to provide fact-checks and guidance. When journalists mention racist Heathen organizations and gang activity apropos of nothing, they actively participate in conflating our religion with violence and destruction.
Heathens do not have the benefit of widespread social acceptance. Nor do we have strength in numbers, with a diffuse worldwide total in the lower tens-of-thousands.
I hesitate to say that Heathens are oppressed. In the US, there are no laws that meaningfully restrict my religious practice. My neighbors know of my faith, and don’t feel compelled to cause me trouble. Nobody has physically assaulted me because of Heathenry’s association with racial terrorism. My family and friends have not disowned me. Your mileage may vary on that last one, because it’s a surface-level form of aggression, and very easy to do.
We are, however, definitely marginalized on the basis of numbers, and the lack of awareness and acceptance that go with it. Actively perpetuating a stereotype does nothing for us, and works against us.
Failing to do the research and make the effort is irresponsible.
I’m a Fussy Jerk about UPG
By and large, I prefer combing through academia for information I can use in my practice, rather than consulting coreligionists.
There was someone I knew in my earlier Heathen days who made huge logical leaps from incredibly sparse information. Her…contributions in that vein are more famous in the Marvel and general Hiddleston fandom, but she brought a lot of that into the Lokean spaces, too.
Her assertions were along the lines of “blood oaths were marriages, so Loki and Odin were totes married!” (No.) “Jotunn means cannibal, Jotunheim means ‘cannibal town,’ and they were neanderthals” (What?!) And a lot of wildly inaccurate linguistic assertions. She claimed to have taken some language classes. She was not a linguist. This didn’t stop her, even though it really should have.
She was utterly convinced “Loki” was a cognate of the Proto-Germanic “laguz,” (from which the rune name is derived, yes) and therefore Loki was a god of lakes. Oh, never mind that there was absolutely zero attestation regarding Loki and lakes, or that Proto-Germanic is a reconstruction of a language that was never written down. It was her UPG. Apparently the definition of “cognate” she was using was also her UPG, because she used this word constantly.
Except…”cognate” doesn’t mean, “these words are vaguely similar.” In linguistics, a cognate of a word has the same linguistic root as another word. That is not optional.
The prevailing theory about the etymology of Loki’s name, for the record, is the Proto-Germanic root “*luk-.” It refers to concepts of attachment, ensnarement and closure; we see that in the lore with the stitching of Loki’s mouth, his creation of the fishing net and his binding. Nothing in that is relevant to lakes.
She could have found this out with a two-minute internet search, because that’s how long it took me to compare these etymologies. I’m not a linguist, either. I just know how to Google.
Granted, this was an abnormally bad instance of this kind of behavior, but I don’t put stock into other people’s UPG, for a few reasons. Reason one is pretty straightforward. It’s personal. That is information between you and the deity you work with. It is only reliably true and useful between the two of you.
Reason two is that “unverified” is part of the name, and at this point in my life I’d really prefer running that by an objective (or at least thoroughly-backed) source before adopting it.
I have had UPG-type experiences involving directly given information, and then stumbled upon that same information in a devotional where the author and I were mutually unknown to each other. I’ve also had hunches verified by academia completely by accident. So, yes, UPG does sometimes end up becoming a peer-verified or academically-verified Gnosis. But not always. I’d prefer not to count on it as reliable information until I see it proven. I don’t need to whip out the whole scientific method to feel confident, but I need a second opinion.
Reason three is the tendency I saw among the Tumblr-based Lokean community (myself included, before people smarter than me were kind enough to redirect me) picking up tidbits of unsupported information, and parroting them as if they were proven facts. I’ve got other gripes about the way Tumblr works, but the speed at which inaccurate information spreads is easily the biggest.
I feel like I’ve been burned by what I’ve seen happen to UPG. So, I ran far away from that and ended up as kind of a lore-thumper. I can at least be reassured the lore won’t change to be on trend. Not nearly as much, at least.
