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The Earth Cannot Arise A Second Time

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Today, on the Memorial of Saint Cyril of Alexandria, we recall how strength in the faith sometimes requires being contentious and that we must remember both Heaven and Earth in our journey …

I.

This article will conclude Part II, which began by understanding the historical context of Latin-Christian influence on the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic world along with the timeline and composition-milieu of Voluspa - a poem that bears disproportionately significant weight in understanding the mythology of the North. We then proceeded to show the degree of Latin-Christian influence internal to Voluspa, stanza-by-stanza, concluding that much of the structure, imagery, and events are influenced by Medieval ‘salvation history’ which was derived from a vernacular religious culture informed by both Biblical and non-Biblical material. In this present article, we will first consider how Christian-shaped material within Voluspa exposes the ‘normative gap’ between historical interpretation and modern doctrine. We will then ask whether the wider Norse-Germanic evidence represents a ‘unified religious whole’, examining its regional and temporal diversity. From there, we will consider how Snorri Sturluson transformed scattered poetic material into a synthetic system, before turning to the Norroena Society as an example of that same systematizing process outputting modern ritual legislation. Finally, we will look at historical examples of how any reconstruction work or revival effort is doomed to fail because it simply cannot be ‘recovery’ nor a ‘coming home.’ It is an exercise in modern theology-building.

This is not to somehow argue that ‘we cannot know anything meaningful about the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs.’ We must make a distinction here between ‘historic approximation’ and ‘religious reconstruction.’ The nuance is that whereas those who study the Lore in an academic capacity can make inferences from the data, they still - at the end of the day - go home and live their lives as an ‘outsider’ to the material. By contrast, the modern Heathen, engaged in reconstructing the mythology to understand the theology and live as an ‘insider’ to the material is faced with instantiating the consequences of those inferences. There is a gap here between ‘descriptive understanding’ and ‘normative reception’ - between the ‘emic account’ which is internally-meaningful to the culture being studied, and the ‘etic account’ which uses externally-formulated, analytical categories. As we saw in Part I, Section II, it is one thing to say, ‘I wish to worship the gods of my ancestors as close as possible to how my ancestors did,’ but it is quite another thing to take that abstract desire through the ‘process of reconstruction.’ Yet even discounting the ethical concerns we saw there, the fundamentally hermeneutic issues of interpreting the Lore etically and conflating that with an ‘emic account’ will cause disordered results.

The previous article showed that Voluspa cannot and should not be treated as an ‘untouched deposit of pre-Christian Norse-Germanic belief.’ And because Voluspa is a (if not the) crucial, load-bearing beam of understanding the mythos, if it is syncretic, then every reconstruction that includes its syncretic material will be affected. Yet if it is excised, the structure of the reconstruction loses much of its frame. At the very least, because of Voluspa’s constitution, elements of the reconstruction should be reassessed if one is trying to be authentic. For instance, how should a Heathen practitioner approach the elements of Voluspa which are nowhere else attested outside the poem (except through later citation and quotation) which we have shown to be influenced by Latin-Christian cosmology, such as: ‘Ginnungagap,’ the ‘lifting of the Earth,’ ‘Ask and Embla,’ ‘Nastrond,’ ‘pre-Ragnarok moral degeneration,’ the ‘litany of apocalyptic imagery (Sun darkened, conflagration, etc.),’ and the ‘new world for the righteous,’ including especially ‘Gimle.’ As we mentioned in Part II, Section I, mythology is never only a story. It is also the foundation for one’s theology and ritual practice. Therefore, an understanding of pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology as such - which does not take into account the Latin-Christian influence - will fail to understand let alone reconstruct anything except what the modern Heathen expects or prefers. To better understand this, let us look specifically at how this applies to treatments of ‘Ginnungagap,’ ‘Ask and Embla,’ and ‘Nastrond.’

Firstly, Ginnungagap. We should remember that the sources do not give us a single, stable ‘Ginnungagap theology.’ Voluspa only gives a sparse, negative pre-creation scene. Three hundred years later, Snorri provides a more crowded mythic-geography of fire, ice, and rivers of venom surrounding Ginnungagap. Later in this article, we will get into why Snorri’s account is problematic. But for now, if we return to Voluspa as the only true primary source, we quickly recognize that its narrative framing of Ginnungagap - being ‘in the beginning’ before ‘the land was raised’ - is noticeably similar to other vernacular Christian material which was known at the time of Voluspa’s composition - e.g. Genesis A and the Wessobrunn Prayer - to the extent that Voluspa can be said to portray Ginnungagap as ‘the place of nihilio,’ (from the Biblical creatio ex nihilio). This would mean that modern Heathen exegesis is only picking-up where Medieval Latin-Christian cosmology left-off because Voluspa has syncretically adapted the Genesis account, capturing a specific cultural understanding of it from a moment in time. Because the Medieval understanding of Genesis is foreign to our contemporary religious mainstream, the Heathen is able to mistake that Ginnungagap is representative of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology rather than Christian tradition.

Perhaps the most ubiquitous way that Folkish Heathens speak about Ginnungagap is to associate it with scientific theories. Stephen McNallen wrote that:

“‘Empty space’ is not empty; it is the energized ‘quantum foam’ underlying all existence. Calling it a ‘magically charged void’ [Ginnungagap] sounds like a poetic description of subatomic reality.”

The official AFA substack page has also reposted an article titled The Vikings Accidentally Discovered How the Universe Works, which describes Ginnungagap as “a condition where forces and potentials exist but structure has not yet formed,” analogous to the scientific understanding of “a high-energy vacuum or field state: conditions in which stable structure cannot yet exist. Here, ‘Nothing’ is a state pregnant with possibility.” In the first Newark Roundtable episode from the ‘Hearthfire Radio network,’ one speaker noted how modern science defines ‘existence’ as deriving from the “interaction between unchanging matter and energy without embodiment,” which they say finds analog in the fire and ice interplay on opposite ends of Ginnungagap.

But there are other more mystical or esoteric understandings as well. In the same Newark Roundtable episode, the owner of Imperium Press notes how Ginnungagap speaks to there being an “anti-Logos” ‘lack of order’ at the bedrock of reality. An AFA-adjacent blog states that “the prime motivating force for creation, the Cosmic Will that resided in Ginnungagap, had just one desire – to manifest, to Be, and to be more. There is no morality in this primal Will to Be.” The Asatru Folk Assembly itself has also stated that Ginnungagap was the source of the runes. In their book Aefinrunar: Book I - which is concerned with forming a ritual practice - the Norroena Society says that, “the gap itself is a void, a space lying between the realm of warmth and that of frost, and thus it can be seen as the element of Air.” Elsewhere, the Norroena Society associates Ginnungagap with “neutral creativity.” The Odinic Rite compares Niflheim to an ovum and Muspelheim to a sperm, which come together to create life in the ‘womb’ of Ginnungagap.

Folkish Heathens begin with a poem that says ‘nothing was,’ then immediately insist that the ‘nothing’ was actually full of or surrounded by forces or fields, runes, will, or spiritual potential. A void that contains the ‘secret mysteries of reality’ is not really a void at all though. Yet this ‘filling of the void’ is requisite for a system without a transcendent Creator. Because the framing of the ‘nothingness’ was informed by a different mythology where there is an ‘external actor’ able to operate upon it, the Heathen must posit that the void was analogous to ‘quantum foam’, or ‘evolutionary will’, or ‘neutral creativity,’ or ‘the womb’, or an ‘anti-Logos metaphysics.’ The result is not ‘ancient Germanic theology,’ but instead a ‘post-Christian esotericism communicated through Eddic vocabulary.’ This is metaphysical improvisation after the loss of emic continuity. Obliquely, it is interesting that, in one moment, the Heathen lauds the concept of Ginnungagap’s indeterminacy being at the foundation of reality, yet in the next moment, they want to laud the concept of ‘fate’ ... How fate can emerge from a contingent beginning is never really articulated … But regardless, all of this is founded upon a presupposition that Ginnungagap is actually endemic to the mythology, which as we have seen is likely not the case, or at least not in the way that Voluspa presents.

Secondly, Ask and Embla, and specifically the ‘humanizing gifts’ that they receive. Much ink has been spilled in Heathen handbook glosses about the ‘triad of gifts’ given to Ask and Embla. Indeed, not only ink but also some blood too if we consider that actual modern ‘sacrifices’ occur under the auspices of ‘reciprocating the gift cycle’ with the Aesir which began when the Aesir gods gifted ‘soul,’ ‘mind,’ and ‘vitality’ (or otherwise analogous attributes) to the two progenitors of humanity. As we saw in the prior article, however, these gifts are imitating Medieval Latin-Christian understandings of the ‘breath of life’ from the Genesis anthropogony. Even if the surface or ‘skin’ of the story is colored and clothed by pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology, the muscle-structure and skeleton are thoroughly Christian in origin. In both accounts, we have a ‘first human couple (male and female)’ who are ‘divinely animated from non-human matter’ through ‘breath / soul’, ‘mind / reason’, and a ‘bodily vitality’ to give them a ‘human form / divine-like appearance’. Thus do modern Heathens who expound on those two stanzas (and Snorri’s later gloss) actually engage in a ‘roundabout Biblical exegesis.’

