Hammerhof

Throughout my Heathen life, I have tried to have daily routines that I do to bring spirituality to the world around me. We do not, and probably cannot, see the world the way The Ancestors did. Our world is mundane, full of science and explanations to “why” things are. Seeing mysticism and magic doesn’t come easy. I sated that I “try” to have a daily routine. This does not always happen. In fact, most of the time it does not happen. Why? Well, because I let the modern world get in the way. Got to make coffee, get the kids up and off to school, go to work…and so on. By the time I think about a morning bede (prayer) I’m in the car and halfway to the office. I have read in several books, a few websites, and countless blogs that as Heathens we should have a daily ritual routine. I have read that The Ancestors did this and we should too. I am going to make an educated guess here and say that the idea that pre-Christian peoples, namely the Indo-European Tribes may have had some sort of dail...

  Eclecticism in Heathenry is the idea that the Heathen has taken what he knows from the lore, history, and archaeology and basically filling in the missing parts based on instinct or other religious practices. Often eclectics borrow from other religions and traditions that feel right. This includes things like burning sage, drumming, and even holytides and even gods in some cases. The problem with this is that reconstructionists and orthodox Heathens have a real problem with this. They feel that tis is a “corruption” of the “true” faith. I look at myself as a liberal reconstructionist. That is, I feel it is ok to filling the blacks based on a gut feeling. I have a Anlo-Saxon gods and Norse gods all together and I draw from the Saxon and Norse traditions for a lot of my practices. I also incorporate drums and incense (sage) in my ritual. One reason for this is that when I found Asatru it was simple a Norse system. As I grew and became educated, my belief system evolved. I do not ...

 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 r...

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...

  The lore is funny. First it was all written down by Christian monks in a time where you might not want to promote any sort of wild ideas about how cool pagans were. I recently picked up a book that a list of nine vices that Heathens will be punished for in Náströnd. Náströnd a place in Hel where Níðhöggr lives and chews on corpses. It is the afterlife for those guilty of murder, adultery, oath-breaking, and so on. Völuspá 38-39 talks about this realm and the book, which I will not mention, list locations in the lore where we can see examples of their vices and their punishments. This is an attempt to justify the vices. Punishments, and Náströnd itself. I have always been skeptical, thus these nine realms as a place of punishment for misdeeds have always seems suspect and a lot like the Christian Hell to me. So, a long time ago I put this aside and said… “I’ll get back to this.” Well, the time has come. So, let’s look at this. The nine so called vices are, murder, perjury, adult...

  Almost from the start modern Asatru had a priestly class. This is due to the fact that the founders of modern Asatru were creating a religion based upon lost ways of the Germanic people. They had little to go on from the past, but plenty to draw from their present. Religion, that is Christianity, had a priestly class, therefore so should Asatru. However, from a historical prospective there is little evidence to suggest that the job of priest ever existed in pre-Christian Germanic religious practice. If you go online and look up “Asatru Groups” or “Organizations” you will find Heathen groups both large and small. All of the national and international organizations have a priestly class associated with them, most calling it the Go ð i. All have some sort of Go ð i training program that you need to endure in order to represent yourself as a priest of the local Heathens. In most cases, this is a good idea. The Troth has an excellent program that will educate you on modern Asatru pr...

 A thousand or so years ago the European Heathen peoples Christianized. What this means is that they threw out the old gods in favor of one new god and that was that. Well, not really. Christian historians (i.e., monks and the like) would like you to believe that all the old folkloric traditions, the tribalist pagan worship was put on the curb and picked up to be disposed of. The reality is that most of the ancient pagan ways of the European Heathens was incorporated into Christianity, including the gods. This may come as a shock, but we know that Heathens prayed, and they did so in various ways: standing and holding their hands open and high, keening, and prone. When they prayed, they asked for things like help with crops, health, trade, and probable for that new tunic they saw in the corner store. The point is they pray for the same things people, non-Heathens, pray for now and they did it much in the same way Christians pray today. In the Heathen glory days, religion was tri...