Yes, the lore needs to be approached carefully, because, yes, it was written down by non-Heathens. That just means you do more background research to work around the bias. Not consult some random person on the internet whose most compelling credentials are not being a Christian like Snorri Sturluson, and “it’s my UPG.”
People lie.
It’s a trap anyone can fall into, though. Making connections between information is deeply satisfying, and it’s something our brain does by default with incredible speed. Pattern-matching is a feature, not a bug. And we’re supposed to like and prefer things that are satisfying. Reaching a realization on our own feels rewarding. Having a source of information who is part of the community is comforting.
The problem is that facts and scholarly consensus are going to be more accurate than something that occurs to you while you’re making dinner. Even a bad academic assertion with thorough citations has a trail you can follow for better information. A trained professional has the background knowledge and discernment skills the layperson usually doesn’t have.
A linguist doesn’t equate similar sounding words, because they know how the language and its relatives operate. A lock is not a lake unless it’s a loch.
A historian knows history is written by the victors, but witnesses still leave a trail. Our myths may be transcribed by Christians, but some poetry survived mostly unchanged from before the conversion, and the sagas provide other helpful hints.
A mythologist worth their salt is trained to recognize when similarities between plots and motifs are caused by a common source material, and when they’re just coincidence. A spark nestled in a salmon and a child born from a swallowed pine needle have fascinating similarities to some of Loki’s escapades–but they are only fascinating similarities.
Even though religion is not science, we’re not exempt from carefully examining what we come across.
The Merit of Teachable Moments
When I was on a plane to Texas, I was seated next to a very chatty seventeen year old. In between randomly making assumptions about substance use (I’m generally sober, thank you), and incorrectly guessing my age by ten years (to be fair, nobody cards me) she asked me what I was reading. Or trying to read, really. Because she was that chatty.
I told her I was reading a translation of the Poetic Edda. Since nobody who isn’t Heathen or super into mythology to begin with knows what “Edda” refers to, I explained that this is one of the main sources of Norse mythology. She still didn’t know what that meant, so I said, “well you know, like, stories about Odin and Thor and Loki and them.”
That finally clicked for her, and I scrambled to specify “it’s not like the Marvel movies, though. This is a religious thing for me.”
Her response was “wait, you can do that? That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard!”
By disclosing my practice, I had achieved two things:
- Challenged the idea that pagan religions are dead, non-existent or inferior.
- Challenged the stigma surrounding Heathenry as base and hateful, because I was peacefully sitting on a plane and making the effort to educate somebody.
Visibility of pagan practices is important. I believe in the gods and teachable moments.
This idea that our faiths and our gods are dead leads to a lot of things. People assume nobody has a personal or cultural investment in these deities and their stories. And then they assume it is therefore okay to take these and bend them to their own wills. This leads to miseducation, insulting portrayals, and exploitation by people with a malicious agenda.
Because the general population assumes we don’t even exist, they don’t know enough to separate assumptions from actual practice, and those who are only vaguely aware don’t have the background knowledge necessary to differentiate extremists with an ahistorical agenda, from decent human beings who actually value the gods and the good we can all do for each other.
I’m not saying to go screaming it from the roof tops. It is not always prudent or even safe to open up about your practices, but doing so has a positive effect when it’s well-timed. I used to hide my hammer because I thought it was more “polite” to do that. I didn’t want to make people uncomfortable, knowing that this symbol has been bastardized for the past 80-odd years.
But I realized I was missing out on valuable opportunities to let people ask questions if they recognized it. I was allowing the face of my religion to be the louder and more dangerous contingent. I now make a point of being really, really obviously Heathen while being a decent human being. It shouldn’t be a big deal. In a better world, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But we’re not in that world yet.
There’s a wide variety of tactics available, and I know there are some that work better for other people. Setting a good example and being open to questions is what I’m capable of at the moment, so that is what I do.