For example, in Aefinrunar: Book I, the Norroena Society notes that:

“The word ‘spirit’ comes from the Latin spiritus, which means ‘breath.’ In the same sense Odin gave ond to the first man and woman, Askr and Embla”

The passage then goes on to say that what Odin breathed into humanity was runic in nature. Now, the comparison with Latin actually bolsters our case - that the Voluspa passage about Ask and Embla is taking cues from the Genesis account through Patristic exegesis further filtered through homilies or vernacular Christian poetry - because the Adam and Eve story would have been known through that same Latin term (spiritus) at the time of Voluspa’s composition. The May 2020 issue of the Asatru Folk Assembly’s Runestone publication included an article titled Soul Complex: Lyke & Ond which says that:

“Before Ask and Embla received the gifts of the Gods and the blood and soul adoption, they were from the remnants of Ymir and his hair. Within us is the Jotunn’s uncontrolled state and lack of evolution [but] if we accept this gift of folksoul and embrace it; we can grow and become more.”

The author of the article is therefore using the anthropogony to argue that ‘European ascent depends upon accepting and embracing the divine folk-soul gifted through the gods.’ By using Eddic vocabulary to construct a modern racial soteriology, Ask and Embla cease to describe the origin of humanity and instead come to represent the ‘pre-converted state’ of those of European descent before ascribing to the particular reconstruction’s programme.

Yet this ‘racialized anthropogony’ does not hold a stable meaning between groups. The Norroena Society begins with a humanless Midgard in which Ask and Embla become the “first human beings” and “parents of the world”. But the Asatru Folk Assembly’s formal doctrine refer to Ask and Embla as the origin-point of “Aryan mankind” and its distinctive soul. AFA Gothi Daniel Young then treats Ask and Embla within a pre-existing “sea of humanity”. The only aspect that distinguished them is that they were the first to become ‘conscious of the gods.’ The same myth is thus made to successively signify: the creation of all humanity, the creation of a particular race, and the enlightenment of already-existing Europeans. This is exactly how an indeterminate text can be used to authorize whichever racial and religious programme the interpreter already imagines.

Thirdly, Nastrond. We saw in the prior article how the inclusion of Nastrond in Voluspa came after the binding of Loki and before the ‘eschatological degeneration’ of Midgard, and how that placement made it easy to read as ‘Hell’. That ease of reading was made more pronounced in how the images associated with Nastrond had great overlap with Medieval Latin-Christian Hell imagery circulating around the North Sea contemporaneous with the composition of Voluspa. Both Nastrond and Hell are a ‘morally-discriminated place of punishment’, which is ‘filled with serpents’ and ‘venom’, containing ‘rivers of torment’, where ‘a catalogue of reprobates dwell’. Most tellingly is that Nastrond is a ‘penal afterlife’ where ‘the wicked receive postmortem punishment because of moral offenses’ - it is not merely one-of-many possible destinations for the dead, but one where the wicked specifically receive their punishment. If Ginnungagap is an interpretatio Norroena of the Genesis ‘pre-Creation, privative state,’ and if Ask and Embla are Adam and Eve in Norse dress, then Nastrond is similarly a ‘Norsification’ of Hell. Modern Heathens who are deriving doctrine from Voluspa’s brief mention of Nastrond are not escaping Christian categories but merely ‘un-baptizing’ them.

The Asatru Folk Assembly’s official doctrine states that:

“If the soul of the deceased is rejected by their ancestors and rejected by the Aesir, that soul is dissolved and recycled [...] This dissolution occurs on Nastrond.”

Now, what exactly is recycled in this apparent annihilationism is never articulated. Contrast this with the Norenna Society’s theology on Nastrond, which states that “punishments are not eternal” and once someone’s sentence has been completed, they can reincarnate or enter “the blessed regions.” The Asatru Folk Assembly and Norenna Society accounts of Nastrond are mutually-exclusive, which begs the question of ‘who is right?’ Regardless, however, in their Asatru Edda, The Norroena Society does not merely restate the Nastrond episode from Voluspa but instead synthesizes scattered Norse, Christianized Icelandic, Latin-medieval, and antiquarian material into a Dante-like Norse penal underworld, complete with nine realms of punishment, mountain-grottos, gates, ‘demonic’ guards, caves of torture, a northern infernal hall, and rivers of venom. The Norroena Society also based their ‘Nine Vices’ off of the moral litany from the Nastrond passage in Voluspa, potentially importing Christian categories into their reconstruction.

Therefore, we can see how Folkish Heathens use Ginnungagap, Ask and Embla, and Nastrond to inform their religion, and how one cannot simply excise these elements without undercutting their subsequent theological and ritual sanctionings. Yet if these elements (and others from Voluspa) are reconsidered, then the entire system begins to come undone. How can we have a mythos with such a dearth of knowledge about the beginning? How can we understand our nature without an anthropogony? Do we know if we will be mercilessly punished in the afterlife, and whether that leads to reincarnation or if our soul is destroyed? … With Christian influence thrown into the mix, these questions become much more opaque - if not theologically impossible - to answer.

Now, a Heathen could respond that ‘one poem - Voluspa alone - cannot recreate the entire worldview, and so we have to look at the totality of the Lore, particularly in a hierarchy of sources, prioritizing earlier and Pagan sources against later, Christian observations or systemizations’. Although this ignores the point about how these elements are unique to Voluspa, it is also well beyond the scope of this project to delineate every correspondence between skaldic poetry, Eddic poems, English and Continental sources, linguistic studies, and archaeological and runic data in order to arrive at a triangulated ‘core’ of what a pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology could have been. The reasoning for this laying outside my scope is due to that ‘could’ because any synthesizing endeavor like that will always remain incomplete or speculative, because one could only ever summarize the surviving discourses rather than engage in it and determine its depth and boundaries since we no longer have access to an emic, insider perspective. But beyond and before any of this, there is a glaring presupposition which must be addressed: what exactly would we be recreating or reviving or reconstructing - a ‘monolithic custom’ of which all the sources are fragments of, or a ‘multivariate set of beliefs’ spread over time and space which are being artificially amalgamated into ‘a whole’?

II.

For Stephen McNallen’s book Asatru to be subtitled, ‘A Native European Spirituality’ rather than ‘A Reconstructed Systemization of Medieval Norse Spirituality,’ it must presuppose that the same system which was in the Norse world was also throughout Europe before the advent of Christianity. Otherwise, any differences would betray the given aptness of a particular system for the entirety of the White race. This is to say that there is an ideological foundation necessary to reconstruction which holds that ‘the historic and textual records can be taken as one body of Lore.’ Reconstructionist projects must thereby assume the thing they have to prove: that the surviving evidences belong to a single, recoverable religious system. But is this the case? Let us investigate the question with an eye for both spatial and temporal differences …

Spatially-speaking, we can begin by looking to see if worship of the gods was uniform across the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic world. The work done by Stefan Brink in the mapping of deity-oriented toponyms shows that the geography of cultic worship was incredibly regional. For instance, there are dozens of places named after Freyr in eastern Sweden and southeast Norway, but Freyr-toponyms are almost totally absent in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia. Places named after Ullr (a relatively minor figure in the Eddas) are concentrated especially in eastern Sweden and the Viken region of Norway, and totally lacking from Denmark - again signifying regionality to worship. Ullr’s example also shows how the prominence of a god in the Icelandic literary record does not reliably measure that god’s prominence in actual cultic life. Conversely, the god Tyr has over thirty places named after him in Denmark, and a handful in England, but none in Sweden and perhaps only two in Norway. As a character in the Poetic Edda, Tyr only appears meaningfully in Hymiskvisa and Lokasenna, and his surviving mythic profile is remarkably thin compared to Odin, Thor, or Baldr. And of particular note: “the name of the god Baldr is evidently nonexistent in Swedish place names,” meaning that there is no toponymic evidence for Baldr worship. Altogether, then, we find a significant degree of local-regional specificity in cultic behavior, which attests against the narrative of a single ‘Norse-Germanic religion’ - or at least against the method of abstractly flattening this patchwork of regional cults into one system.

The behavior of these cults when interacting with one another also shows ‘factionalization.’ Richard North has argued that Norse Pagan society was configured around different divine allegiances. Because cultic constituencies composed poems which lauded or emphasized a particular god or denigrated another, we can see how these emphases reflected differing social orders operating on the ground such that one god could be ‘poetically used’ against another. For instance, in Haustlong, Thor is treated affectionately as he moves toward battle with Hrungnir, whereas Loki, Hoenir, and Odin are made into comedic figures. Odin does not appear as the ‘serene ruler of a unified pantheon,’ but as a naive hall-host who fails to recognize the danger posed by Thjazi. Similarly, in Thorsdrapa, Thor is exalted as a more militarized, heroic figure - but his elevation comes at the expense of Njord. North reads the poem as opposing two forms of divine power: Thor meets the giants through immediate, violent action, while the maritime and fertility powers associated with Njord are recast through grotesque sexual and excretory imagery. The result is not a neutral celebration of ‘the whole pantheon,’ but a hierarchy of divine prestige in which one god’s cultic usefulness rises by the poetic humiliation of another. With Hakonardrapa, this same dynamic becomes openly political. Hakon’s dominant conquest of Norway is framed through his association with ‘Freyr imagery’ as he displaces or ‘cuckolds’ Odin, who is portrayed as the ‘husband of Norway’. North therefore sees the poem as reflecting a Freyr-oriented political ideology emerging at Odin’s expense. The point here is that even where there was something like ‘a shared religious vocabulary’, this did not emerge from nor facilitate a single, stable cultic order. The gods could become rival symbols of different political, social, and ritual constituencies.

