02/20/2022
Two lessons, questions & answer discussion questions
CHAPTER TWO: ASATRU AN OVERVIEW
"The earth and sky, the field and forest Hearkened to catch each union note these measured pains, of happiness, of anguish." (1) their gaze is overcome with awe, nor their panic hard to fathom: The gardens leave their boundary walls, the laws that govern the earth are shaken--A God is being interred."
(2) "ASATRU -Loyalty to the Norse Gods, developed collaterally with the Northern European people over thousands of years as their culture evolved and dispersed throughout the mountains and plains of (modern day) Scandinavia, Germany, the British Isles, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Switzerland, the Celtic States, Northern Russia and North America. (3) In fact, because "ASATRU" is the religion which springs from the specific spiritual beliefs of Northern Europeans, it is as old as the branch of humanity, which comes into being some 40,000 years ago." (4) "Indo-Europeans brought with them a varying concept of ethics, casts, and code, marching through the Caucasus Mountains to displace or absorb Older European people and systems--their own evolving and refining as they filtered to the West, South, and North." (5)
Various polyeistic, Pagan-Forms of worship proliferated throughout the ancient European civilizations. In the wake of the dissolution of the Roman Empire, and as Europeans eroded into an unnaturally chaotic state, many peoples, in the face of political pressure, or by the edge of the sword, adopted the Christian religion pressing up from the South. "By the 9th century C.E., the Latin West was an established fact, and by the 13th, Christendom had absorbed the North as well."
(6) As Norwegian Vikings fleeing the Christian infiltration founded Iceland and established it as a stronghold of the Northern European rituals and rites, the "Elders of Iceland made a fateful decision. Under political pressure from Christian Europe, and faced with the need for trade, all first time I met her just her Bible but the fact that the front page like who are coming up are coming up because I think is everything is everything declared Iceland to be an officially Christian county. Within a few short centuries the last remnants of Nordic Paganism, which once stretched through all Northern Europe, were thought dead." (7)
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
1. which modern-day nationalities constitutes native "Asatru" worshipers?
2. Why did the Northern-European people eventually convert to Christianity?
3. Who established the Icelandic Colonies?
4. Which Nordic Nation constitutes the last vestige of European paganism?
SURVIVAL AND RE-EMERGENCE:
However, much did despite persecution from the catholic and various protestant churches, survive in the guise of Folklore's "providing that our native religion appeals to our innermost beings in a fundamental way." (8) While displaying Christian elements, the tales of the Brothers Grimm, and the Epic Beowulf--transmitted through the ages--retain an invaluable wealth of ancient European Teutonic cultures. The birth of modern ASATRU owes a tremendous debt to the loyal efforts of one Sveinbjorn Beintensson. Born July 24, 1924, in Grafardal, Iceland, Sveinbjorn, as a young man, "became disenchanted with the government-supported Evangelical Lutheran church.
For many years, he studied the ancient Eddas and Sagas of Iceland along with other material on folklore and comparative mythology." (9)
In April of 1972, Sveinbjorn, after much travail, succeed in earning State-recognition for both ASATRU and ASATRU as a religion, and for this group of modern-day practitioners, known as the ASATRU. Four months later, in honor of the Vanir God Freyr, Sveinbjorn "politically led the first outdoor ceremony of ASATRU held in Iceland for almost 1,000 years." (10)
Terming "ASATRU", a religion, however, is misleading to a degree. "ASATRU" is truthfully a way of life--a means of navigating this ocean of based on ancestral ethics, and an important view of the practitioner as a natural article of many realms of being. The Northern European ancestors honored two fundamental tribes of Gods and Goddesses, and both personifications of natural science, and integral psychological aspects of the Collective Unconscious. They offered them gifts of sacrifice, but never in exchange for blessings, as one inserts coins into a vending machine.
The ancient viewed the Gods and Goddesses as Venerable Elders of the tribe--certainly to be respected, but never as unrelated, inaccessible, or superior. In this way their worship and sacrifice were a means of sharing with friends a bountiful harvest and as we today share with one another.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
5. in which way did European Paganism survive its dormancy?
6. Which Icelander can be termed "the Father of modern Asatru"?
7. Which Festival was the first to be publicly held in Iceland for almost 1,000 years?
8. Why is terming Asatru a religion misleading?
9. Do Asatru sacrifice to their Gods? Why or why not?
DID YOU KNOW?
The Vikings, known historically as blood--thirsty savages, were no more war like or violent than other peoples of their own time. Modern historians now agree that the stereotypical cruel, pillaging Norsemen is an in accurate image. While the Vikings did act with tremendous bravery worthy of praises and admiration, the descriptions of Viking raids and sacking were always recorded by their biased enemies. (17)
MYTH AND THE GODDESS:
"The Norse Myths are stories about the God and Goddesses of ASATRU." (11) Myth is the symbolic expression of primal truth. In the modern-day ASATRU, "an effort has been made to combine the most traditional forms available with what we have been able to learn about the spiritual world of the ancient Germanic Peoples through painstaking scholarly research galvanized by the rational institution...innovation is encouraged, but at the level where it is most appropriate, with the individual." (12) "Where the elder tradition is clear, we follow it, but in some technical matters we have had to reconstruct some scriptures in that they are known to be fallible. However, they are precious in that they preserve the historical link between Northern European Pagans for a millennial down.
ASATRU is not a patriarchal tradition. The Nordic Goddesses to antiquity played an intrinsic role in the ancient Northern European societies. "The chief target of [the Christian missionaries] seems to have been the teachings and traditions surrounding the Goddesses, whose poetry and songs (many of them erotomagical) were singled out for utter obliteration. The traditions that survived the best were to be found in the Teutonic Royal Houses--somewhat insulated from the influences of the new religion. The circumstance is somewhat responsible form the misguided assumption that the Teutonic tradition is a male-dominated one. This is not especially true it is just a matter of what has been able to survive in the written tradition." (14)
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
10. What is a myth?
11. When tradition is lacking, from what source do modern Asatru draw?
12. Are the Eddas infallible?
13. Why is Asatru seen by some pagan as being male dominated?