Setting precedents is important.
Is April Fool’s a Norse Holiday?
In the modern age, some Heathens use the first day of April as a day specifically honoring Loki. This would seem to originate from the day’s associations with practical jokes, and with Loki’s reputation as a trickster. This holiday, however, has even more ancient origins—and in fact comes from the Norse.
The origin of April Fools was a festival called Prettarsdagr1 which took place during the month Einmánuður, the earlier part of which is roughly equivalent to late March and early April in the Gregorian calendar. We have recently discovered the first written account of the festival by an Irish cleric during the year 969 CE2. Archaeological records, however, have turned up rune stones using the Elder Futhark alphabet which suggest this tradition may have taken place as early as 420 CE.3
Some aspects of the Prettarsdagr festival included communal drinking, blots to Loki4 and flytings. Historians believe the emphasis on flyting originates from the aggression common to sleep-deprived humans, caused by the circadian rhythm readjusting to the presence of increased sunlight5. This is in keeping with the social function of flyting in Old Norse societies, in which they are used as a substitute for physical altercations in order to resolve conflict.
Apparent influence of the Norse Prettarsdagr festival on other cultures is evident in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in which the Nun’s Priest’s Tale describes a rooster named Chauntecleer who is haunted by dreams of his eventual death by a fox—an obvious symbol of Loki6. We can see here a parallel with “Baldrs Draumar,” wherein Baldr is plagued by dreams of his impending death7. In Snorri’s prose version, Baldr is eventually killed by a sprig of mistletoe brought to the blind Hodr by Loki. In Chaucer’s derivation, the mistletoe is replaced by cabbage in which the fox hides. This tale is the first recorded instance in the English language explicitly stating a connection between “32 March” (April 1st) and deception.8
Partly due to the conversion effort in Scandinavia, these rituals began to be divorced from their pagan origins. As more of the Norse officially became Christian, flytings gave way to humorous tales employing increasingly complex wordplay performed in the courts of kings9. One such example would be the poem on which Snorri’s account of Loki’s eating contest with Logi in the hall of Utgarda-Loki is derived10. We see a continuation of the “deception” motif in Utgarda-Loki’s disguising of fire, thought, age and the Midgard Serpent as seemingly innocuous persons and animals, who outstrip Loki, Thor and Thjalfi at every turn.
Rubber chickens may even be a holdover of the Prettarsdagr festival and the deception in “Baldrs Draumar” through the lens of Chaucer11. The rubber chicken has its origins in the performances of court jesters during the renaissance12—the descendants of increasingly humorous court skalds. Chicken carcasses were widely available and were often used in tandem with inflated pigs’ bladders as mock-weapons during performances. There is one such account of a Swedish clown as late as 1900 who used food during his performances to mock the decadence of the upper classes—including a dead chicken.
As of 1900, however, this connection had surely been forgotten.
Now, of course, April Fool’s Day is a day set aside for harmless practical jokes. In modern-day Sweden, for example, many newspapers will print exactly one fabricated story.
Kind of like this post. Check the first letter of each paragraph.
April Fool’s does not have any Norse origins, or even an analogous festival in the original Heathen practice. There is no Prettarsdagr. We still do not have compelling evidence of a cult of worship for Loki. April Fool’s as a blot day for Loki is an entirely modern invention.
But it’s also Easter, so here’s all the Easter Eggs:
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A word I literally made up for this post. It would, however, roughly translate to "day of tricks."
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Though the Vikings and the Irish would have already been in contact at this time, we have no such documents. I just wanted a year with 69 in it.
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Runestones did exist at this time, but they were mostly gravestones. And it's the weed number.
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Again, no proven cult of Loki. Therefore, no historical blots to Loki.
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Flyting might have been used as a substitute for physical violence, but it has nothing to do with a made up holiday or the transition into spring. The Norse didn't need an excuse for flyting.