This regional plurality was reinforced by the decentralization of religious authority. Kings, earls, and chieftains often presided over communal sacrifices and maintained sanctuaries. But other functions belonged to more specialized figures. The titles godi and gydja indicate male and female cultic authorities, whereas the thulr appears to have possessed some role in formal wisdom or the preservation of traditional knowledge, and runic-authority titles such as erilaz probably indicate specialist status. Similarly, the volva exercised a more distinct authority through prophecy, divination, and seidr. The exact boundaries of these offices remain debated, and they should not be treated as ‘departments’ within an ‘organized clerical hierarchy.’ As Olof Sundqvist argues, figures such as the godi, thulr, and chieftain usually occupied ‘multifunctional social positions’ rather than constituting an exclusive, priestly ecclesiology. Therefore, “no cult leader or religious specialist had sole control” over the traditions and rites. The forn sidr was carried by different men and women whose competencies and religious expectations partly overlapped. Religious authority was real, but it was locally-embedded and functionally-dispersed. There was consequently no central priesthood, universal council, or canon-defining institution capable of imposing an authorized hierarchy of gods, nor of reconciling traditions, nor requiring every community to observe the same rites.

From this milieu, it should come as no surprise that there seems to be different understandings of the gods themselves depending on where one was in the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic world. For instance: the surviving sources preserve no stable ‘triad of principal gods’ across the Germanic-speaking world. Tacitus says that Mercury, Hercules, and Mars - conventionally interpreted as Wodan, Thunor, and Tiw - were especially revered in that order. The Saxon Baptismal Vow instead groups Thunaer and Uuoden with the otherwise obscure Saxnot. Adam of Bremen’s Swedish account replaces Tiw or Saxnot with Freyr and gives Thor the central position of reverence at Uppsala. A Norwegian sacrificial feast however produces a different arrangement, with Odin invoked for victory and royal power before Njord and Freyr are toasted for peace and prosperity. The Icelandic legal oath alters the grouping again by invoking Freyr, Njord, and an unidentified “almighty ass [god]” without naming either Odin or Thor. These recurring changes in hierarchy, membership, and function further suggest semi-overlapping regional cults rather than ‘one uniform pantheon’ observed identically throughout the North.

Similarly, as we saw in the prior article, the Baldr traditions differ so sharply that they cannot be treated as minor variants of one fixed narrative. In the Codex Regius version of Voluspa, Hodr’s mistletoe projectile, Frigg’s grief, Vali’s vengeance, and Baldr’s return after Ragnarok appear in a compressed form. Baldrs draumar says nothing about Loki or mistletoe, but in Lokasenna, Loki claims responsibility. Snorri later combines these scattered elements into the familiar continuous story of Baldr’s invulnerability, Hodr’s blindness and accidental killing through Loki, Nanna’s grief, and Loki’s obstruction of Baldr’s return. But Saxo’s Danish account reverses nearly every major role. Balderus is an aggressive rival for Nanna against Hotherus, who is not blind. Nanna chooses Hotherus rather than Balderus, and Hotherus deliberately obtains a supernatural sword to kill Balderus in battle. Beowulf preserves a parallel in which Haethcyn accidentally shoots his brother Herebeald, leaving their father unable to avenge the death without committing another kin-slaying - contrasting Odin in the Norse tradition who generates Vali to avenge Baldr.

Thor is another example. Although the god’s very name derives from the Proto-Germanic word for “thunder,” that association is strikingly absent from the Icelandic record, where he appears primarily as a god of ‘strength’, ‘protection’, and more general ‘weather-power’ rather than as a ‘wielder of thunder and lightning.’ Neither the Poetic Edda nor the Sagas explicitly connect Thor or Mjolnir with thunder. The only clear instance is Snorri’s Skaldskaparmal which depends upon the Norwegian poem Haustlong rather than an independent Icelandic tradition. This mild-discrepancy may reflect the regional character of Thor’s persona, with Iceland’s distinctive environment selecting for what the god was associated with, as thunderstorms are much more rare in Iceland than in Scandinavia, whereas volcanic and seismic activity is more common in Iceland than Scandinavia. This evolved or preserved a different emphasis from the more explicitly thunderous god found in Norwegian, English, and Latin-Continental evidence.

Similarly, the Frisian god Fosite and the Norse god Forseti most likely derive from a similar linguistic origin. However, the gods have distinct associations which differ between those two geographic areas. Alcuin’s Life of Willibrord (ch. 10-11) relates a story set near the Frisian-Danish border where the missionary Willibrord reaches an island called Fositeland. This place is named after the Frisian god Fosite, whom the locals worship at temples with sacred cattle, and whose sacred spring had its water drawn in silence. Altfrid in his Life of Liudger and Adam of Bremen in Gesta Hammaburgensis (bk. 4) both add later details onto this basic story. However, the Norse account of Forseti - which is predominantly mediated through Snorri - gives an entirely different image of the god. The Eddic poem Grimnismal (st. 15) states that Forseti dwells in Glitnir, a shining hall with golden pillars and a silver roof, where the god ‘settles disputes.’ Snorri adds that Glitnir is “the best seat of judgment among gods and men” and that Forseti is the son of Baldr and Nanna, (Gylfaginning ch. 32 ; Skaldskaparmal) with Skaldskaparmal also listing Forseti among the twelve Aesir seated as judges at Aegir’s banquet. The Frisian Foiste is worshipped more generically other than his ‘silent, sacred spring’, whereas Forseti is the ‘the son of Baldr’ and the ‘god of settling disputes’ in a ‘shining hall’. These two different images show continuity of name or an ‘inherited religious memory,’ but not uniformity of cult, myth, or function.

The examples of Baldr, Thor, and Forseti show how a cognate name does not directly correlate into a ‘uniform understanding of the god.’ Because of this, when we read Odinn from the Old Norse, Woden from the Old English, Uuoden from the Old Saxon, and Wuotan from the Old High German, we should avoid collapsing these into ‘Odin’ (are we speaking of the ‘the Odin of Snorri’ or the ‘the Wotan of Adam’ - or perhaps we mean ‘the Odin of Harbardsljod’ rather than ‘the Odin of Havamal’, or ‘the Odin of Haustlong’?). When Thorr, Thunor, Thunaer, and Donar are seen in the sources, the first thought should be to treat these gods as ‘related local instantiations of an inherited divine complex,’ not ‘interchangeable copies of one fixed Eddic-derived deity.’ Too often, the Heathen begins with Icelandic mythology, then finds cognate names elsewhere, and overlays the Icelandic personality and cosmic role onto those earlier or geographically-distinct cults, calling the synthesis ‘ancestral Germanic religion.’ Yet if all cognate names are simply treated as one identical deity, then some evidence must be overwritten or become artificially harmonized. Gods in ancient polytheism were known through concrete relations: this shrine, this season, this genealogy, this ritual. Once those relations change, the god-image changes.

Calendrical practice offers another clear example of how a shared inheritance could assume different regional forms. Old English Geol - Latinized by Bede as Giuli - and Old Norse Jol are cognate terms, (‘Yule’) but the common name does not establish that the English and Scandinavians observed one uniform festival on the same date.

For the English calendar, our principal witness is the Venerable Bede. Writing in 725 AD, within roughly a century of Northumbria’s conversion, he stood considerably closer to the pre-Christian English world than Thirteenth Century Icelandic authors stood to the Pagan Age they described. Bede says that the pre-Christian English calculated their months by the Moon and that there were two months (corresponding roughly to December and January) which were called Giuli. These two months were separated by when the Sun “turned back” explaining that one came before and the other after the day when the Sun “turned back” and began to increase - that is: the Winter Solstice. ‘English Yule’ was therefore not one date but a wider season extending across two lunar months. Within that season, however, Bede gives one observance a precise date. He states that the English began their year on the date corresponding to December 25th in the Julian Calendar, saying that it was called Modranecht (“Mothers’ Night”). Elsewhere in his work, Bede insinuates that he knew that the ‘solar turning’ occurred several days earlier. Therefore, the strongest individually-attested observance date is December 25th although ‘the Winter Solstice’ a few days prior would be more accurate to the pre-Christian English understanding.

Compare this with the surviving Norse evidence, which is considerably less precise. Snorri, writing in the Thirteenth Century, reports that King Hakon the Good ordered Jul to begin at the same time as the Christian observance of Christmas. Before this reform, he says, Yule began on hokunott, which he identifies as “Midwinter Night,” and was observed for three nights. The Medieval Icelandic calendar helps clarify that Midwinter was the first day of Thorri, ninety days after the beginning of winter and ordinarily falling in January. Yet this is not an independent calendar from Tenth Century Norway. Andreas Nordberg offers a different but compatible reconstruction. He proposes that pre-Christian Nordic ritual time was governed partly by a lunisolar calendar and that Yule occurred at the full moon of the lunar month beginning after the Winter Solstice. Under that model, its date could range from early-January into early-February. Therefore, the Norse evidence does not place Yule upon an astronomical solstice and there is no fixed ‘ancestral Yule date’. A modern observance on the solstice, at Christmas, at Icelandic Midwinter, or according to a reconstructed lunar rule necessarily represents a choice among different calendrical systems and interpretations. But the indigenous Norse system (as recorded by Snorri) is ultimately different from the English system (as recorded by Bede).

