The Standardization of Holytides

 Take a look at the various Asatru organizations and groupings out there on the web there is a likelihood they will have a link to Heathen Holidays. You can also do a Google search and find a lot of links about heathen holidays and Wikipedia has a complete breakdown of Heathen holidays and days of remembrance.  From source to source you will see some similarities and some differences. In Some cases, the names are different, in others the dates. These holidays are different between Heathen sects as well. Anglo-Saxon Heathens and Theodish Heathens have different holidays by name and date. Essentially there is no standardization in the Heathen holiday schedule.

Heathen holidays ten to fall all over the place. On the solstice, a full moon, a new moon, a date recorded by some scholar monk in the way back days… It is pretty much open to interpretation by whatever person, or a group wants to do. I’m betting some of you are doubting me on this. I have seen list of Heathen holidays ranging from 3 to 10 or more. All of them siting the lore and how they came to their hypothesis. The reason is that there is no uniformity in Heathenry.

Most Heathens heat the idea of standardizing Heathenry in any way. This is despite the fact that I have books by several Heathen organizations, groups, and individuals who are calling for standardization and writing books with their version of the standards! Some of these folks have a very orthodox way of standardizing Heathenry. In other words, they want to keep it straight, white, and male centric. That sounds like something I don’t want.

I have found that the problem is that our holidays never fall on the same date, unless we set them that way, and that we do not get them off. We have to work or go to school or take time off. Our kids and kin are in school or working and we have to make special arrangements to attempt to hold blót. Over the decades I have made attempts to hold the holytides on set days and even on the Judeo-Christian holidays. I have taken time off of work and made every adjustment possible to hold the holytides. Every year I get frustrated trying to negotiate the modern world with my Heathen holidays.

In my last post I wrote about the Holytides of Hammerhof. you take a look at the image attached in that


post, and here (Right) you will see dates that change based on the year and lunar cycles. This is somewhat traditional and historically accurate. The new image (above left) reflects a more fixed model. Rather than having holidays dictated by lunar cycle the holytides fall on a fixed day. The exceptions are Yule, Midsummer, which fall on the solstices and Ostara which falls on the first day of Spring, which I believe are important. For my family and Hammerhof Ostara has always been a special tide. It is also my daughter’s birthday, making it very special to us.

Blōstmfrēols, Hærfest, and Winterfylleð in this model are changed to Saturdays (not Sundays). In the past we had to use a Saturday as a celebrated-on day to accommodate work and school schedules. We have done this for all the Holytides though out the decades. That being said, we have these celebrated-on days and the official day. Blot is held on both days, however the holytide official day would be a smaller event. Just to make things a bit more confusing, if the official holytide day falls on a weekend or so State holiday, then it would be celebrated on that day. The chart below shows the official days and the celebrated-on days as they might be needed.

Holytides Celebrations

Holytide

Official Time

Celebrated-on Day

Yule

Dec 19-22

Closest Weekend

Ostara

March 21

Closest Weekend

Blōstmfrēols

1st New Moon April

1st Saturday May

Midsummer

June 21

Closest Saturday

Hærfest

1st Full Moon August

Last Saturday August

Winterfylleð

1st Full Moon October

Last Saturday October

 








This schedule is not exactly on the same level as the Church or the State holidays, but it does get us closer a standardization. The folk could gather on days they have off from work or school and the clergy class and those who are available could hold blót on the actual day. This is not far off from the Church, who hold mass through out the week and often for a holy day that was on a Sunnday.

Of course, this is all just an idea or possibility. At Hammerhof we do have celebrated-on when we need them. We try to keep Yule, Midsummer, and Ostara on their official days, this too does not always happen. The necessity to altar our holytides came from the tribal level and the needs of the tribe. We live in a modern world that is totally foreign to The Ancestors. They did not have the modern constraints of work and school that we have, thus we have made changes as we need.

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