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The association of foxes with deception originates separately. Foxes were never associated with Loki until very recently, and this association is entirely unsupported by the lore and historical evidence.
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There is no parallel. This is an extremely common plot--Chauntecleer even reflects on how common this plot is within the story.
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This one's actually true. Canterbury Tales legitimately is the earliest known English attestation of April 1 being linked to trickery.
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Flyting officially existed until the 1500s, but ritualized insult poetry never went away. (Rap battles are, in a sense, much like flyting.) There's no reason this would have happened as a result of the conversion, because flyting was not a distinctly pagan practice.
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We don't know nearly enough about this story to make these kinds of claims.
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LOL no.
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Actually likely to be true...but weird.
For Funsies: Nordic Music Recs
Just three quick housekeeping notes, since it’s the first of the month: comments no longer require approval (which was probably already obvious), I updated the about page (I have a face sometimes!), and the tag system has been reworked. That’s basically everything.
Housekeeping is super boring though. So, I figured I’d post something fun to make up for it.
Folk music is a big part of my life, because my parents would take me to the Philadelphia Folk Festival every August. Now I scream “this is my song!” every time I hear a hurdy-gurdy. It’s genuinely ridiculous.
Since this is a Norse-y Heathen blog, I’m picking out my favorite folk music bands from the Nordic countries to share. Few of these bands use instruments that would have existed in the Viking age, as most of the aesthetic we classify as “folk” is comparatively recent. But I’ve always found music to be an effective way to convey culture, and it’s motivated me to learn languages in order to better appreciate certain poetic flourishes. Plus, some of them are just plain fun.
Eivør
Eivør is from the Faroe Islands, and her vocals are a little like Kate Bush. (Fittingly, she’s covered “Hounds of Love.”) She works some serious magic with a frame drum, maybe literally. Like, if you told me Eivør practiced seiðr I would absolutely believe you. She’s a classically trained singer, and has performed at Frostrosir, a yearly Christmas concert in Iceland. She also sings in English and Icelandic. Also, if you watch The Last Kingdom you’ll recognize her voice immediately.
This song in particular has been making the rounds in a lot of online Heathen spaces, probably because she sounds bewitchingly ancient in it. (Fitting, because the title is Faroese for “Spellbound.”)
Valravn
This band is also from the Faroe Islands. Valravn leans more folktronic, and is regrettably no longer in action. Many of their songs are modern takes on folk songs, and they even have one based on part of the saga of Ragnar Loðbrok, “Kraka.” This one, “Kelling” is my favorite, because the strings and synths give it an amazing texture. (Plus, they yell at you to get up and dance, so now you gotta. It’s the law.)
Hedningarna
This is a Swedish-Finnish band whose name means “The Heathens.” This one is heavy on traditional instruments, but isn’t afraid to throw in some equally heavy rock drums or electric guitar–or electric fiddle. Some of my favorites are “Räven,” a song about a Huldra, and “Vargtimmen,” which was covered by Finntroll. They’ve also collaborated with Wimme Saari.
I like this song in particular, because it’s about refusing to cut down trees, and man, it’s a banger with a weird time signature.
Wimme
Since I mentioned Wimme Saari, and I think he’s super neat, I’m giving him his own place on the list. Wimme is a Saami musician from Finland, whose style combines electronic beats with joik–an improvisational and often wordless style of song distinct to the Saami.
As mentioned, he’s also collaborated with Hedningarna for the song “Tuuli.”
Hoven Droven
Hoven Droven is a Swedish band whose name roughly translates to “Helter Skelter” or “whatever.” (Which is…an odd nuance to keep up with, as an English speaker.) Their specialty is hard rock arrangements of old Swedish folk tunes. Two of the members of Hoven Droven now form the rhythm section of Triakel, which is fronted by Emma Härdelin of Garmarna.
This is one of my top five Hoven Droven songs, because I feel like it exemplifies their style really well.
Falkabarn 