For Anno Domini 2025, the Norroena Society (predominantly Norse-informed) placed their celebration of Jul on January 23rd, whereas the Theodish Rice (predominantly English-informed) celebrated Yuletide on December 21st. The Theodish Rice also comments that the Norse celebrated on “the first full moon after the first new moon following the winter solstice, falling between January 5 and February 2” which would be January 13th for 2025 AD. The Troth (an Inclusivist Heathen organization, it must be noted) celebrated Yule on December 21st - the day of the Winter Solstice. However, Survive the Jive, the Asatru Folk Assembly, and the Irminfolk Odinist Community all celebrated Yule on December 20th. Now, December 21st is usually a ‘modern astronomical-solstice Yule’, not exactly Bede’s Anglo-Saxon lunar calendar and not clearly Hakonar saga’s Midwinter reckoning. December 25th is closer to Bede’s Modranecht complex, where the old year begins on the conventional Julian solstice date, but it is not the Norse midwinter reconstruction, and because it aligns with Christmas, Pagans are unwilling to adopt its date. A January Yule follows a Scandinavian Midwinter, but by doing so it abandons Bede’s English calendar. In other words, ‘Yule’ is not ‘one inherited date’ but a modern choice between regional systems. This is something that the Theodish world seems to understand and accept, setting them apart from other Heathen organizations:

“before the coming of Christianity, the reckoning of the year and its tides was more local than global, more national than international. Whilst the year itself was heaven-bound, being set by moon and sun, its yeartides (seasons) and holytides were wed to the land upon which a folk lived.”

With this though, there was also massive variation in the practice of the religion even within relatively localized areas Scandinavia. Fredrik Svanberg’s Decolonizing the Viking Age identifies eleven distinct burial traditions in south-east Scandinavia alone. Svanberg argues that mortuary rituals did not follow a ‘pan‑Scandinavian tradition’, but instead consisted of multiple, different ritual systems. One community cremated the dead. Another buried their body. One used boats, another chambers, another mounds, another urns, another coffins. One combined burned and unburned material in ways that do not fit a single neat doctrine of the afterlife. Even the iconic ‘Viking ship burial’ belonged predominantly to an elite setting. These burial practices do not tell us exactly what every mourner believed about the soul or the afterlife, but it does tell us how communities publicly-ritualized death. Therefore, when we identify similarities in gods, stories, and symbols, this does not immediately equate to a shared overarching system, understanding, or practice. As Terry Gunnel says specifically about the Viking Age:

“from the ninth century onward [...] it was unlikely that any national ‘pagan’ religion or world view was ever achieved across the different environments of these fledgling nations: The local, but related religions (if they can be called religions) had no central texts, no hand-books, and no written laws.”

This elasticity had helped Historic Paganism survive for millennia, but it prevented the preservation of any shared blueprint to recover.

Now, despite these local or regional differences, a Heathen could argue that ‘the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic peoples still considered themselves part of a super-regional custom which was intelligible across Northern Europe - that regional variation does not necessarily disprove a broader religious order.’ After all, we did see in Part I, Section II how there was significant regional overlap with regard to human sacrifice and the abandonment of infants in the woods. However, the issue with this position is that a ‘broad inheritance’ is not the same thing as a ‘uniform practice’. Any distillation of the specific instantiations into ‘one essence’ results in a bricolage held together by the dogma of the prerequisites for reconstruction and an aesthetic wrapping. Once the evidence has differences, the modern Heathen must choose which fragments they will be using and which ones they will be avoiding. This also raises a similar issue we noted in Part I, Section I when asking how a ‘religious form’ can be extracted from these regional particulars since deciding which features are essential and which are merely local already requires the modern interpreter to privilege some traditions over others. If that essence is reduced from what every tradition shared, the result is too thin to govern an actually-practicable religion. Yet whatever is molded into an actionable system becomes a modern synthesis that no historic community actually ever practiced. Furthermore, to attempt to encapsulate everything into one ‘tidy system’ is again to behave against a folkish understanding of the data and to artificially generate something which never historically existed.

Therefore, the Heathen is much more likely to argue that ‘we are not attempting to reconstruct the ancestral practice with absolute archeological accuracy, but instead we are attempting to capture the spirit of our people before its suffocation by foreign customs, living as close as possible to the way we are predisposed to flourish in.’ This was something we noted in Part I, Section III with the anti-colonial impulse of Heathenry being applied to the ancient past. Indeed, the Norroena Society says that:

“It is important to remember that the purpose of our faith is not to live exactly as our ancestors did, but rather to use the sources in a way that gives us an ‘authentic tradition’.”

And furthermore that “that does not mean we wish to ‘modernize’ our ancient laws, but rather we would generalize them for the sake of adaptation.” Now, in Part I, Section I, I touched upon how philosophical (Ancestral Principle) and biological (Metagenetics) arguments for this position do not inherently capture the necessity or ‘inherent givenness’ of this stance and that the argument must instead be made on historic-comparative grounds, which we will address in Part III, after this article.

Regardless, for the present, this position of ‘modern adaptation’ not only concedes that the given reconstruction is an act of ‘selecting judgements’ but even moreso, that the goal of the selection is to generate an ‘amalgamated essence’ from regionally-distinct cults which is then able to be instantiated particularly. But that essence has to be inferred from the evidence, which is regional, incomplete, and at least (as we saw above) ‘softly contradictory.’ One does not arrive at an ‘ancestral essence’ directly through ‘observation of the evidence,’ but only after ‘modern selection,’ ‘abstraction into an underlying meaning,’ and then a ‘synthesis’ which is afterwards asserted as the ‘authentic tradition’. This is fundamentally a circle. To interpret the parts, the Heathen must already possess some idea of the whole, but the whole is supposedly being reconstructed from the parts. This procedure resembles the earliest reconstructions of the dinosaur Iguanodon, in which a detached thumb-spike was placed on the the creature’s nose because it had already been imagined as a ‘gigantic iguana’. The fragment was forced into the anatomy expected of it and the resulting model then made the misplaced part appear natural. Without living, emic-perspective continuity or an authoritative tradition to govern the enterprise, the reconstruction work itself ends up generating the whole that then tells them how to read the parts. The differentiation between ‘essence’ and ‘accident’ (to borrow Scholastic framing) can only be defined by the person or organization judging the evidence. We must remember that the forn sidr was historically a holistic custom which gave priority to practice, not doctrine, and any doctrine which did exist was merely an articulation of the practice. Yet due to the present lack of emic perspective - owing to an epistemic rupture in transmitted continuity - the doctrine must be generated before the practice can take shape, thus importing the ‘hermeneutic circle’ into the very prerequisites for modern Heathenry.

With some spatial differences stated, we should also consider temporal differences such as how the custom changed over time. McKinnell observes that the designs and intentionality displayed on the Gotland picture stones evolved from pre-Viking times through the Viking Era. The earlier Gotlandic stones (c. 400-600 AD) are usually axe-shaped and dominated by abstract or symbolic imagery, such as: whorl-wheels, spirals, circular motifs, ships, animals, and schematic figures. The world of these stones is deeply abstracted and not easily reducible to the later Eddic system. But then, beginning c. 700 AD, the visual language changes. The stones become taller and more narrative-oriented with eight-legged horses, valknuts, and depictions of stories from the Eddas. By the time we reach these later stones, the visible religious imagination is far closer to the heroic, martial, aristocratic, and Odinic atmosphere familiar from the Viking Age. These differences between the older stones and the more recent ones indicate that the archaeological record does not present a ‘timeless Norse religion frozen from the Iron Age to the Viking Age’, especially not one which can be discerned from the later Icelandic texts which would seem to only capture a particular and temporally late image of what was believed and practiced.

The physical setting of worship also changed across time and region. In the First Century, Tacitus’ Germania (ch. 9) generalized how the German tribes “do not confine the gods within walls or represent them in human likeness, but consecrate groves and woods.” Nearly a millennium later, Adam of Bremen reported a markedly different cultic complex at Uppsala: a building containing images of Thor, Wodan, and Fricco, served by priests and associated with communal sacrifice. Yet Adam’s account does not describe an abandonment of landscape cult. The reported temple stood beside a sacred grove, an evergreen tree, and a sacrificial spring. The later evidence therefore does not simply replace ‘grove’ with ‘temple’ but joins outdoor sanctity to a more concentrated and monumental elite center. Archaeology supports this more complicated development. Sites such as Uppakra provide evidence for buildings plausibly used for repeated ceremonial activity, while other rites continued in halls and sacred landscapes. The broad movement was from landscapes toward an increasing concentration of rites at politically powerful central places. This development occurred during sustained contact with Roman and Christian societies which introduced something more institutionally exclusive: a ‘church building’ governed by a transregional clergy. Outdoor spaces gradually were supplanted by indoor places. This should not be unexpected because we also see the advent of ‘Thor’s Hammer amulets’ only from the late-Eighth Century onward, coinciding with the regularity of Christian activity in the North. It would seem like the hammer-necklace was consciously fashioned as a Historic Pagan counter-symbol to the Cross-necklace. We should here recall the degree of contact between these worlds that we discussed in Part II, Section I. Therefore, the archeological record shows adaptation under sustained contact with Latin-Christian models.

Then there is the total loss of information about certain deities. In the Second Mersebrug Charm, Sunna’s sister is named as Sinthgunt. This is her only attestation. Likewise, the only mention of the deity Harimella appears on a Roman-era altar from southwestern Scotland. We cannot deduce anything about these goddesses because there are no other records of them in any other context. Bede records Hrethmonath, named after the goddess Hretha, to whom sacrifices were made. Then there is Nehalennia, a goddess of maritime commerce, and Tanfana, and Baduhenna, and over one-hundred distinct Continental goddess epithets associated with the ‘Matronae cult,’ of which nothing is attested to in any literary sources. Sandraudiga is known from an altar found in the Netherlands, which was dedicated by the attendants of her temple. The Eddic pantheon is therefore not the complete ancestral system with a few gaps - it is one late and regionally-selective remainder from a religious world in which gods could vanish entirely from the recoverable record.

This same temporal instability appears in the deity of Tyr. The Proto-Indo-European root word for ‘celestial god’ (deiwos) would be expressed in the Proto-Germanic tiwaz (“deity”) which can be found in the figure of Tyr. This means that Tyr’s name is linguistically older and ‘more basic’ than Odin’s name as a ‘divine figure’ because Tyr’s reaches back to a more ancient religious-linguistic horizon. In pre-Viking times, there seems to have been some emphasis on Tyr as well because we can confidently connect him to mentions of Germans revering the interpretatio romana ‘Mars.’ The strongest indication of this lies in how the Latin ‘Day of Mars’ became the ‘Day of Tyr’ (Tuesday) in the interpretatio germania of the Latin weekly calendar, meaning that the Germanic peoples themselves associated Tyr with Mars. Another indication building from this association is from an altar in Hadrian’s Wall that was raised by Germanic soldiers for ‘Mars Thingus’ (“Mars of the Assembly”) associating the ‘Mars’ here with the ‘thing-court’ of law and order. This fits the characteristics which would be associated with a deiwos god, like Tyr. Tacitus reports that even though Mercury (commonly interpreted as a reference to Odin) is offered primary worship, that Mars is also a very important deity to the Germans. In a section about nobility, priesthood, and kingship, the historian Jordanes (basing his work on now lost manuscripts by Dio) says that the tribe of the Goths worshipped Mars by slaying captive, devoting the first shares of loot, and hanging enemy weapons in trees. This devotion had a special religious affection for Mars “above the others,” as if to a parent or progenitor. And we already saw above how Danish place-name evidence points to Tyr being especially important there.

Compare these early accounts associating the ‘interpretatio romana Tyr’ with the court and aristocracy to the ‘Eddic Tyr’, whose main narrative importance can be found in the ‘Fenrir binding episode’ where the god sacrifices (“pledges”) his hand to the wolf so there can be peace. In Hymiskvida, he goes on an adventure with Thor to attain a kettle for a feast of the Aesir where we learn that the jotunn Hymir is Tyr’s father. This parentage is contradicted by Snorri in Skaldskaparmal who says that a kenning for Tyr is “son of Odin.” Another of the given kennings for Tyr is “battle god” which points back to his older association with Mars. At the feast of the Aesir, as related in Lokasenna, after Tyr praises Freyr for ‘not harming women’ and for ‘freeing the bound from their fetters,’ Loki taunts that Tyr could never “fashion friendship” between two men and reminds him that Fenrir tore off his right hand. Loki then claims to have fathered a son with Tyr’s wife and says that Tyr received ‘neither payment nor redress for the injury.’ These flyting insults jab at Tyr’s missing hand with the surrounding mentions of ‘binding’ (recalling Fenrir’s own binding) and ‘harm done to women’ (anticipating Loki’s cuckoldry of Tyr) emphasizing Tyr’s inability to ‘secure a deal’ due to his inability to perform handfesta, where two parties would ‘pledge to one another by joining hands.’ Although the ‘Eddic Tyr’ seems to have retained some of his martial characteristics, (being described elsewhere as ‘brave,’ ‘wise,’ and ‘powerful in victory’) he has also lost his earlier ‘law and order’ associations. As we also mentioned above, it is Forseti who is said to be a ‘god of justice’, not Tyr. Therefore, we can see how the prominence of a deity and what their associations were, could change over time.

The Germanic world was set into a crucible during the Sixth Century. In those one-hundred years, it faced: environmental hardships, the dissolution of political, demographic, and religious arrangements, and the undermining of inherited customs which had been locally-maintained for generations. In 536 AD and again in 540 AD, volcanic eruptions produced exceptional Northern Hemispheric cooling, shortened growing seasons, and harvest failures, in what is called the ‘Late Antique Little Ice Age.’ Archaeological evidence from Scandinavia indicates that settlement-size contracted, farms were abandoned, and surviving communities were reorganized. Within a few years, a ‘plague pandemic’ also reached continental Germanic populations. At the same time, the Franks destroyed or absorbed the Thuringian and Burgundian kingdoms and Justinian’s armies eliminated the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. Farther east, the arrival of the Avars transformed the balance of power around the Danube. The Lombards and Avars destroyed the Gepid kingdom in 567 AD, after which the Lombards entered Italy and constructed a new kingdom amid the remains of Roman and Ostrogothic society. These political upheavals coincided with equally-consequential religious realignments, with Germanic peoples navigating among traditional cults, Homoian Christianity, and Nicene Christianity as royal conversion increasingly became a means of diplomacy and legitimation. This period was characterized by change: landscapes were deserted, kingdoms were extinguished, peoples were relocated, and elites were absorbed or replaced. In such conditions, religious authority could no longer depend solely upon the uninterrupted continuity of a community, its ancestral landscape, and its inherited rulers. The elites who were best able to gather armed followings, redistribute acquired wealth, and establish new dynasties also gained an exceptional capacity to carry their preferred cultic language across territories and to subordinate displaced local traditions within a more expansive political order.

It is within this changing aristocratic and martial world that facilitated the increased power of the Odin cult. The features of his cult appear to have belonged to an exclusive social class of the warlord and his initiated retainers. The more charismatic aspects of what is popularly mischaracterized as ‘Viking religion’ - such as the expectations of afterlife beerhall feasts and daily-renewed battle in Valhalla, along with ‘ship-burning funerals’ - were predominantly isolated to this cult. As successful warlords conquered land, their warbands could harden into ‘territorial aristocracies’. Several Anglo-Saxon royal houses traced themselves through Woden, while Haleygjatal carried the ancestry of the Hladir jarls back to Odin and Skadi. The expansion of Odinic dynasties could therefore alter the religious field without warriors abandoning Thor, Freyr, ancestors, or local spirits (even if Odin’s role might supplant other deities’, such as Tyr). Instead, it gave them an ‘Odinic grammar’ in which comparatively mobile and court-centered ideals of sacred lordship, sworn retinue loyalty, divine ancestry, ecstatic wisdom, and privileged postmortem destiny could be exalted above other areas of the religious field through transmissions from poets whom those same elites patronized. This would elevate certain categories that Christian teaching could appropriate, subordinate, or confront. Odin’s epithet Alfodr (“All-Father”) crystallized an inherited Indo-European patriarchal title but could be contrasted against Christ’s truly universal sovereignty. Odin’s ‘adopted sons’ (the einherjar) could be made analogous to ‘saints’ and the valkyrie as ‘angels’. Ultimately, the success of the Odin cult accomplished two things that would allow the conversion to Christianity to arrive less impeded by indigenous categories and loyalties: it ‘uprooted’ local, ethnic religions and shifted focus to a ‘portable faith and practice’ (‘universalizing’) while also putting emphasis on a single, powerful deity and the afterlife they offered (‘salvation’).

But there is another aspect stemming from this historical development which must be addressed. Our primary inlets into the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology are the poems Voluspa, Vafthrudnismal, and Grimnismal. These are the main sources that Snorri Sturluson uses in creating his own Gylfaginning systemization. But these three poems could be described as ‘Odin Poems,’ in the sense that it is Odin specifically who is the center of action. He causes the volva seeress narrator to speak in Voluspa, he initiates the wisdom contest with the eponymous Vafthrudnir, and he is the one ecstatically delivering litanies of information in Grimnismal. The patronage of successful warband elites ensured that their narrative was dominant. It is even possible that these poems existed to serve a quasi-catechetical function for the Odin cult, organizing dense mythological knowledge into memorable wisdom performances for transmission to an audience. But regardless, this means that our main view of the mythology is through only one of the cults in the plurality encompassed by ‘the custom’. But going even further, it is also possible that the myths which were selected to be recorded were the ones that rose to the forefront of the skald’s mind within the context of a Christian world. For instance, the dramatic story of Odin hanging from Yggdrasil is only recorded in the Havamal. Its similarities to the story of Christ’s Crucifixion (‘hanging on wood’, ‘speared’, ‘hungering or thirsting’,’ ‘screaming’, ‘myself to myself’ as eucharistic language) could have brought it to the surface of the poet’s consciousness or the patron’s request, thus determining its selection. This is not even to argue that the story was ‘influenced’ by Christian mythology, (although it is quite possible that it was) but rather that an episode in Odin’s arc was brought into the record because it had resonance with the Latin-Christian worldview.

Obliquely, the very process of documenting Eddic poetry in writing likely affected its transmission. As one scholar observes, Eddic poetry could be very stable verbally in oral circulation without being invariable. Although there was an expectation for consistency in a recognizable poem’s performance, it could still be adapted or synthesized with other material especially because stanzas often functioned as ‘stock phrases’ which might be moved around or imported depending on the craft of the skald and the needs of the recitation. As this relates to the recording of poems, we generally cannot know whether a particular surviving text was recorded from a live performer, reconstructed from memory, copied from an earlier written example, or produced through some combination of these processes. If an oral performer was recorded by a scribe, however, the performer would probably have dictated in shorter spoken units, since the transcriber required pauses in order to write. This may have given the performer more time to contemplate, clarify, or improvise in the moment, or otherwise to adjust the poem within a setting radically different from an ordinary public or courtly performance. There may also have been some degree of co-production between performer and scribe, particularly if both possessed knowledge of the material and could question, correct, or supplement one another. Alternatively, the performer and transcriber may have been the same person, able to protractedly sit with the remembered poem and impose their own artistic vision upon it. The manuscript text should therefore not be imagined as a neutral transcript of an unchanged oral original, but as one particular textual realization of material transmitted through memory, performance, adaptation, and scribal activity.

So even less so than access to plural ‘Norse religions’, we actually only have access to fragments of a particular cult’s mythology - that of the warband, which was itself relatively late and revolutionary in many ways. That these warbands would assert themselves into dominant positions and commission poems from skalds would ensure that our perspective on the mythology requires theirs. Indeed, the most emblematic and charismatic elements of Norse religion were probably isolated to this elite: the expectation of Valhalla, ship burning funerals, berserking, human sacrifices, ‘halls’ of feasting, and so on. That framing ties the cultic afterlife to court ideology rather than to everyday farmers. Indeed, the Sagas and archeological evidence suggest that Thor and Freyr were far more revered by those outside the elite. The problem then is not merely that there was geographic diversity, and that the custom evolved over time, or that the evidence into this changing and regional world is fragmentary, but also that the fragments themselves are not a wholly-random sample. Therefore, the wider evidence does not naturally converge upon one, uniform system - “the religion must be regarded as a series of partly overlapping traditions, differing from place to place and from time to time”.

III.

Yet the modern Heathen can still accept all of this by appealing to an underlying compatibility of sources in order to assemble a workable mythology. In other words: the inlets we do possess can be harmonized or made mutually-illuminating by directing and converging the streams into one pool. This is the ‘necessity of systematization’, which is nowhere better expressed than in the figure of Snorri Sturluson. Modern Heathen reconstruction often treats Snorri as if he clarifies a pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology, but Snorri is ultimately a Thirteenth Century Christian performing an editorial synthesis which can actually impede access to the Historic Pagan past. Snorri is not just ‘preserving a system’ - he is ‘producing a system’ according to his own sociohistorical ideological priors.

In 1179 AD, (almost two centuries after Iceland’s Conversion) Snorri Sturluson was born into the powerful Sturlungar clan - a clan so dominant in Iceland that this period is called the ‘Age of the Sturlungs.’ After his father got into a violent dispute, Snorri would be fostered by the Loftsson family at Oddi, a center of learning where Snorri would receive elite legal training and Latin-Christian intellectual formation. One of the Loftsson boys (Snorri’s foster-brothers) would eventually become a bishop, expanding Snorri’s ties into ecclesial elite as well. Eventually, Snorri would become Lawspeaker and after his term, he would travel to Norway c. 1218 AD on invitation from Jarl Skuli Bardarson of King Hakon IV’s court. This invitation was extended after Skuli read and enjoyed some of Snorri’s poetry. On Snorri’s return to Iceland, after being made a ‘royal liegeman,’ he would advocate for closer alignment - and eventually, union - between Iceland and Norway, obviously influenced to some degree by his meeting. It is around this juncture, (c. 1220) that he composed Gylfaginning and Skaldskaparmal which synthesized the pre-Christian Norse and Icelandic mythological material which was available to Snorri. A decade later, Snorri composed Hattatal, a 102-stanza catalogue of skaldic verse-forms praising King Hakon and Jarl Skuli for their generosity and martial valor. Collectively, these works are known as the Prose Edda. While Snorri was on a second sojourn in Norway. (c. 1237-1239 AD) a rift formed between Hakon and Skuli which evolved into Skuli’s rebellion. Skuli would be defeated and Hakon would order Snorri to remain in Norway. Snorri would defy this order and return to Iceland. Because of this, on September 23, 1241 AD, Snorri Sturluson was assassinated on Hakon’s order.

If they know about Snorri at all, most people’s knowledge extends only to the fact that he authored the Prose Edda. Yet even among this small minority, fewer understand that the work was primarily a treatise on poetic art intended to instruct and entertain Icelandic poets. Its purpose was not to transmit a pagan canon or disclose religious truth, although preserving mythological knowledge was necessary to its poetic project. Indeed, Snorri explicitly tells the reader to take the book as “scholarly inquiry and entertainment,” while warning that “Christian people must not believe in heathen gods, nor in the truth of this account.” The genre therefore governs both the selection and the arrangement of its contents: myths are included because they explain kennings and poetic allusions, and they are reshaped into forms that can be taught within a literary handbook. The resulting coherence cannot automatically be treated as evidence that Historic Pagans themselves possessed an equally coherent theological system. Given the Christian milieu in which he wrote, Snorri also had to place the inherited material within a framework that did not challenge the Latin-Christian account of history and religious truth. Christianity influenced not only which conclusions were permissible but also the intellectual form through which the material was organized. A literate Christian culture accustomed to universal history, ordered cosmology, hierarchy, and grammatical classification encouraged Snorri to arrange fragmentary and sometimes inconsistent traditions into a system extending from creation to Ragnarok. This does not mean that every ordered feature of the Prose Edda was invented by Christianity, but it does mean that Snorri’s need and ability to systematize the material belonged to his Thirteenth Century Christian scholarly world rather than necessarily to the pre-Christian mythology he described. Indeed:

“this was an age of extreme religious intolerance [...] not only against Muslims and other pagans, but also against the slightest divergences within Christendom itself. It seems very hard to explain how a broad and deep heathen tradition would have been able to survive in such an intolerant intellectual milieu. On the contrary, there are good reasons to conclude that nothing of the kind existed at the end of the twelſth century.”

Two strands of evidence point to Gylfaginning being a consciously framed, Christian-age systematization rather than a neutral transcript of myth. Firstly, the work’s catechetical question-and-answer design casts the ‘protagonist interlocutor’ Gylfi as someone who asks the ‘right questions.’ Historic Pagan claims are stated, the claims are connected into a cosmology, Christian-type questions test them, contradictions emerge, the Historic Pagan authorities run out of answers, and then their artificial world disappears. This aligns Gylfaginning with conversion-dialogue models, such as the one we noted in the prior article. Secondly, Snorri’s framing embeds Norse mythology within a Latin-Christian account of Historic Pagan error. Old Asgard is identified with Troy and placed at the world’s center, like a counter-image of Jerusalem. The interlocuting Har, Jafnhar, and Thridi evoke an ‘inverted Trinity’, and Odin’s twelve subordinate rulers recall ‘the Apostles’. Gylfi’s encounter consequently resembles a ‘counterfeit pilgrimage’ to a ‘counterfeit sacred center’ which ends when the hall and its occupants vanish as ‘deceptive appearances’. The final scene then explains how Historic Pagan belief was produced: Gylfi circulates the stories he has heard, while the euhemerized Aesir deliberately give the divine names to contemporary people and places so that posterity will confuse Trojan ancestors with gods. Snorri is therefore enclosing the mythology within a Latin-Christian narrative that explains both its ‘transmission’ and its falsity. How Snorri systematizes the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology may therefore be because a system must be articulated before its inadequacies can be exposed.

Margaret Clunies Ross has shown that Gylfaginning’s prose Prologue follow much of the conventional programme of Medieval encyclopedias. It contains: creation and the four elements that lead into the division and shape of the world, the heavenly bodies, day and night, the courses of the Sun and Moon, eclipses, the rainbow, winds, seasons, rivers, tides, and earthquakes. Comparable sequences appear in works such as Bede’s De natura rerum and Honorius’s Imago mundi, while Icelandic computistical writings such as Veraldar saga, the Elucidarius, and related encyclopedic material show that this curriculum had reached Iceland before Snorri began writing - indeed: “Snorri is most likely to have learnt about the subjects treated in the medieval encyclopedic tradition in the course of his education at Oddi.” Snorri’s Latin-Christian education supplied a ready-made catalogue of questions and an ordered cosmographic frame into which scattered Norse traditions could be inserted. The encyclopedia did not merely help Snorri explain an already-complete mythology; it helped determine what a complete mythology was supposed to explain and its very structure encouraged Snorri to fill any and every gap.

Apart from Snorri’s religious environment, we must also consider his position as a powerful chieftain, jurist, court poet, and political intermediary. His preservation of skaldic poetry cannot be separated from a parallel effort to preserve the value of Icelandic expertise at Scandinavian courts, where specialist poetic knowledge could be exchanged for gifts, protection, titles, and prestige (as Snorri himself benefitted from). Courtly recognition in Norway could then be converted into political standing among rival Icelandic chieftains at home. This could be further capitalized on through framing: the Prose Edda presents Icelanders not as peripheral provincials but as trustworthy custodians of a sophisticated, pan-Scandinavian inheritance. Its presentation of Norwegian and Icelandic poetry as a shared cultural inheritance could also make closer political association with the Norwegian crown appear ‘historically-natural’ and mutually-intelligible without explicitly advocating for ‘reunion’ - a sort-of ‘soft-propaganda.’ And rather than minimizing his Latin-Christian learning, Snorri redirected its pedagogical and classificatory techniques toward defending skaldic poetry as an ancient, rigorous, and court-worthy art at a time when imported Continental forms threatened to displace it. Simultaneously, by explaining kennings, classifying metres, selecting the myths necessary to interpret them, and judging correct poetic practice, Snorri also positioned himself as an authoritative gatekeeper of that inheritance. The Prose Edda therefore helped standardize form and content in a way where interpretation depended upon Snorri. His antiquarian interest and craft as a poet should not be discounted, but his work in the Prose Edda cannot be detached from its capacity to preserve a professional market, enhance artistic authority, and advance his political positioning.

The fact that Snorri was ultimately “a politically aggressive, powerful and respected figure” meant that his work would find a wide audience. Indeed, Snorri likely amplified an already-existing aristocratic revival of skaldic poetry and redefined what form that revival would take. Only fifty years after Snorri’s Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda (Codex Regius) was written and compiled together. But this timeline raises two interesting questions: what was the state of the Eddic poetry at the time of Snorri’s writing, and is it possible that the Poetic Edda influenced by Snorri’s writings?

For the first question, it must be stated how:

“The central question is not how learned and Christian Snorri and other literary active Icelanders in the thirteenth century were, but rather how pagan the ‘native tradition’ was with which they were dealing, and how Snorri and his contemporaries treated this tradition when they put it down on parchment.”

Let us turn this thought more concretely to our analysis of Voluspa. That the poem was composed c. 950 AD does not mean that that exact original (nor the way it was understood) from the Viking Age was the same that Snorri was referencing in his Prose Edda. Indeed, in the prior article, we already saw how an ‘emendated reconstruction’ of Voluspa from the Codex Regius and Hauksbok versions is necessary to overcome the major differences between those individual witnesses, meaning that there were different ‘Voluspas’ circulating and developing in the two-hundred-and-seventy years between its composition and Snorri’s writings. When Voluspa (any any Nose-Germanic content) reaches Snorri, all temporal developments and dissimilarities in oral versions are compressed into one ambered version that he can explain. All of these possible variations are being selected from (whether through sheer availability or Snorri’s preference) and captured in one moment of contemporaneous time, allowing Snorri to treat it as ‘one tidy work’.

Regardless, the ‘social context’ of Voluspa would have changed dramatically from the time of its composition to the time of its recording. By Snorri’s time, whatever cultic function Voluspa might have once possessed was no longer preserved within a continuing, public Historic Pagan institution. Voluspa would have ceased to possess religious meaning and effectively become a desacralized totem of ‘the old days’. In this way, Snorri (and the Saga authors too) are ‘reminiscing about the way their ancestors lived,’ meaning that romanticism or antiquarianism - and in some sense, ideological or emotional reaction against contemporary circumstances - is inherently built-into the framing of these works. In his need for comprehensive mythological material to systematize, Snorri converts Voluspa’s ‘performed prophecy’ into a sourcebook from which he can excavate content. It becomes a ‘proof-text’ within his prose system.

For the second question, we should also investigate the possibility of Snorri influencing the Poetic Edda, given the timeline of his work coming a generation before the recording of our earliest witness to the Eddic poems. The standard assumption is that there were oral poems which were known to Snorri, who used them as the foundation for his systematization and which were later fully-recorded in the Poetic Edda. However, it is also possible to theorize that there were oral poems which Snorri selected from and organized, which prompted an increased interest in the mythology through Snorri’s framing, which influenced the milieu that transcribed the oral poetry. This is to say that the sources - by which modern readers attempt to ‘double-check Snorri’ - may themselves have been shaped by Snorri’s success in the Icelandic culture of his day. Consequently, some material that appears to corroborate Snorri may actually be downstream from Snorri’s systemization rather than independent evidence for the antiquity of his synthesis.

There are several examples which can function as evidence for this position. First, (as we have seen) there are many story-complexes surrounding the Death of Baldr which can function as self-contained narratives. Baldrs draumar preserves an Odin-centered cycle in which Odin questions a dead seeress, learns that Hodr will kill Baldr, and is told that Vali will avenge the death. However, the cycle central to Snorri’s Gylfaginning focuses upon Frigg’s attempt to protect Baldr, Loki’s discovery of the mistletoe exception, and Loki’s manipulation of Hodr. These traditions share several names and events, but they distribute agency and vengeance differently. Snorri partially combines them by beginning with Baldr’s dreams and retaining Hodr as the killer, although he omits Odin’s journey to the seeress and the vengeance of Vali. The fourteen-stanza Medieval text of Baldrs draumar does not contain the fuller Frigg-Loki narrative, but additional stanzas found in mid-Seventeenth Century insert Frigg’s collection of oaths into the Odin-centered story. Their late language and metre, together with verbal correspondences to Gylfaginning, make Snorri’s account the probable source of the interpolation and shows how his synthesis could reshape the transmission of Eddic poetry.

Secondly, in Snorri’s account of the Mead of Poetry, he says that the arnar leir, (“mud of the eagle”) refers to Odin’s excrement in his bird-form, serving as an etiology for ‘bad poetry.’ However, this interpretation conflicts with the dominant metaphor of poetry as a drink and with Odin’s established role as the divine model of poets. The expression has only three known skaldic attestations, two of which directly engage with Snorri or his Prose Edda, suggesting that they reflect the reception and acceptance of Snorri’s explanation rather than the independent preservation of an older tradition. If this is the case, then Snorri’s seemingly ad hoc explanation of a kenning became the foundation for that kenning’s meaning to later poets. Thirdly, the introductory and concluding prose passages from Lokasenna were probably not originally associated with the poem. The introduction contains several details resembling Snorri’s account of Aegir’s feast in Skaldskaparmal, while the conclusion closely summarizes Snorri’s description of Loki’s capture and binding in Gylfaginning, implying their influence by Snorri’s systemizing work. If there was some source that both the Lokasenna prose and Gylfaginning drew from, it is unknown. Furthermore, in a later manuscript, the poem Hymiskvida appears without the prose narrative that links it to Lokasenna in Codex Regius, showing that this connection was not an integral or universally transmitted part of the poem. Therefore, from all of this, we can see how what is presented as ‘ancient consensus’ may be little more than Snorri’s synthesis anachronistically echoed in transcriptions which came after.

Yet regardless of the state of the material before or because of Snorri, his prose moves beyond the preserved ‘primary sources’ into selection, combination, and conjecture. A new question arises, then: to what extent does the Prose Edda systematization rests upon ‘trusting that Snorri says so’ rather than being able to independently verify the material he stitches together? We should look at this information in two categories: information only attested by Snorri, and information that Snorri is classifying or defining in ways unwarranted by the sources. After looking through these examples, we will move to questioning Snorri’s methodology and his underlying approach.

Firstly, there is an immense amount of information that is only attested by Snorri, which modern Heathens have a tendency to ‘read into’ the sources or uncritically include in their own reconstructions. This is especially the case as it relates to the ‘early-’ or ‘pre-creation’ state of reality (as we have mentioned above and in the prior article). Snorri is the only source of information relating to the ‘hot-cold cosmogony’ such as: Muspell lying south of Ginnungagap and Niflheim lying north, with Hvergelmir existing within Niflheim and the frozen river Elivagar flowing outward from it, along with Elivagar having congealed-frozen venom in. Snorri is also the only source to say that the heat from Muspell crossing over Ginnungagap to Niflheim melts the frozen venom to become Ymir. To qualify this, the surviving poetry preserves only scattered components rather than the full narrative itself: Voluspa (st. 3) associates Ymir with Ginnungagap, Vafthrudnismal (st. 31) says that venomous drops from Elivagar grew until they produced Aurgelmir (likely Ymir), Grimnismal (st. 26) names Hvergelmir as the source of waters without locating it in Niflheim, and Lokasenna (st. 42) and Voluspa (st. 52) both associate Muspell and Surtr with Ragnarok’s eschatological fire and a south-ward direction, but not with a cosmographic ‘primordial southern realm of fire’. Other totally unattested aspects deriving from Snorri involve the primordial-cow Audhumbla, who produces four rivers of milk that nourish Ymir, and who licks Buri (grandfather of Odin) out of salty rime-stones. Likewise, after the slaying of Ymir, Snorri is the only source to say that the maggots that formed in his flesh became the dwarves.

These additions do not look like otherwise ‘unattested details’ as much as they do an attempt to reconcile inherited fragments with the etic philosophical categories of Snorri’s own Thirteenth Century Latin-Christian education. The Fourth Century Christian philosopher, Lactantius, could have supplied a particularly striking example of that conceptual grammar. In the Divine Institutes (2.10.1-3) he says how the south belongs to solar warmth, summer, fire, light, and life, while the north belongs to cold, winter, water, darkness, death, and “perpetual ice”. Lactantius then explains that heat is the active substance of fire, moisture the substance of water, and that their conjunction generates living things. This is almost exactly the same structure Snorri imposes upon his cosmogony: bright and burning Muspell lies to the south, cold and grim Niflheim lies to the north, and life first appears when southern heat encounters northern rime, melting it into the quickened-drops from which Ymir assumes form. This goes to show that Snorri’s supposedly indigenous ‘fire-and-ice creation’ conforms remarkably well to an already established Latin-Christian natural-philosophy template. Nor is this the only place where the prose system bends inherited material into a Christian shape. Anthony Faulkes argues that Snorri likely “deliberately manipulated his sources” to maximize their correspondence with the Old Testament. For instance, when Ymir is killed, the flood of his blood destroys the entire race of jotunn, with only Bergelmir and his wife escaping in a ludr (“mill-stone”?) - the subsequent race of jotunn descending from that surviving couple. This is an abridged version of Noah’s story from Genesis 6-8. Furthermore, no other source from the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic corpus mentions a flood whatsoever. Likewise, (as we mentioned in the prior article) whereas both the Codex Regius and Hauksbok versions of Voluspa begin the pre-creation account with “when Ymir lived,” Snorri’s version instead presents an age “when nothing was.” Whether that difference came from material available to him or was due to his own handling of the poem for ideological reasons, Snorri is not merely transmitting a complete cosmology which the surviving poetry independently verifies. If the only coherent and substantive creation narrative in Norse mythology disappears once the material unique to Snorri is removed, is Snorri preserving the system or supplying it? …

A similar dependence upon Snorri is required for the upper regions of his cosmography. Voluspa (st. 64) independently attests a golden hall standing ‘on Gimle,’ but it does not describe Gimle as part of a ‘hierarchy of heavens’. It is Snorri alone who describes Andlang as a second heaven lying southward and upward from the ordinary heaven, and Vidblain as a third heaven above Andlang, (both otherwise unattested) with Gimle lying within Vidblain. Snorri also is the only one to state that ‘light-elves’ alone presently inhabit these upper heavenly abodes (more will be said about these creatures momentarily). Likewise, Voluspa (st. 19) associates Urd’s well with Yggdrasil, but it does not assign the well to a particular root nor connect it with the Aesir’s heavenly tribunal. Grimnismal (st. 31) places Yggdrasil’s three roots over ‘Hel,’ the ‘frost-giants,’ and ‘mankind.’ Snorri takes this information and places one Yggdrasil root among the Aesir, (‘the gods’, not ‘humanity’) beneath which he locates Urd’s well. Snorri further adds that two swans live within the well and that every earthly swan descends from them. The same procedure appears among the creatures of Yggdrasil. Grimnismal (st. 32) relates an eagle above the tree and Ratatoskr carrying its words to Nidhogg below, but only Snorri says that the eagle ‘possesses extensive knowledge’, places the otherwise unattested hawk ‘Vedrfolnir’ between its eyes, and transforms Ratatoskr’s transmission of words into the deliberate exchange of slander intended to provoke hostility. Rather than asking ourselves ‘would a Viking have known about these aspects that Snorri alone supplies’, we should instead ask ‘do we have any evidence that a Viking knew about these features’? Wherever Snorri stands alone, the answer is ‘no.’ One may suppose that Snorri preserved ‘lost traditions’, but that supposition cannot itself become evidence for them.

Furthermore, the traditions concerning Baldr’s death and the powers associated with the underworld and Ragnarok are given more details and shape by information only attributable to Snorri. Baldrs draumar (st. 9) and Voluspa (sts. 32-34) identify Hodr as Baldr’s killer, but neither calls him blind - Snorri alone makes Hodr’s blindness the mechanism by which Loki engineers the murder. Hermod’s name appears independently in Hyndluljod (st. 2) and Hakonarmal (st. 14), but only Gylfaginning (ch. 49) sends him on a nine-night ride upon Sleipnir to ransom Baldr across Gjallarbru, past its guardian Modgud, and over the gate of Hel. Likewise, Husdrapa independently depicts Heimdall riding a horse to Baldr’s funeral, while Grimnismal (st. 30) lists Gulltoppr generally ‘among the horses of the gods,’ but it is Snorri who joins the two notices and assigns Gulltoppr specifically to Heimdall and that Heimdall rode it the funeral. Nanna’s death from grief is also entirely unique to Snorri’s account. Once again, the older poetry supplies isolated names, relationships, and images, while the continuous narratives, fixed assignments, and explanatory mechanisms belong to Snorri’s prose. The poetry supplies fragments, Snorri supplies the story.

Likewise, poems independently connect Loki with fathering Fenrir, Jormungandr, and Hel with Hyndluljod (st. 42) specifically naming Angrboda as the mother of the wolf. Only Snorri, however, makes Angrboda the mother of all three monsters, presenting them as a single sibling group raised together in Jotunheim. Glepnir, the binding used on Fenrir, is said to be made from six ‘impossible things,’ (a cat’s footfall, a woman’s beard, mountain roots, bear sinews, fish breath, and bird spittle) but this dimension to the story is only evident in Gylfaginning. So too is the existence of Hel’s hall, Eljudnir, and its allegorical furnishings, including the dish ‘Hunger’, the knife ‘Famine’, and the bed ‘Sick-Bed’. Finally, the ship Naglfar from Voluspa (sts. 50-51) which carries the enemies of the Aesir during Ragnarok, is only known to be ‘constructed from the untrimmed nails of corpses’ through Snorri’s mention. The irony of all this is that Snorri becomes most authoritative precisely where the historical, corroborating evidence is weakest. The more a reconstruction depends on him to fill the archive’s silences, the less it can claim to have ‘recovered a Viking-Age religion.’

Secondly, Snorri does not merely add unattested details, he often converts ambiguous poetic terminology into fixed classifications that the surviving sources do not independently mandate. The clearest example is his division of the elves into heavenly ljosalfar, who are “fairer than the sun,” and fundamentally different from the subterranean dokkalfar, who are “blacker than pitch”. Grimnismal (st. 5) knows Alfheim (“Elf Realm”) as a realm given to Freyr, while other poems frequently pair the Aesir and elves as collective supernatural beings, but no surviving poem divides elves into these opposed races or assigns them the moralized celestial and subterranean characteristics described by Snorri. The distinction has prompted scholars to see Snorri’s taxonomy as being influenced by the Christian distinction between ‘heavenly angels’ and ‘fallen demons’, particularly as transmitted through the medieval Elucidarius. These are etic categories posing (or being misunderstood) as emic. Another - but more debated - example is Snorri’s treatment of the Aesir and Vanir as two ‘races of gods’. Unlike the elf taxonomy, the term ‘Vanir’ is well-attested in the sources: Voluspa (st. 24) appears to contrast the Vanir with the Aesir during the first war, Vafthrudnismal (st. 39) says that Njord was made in Vanaheim (“Vanir Realm”) and given to the gods as a hostage, and skaldic diction independently associates Njord, Freyr, and Freyja with the Vanir. Nevertheless, the poems do not provide Snorri’s comprehensive taxonomy, complete membership lists, or one fully-harmonized history of the two divine nations. Rudolf Simek has accordingly argued that vanir originally functioned as an archaic or metrically-convenient term for ‘gods’ which Snorri reified into meaning a distinct ‘race’ from the Aesir. The implication is not that Snorri ‘invented’ the Vanir, but that he converted fluid and sometimes overlapping poetic categories into an artificially-stable ‘two-pantheon classification’ through which the evidence is now habitually interpreted.

The same systematizing procedure appears when Snorri attaches ambiguous poetic images to specific narratives and etiologies. Grimnismal (st. 29) says that “Asbru burns [or “will burn”] with flame,” Grimnismal (st. 44) calls Bifrost the best of bridges, and Fafnismal (st. 15) foretells that Bifrost will break when the gods cross it at Ragnarok. None of these sources call Bifrost a ‘rainbow’ or associate it with anything other than ‘the burning bridge of the gods.’ It is only through High in Gylfaginning (ch. 13) that Snorri says ‘Bifrost is the rainbow’, interpreting its three colors and its red band as ‘defensive fire.’ The stereotypical equation of Bifrost with the rainbow is therefore Snorri’s interpretation, not something independently stated by the poetry. A comparable consolidation occurs in Skaldskaparmal (ch. 35), where Loki’s shaving of Sif’s hair produces a single episode explaining the manufacture and distribution of six treasures. Several of the objects, their owners, or their attributes are independently attested in poetry, but no surviving source joins Sif’s haircut, the Sons of Ivaldi, Brokkr and Sindri, the wager, and all six treasures into one causal episode. The poetry preserves fragments and Snorri determines what story we associate those fragments with.

Taken together from the above analysis, Snorri’s redaction of Norse myth is ultimately an act of artificial synthesis. He treats each disjointed Eddic verse as if it were a fragment of one tradition, plucking lines from independent poems and retrofitting them with new characters, geographies, and causation to serve his narrative agenda. In reality, the original poems were independent creations - produced in diverse contexts by different speakers in different meters and genres - not chapters from a ‘mythological manual.’ Snorri stitches these fragments together like bricks from different ruins, filling the gaps with his own narrative mortar, and thereby constructs a seemingly coherent cosmology that the source poems never fully warrant. Read uncritically, Snorri’s Thirteenth Century blueprint risks being mistaken for the authentic structure of Historic Pagan myth, with modern Heathen reconstructions projecting his inherently late and Icelandic design onto the entire Germanic world. But Snorri, writing with explicit Christian and courtly agendas, was no ‘neutral recorder’. Consequently, any appeal to Snorri as a ‘clarifying authority,’ especially where he stands alone with no other attestation, must be met with caution, lest we mistake Snorri’s elegant architecture for the original foundation of the old myths.

Therefore, we can see how the problem with reconstruction and systemization begins with the nature of the evidence itself. The surviving archive is radically incomplete: poems and traditions have been lost, some deities are known from only a single inscription or passing notice, preservation is vastly uneven, and no ‘comprehensive and indigenous handbook’ survives to explain how the material was once understood. What remains is also heavily mediated through Christian authors, Christian-influenced poems such as Voluspa, Saga writers romantically looking back upon the Historic Pagan past, and Snorri’s work, which may itself have influenced later manuscripts and prose frames. Nor does this archive describe one, stable religion: cults varied by region, different gods were emphasized by different constituencies, beliefs and practices changed over time, and the surviving material disproportionately reflects elite, martial, and Odinic concerns. Most decisively, emic continuity has been broken. No living institution inherited the authority to determine which sources were normative, which stories were merely local, which contradictions were permissible, which practices were obligatory, or whether a poetic image was literal, symbolic, ritual, or simply artistic. The modern reconstructionist therefore does not receive a religion with missing pieces, they inherit an uneven and mediated archive without the interpretive authority that once gave its fragments meaning. Therefore, Snorri does not solve the reconstructive problem - he becomes part of it.

IV.

But the Heathen might still say that ‘these problems only discredit an uncritical dependence upon Snorri - through modern research, scholars can separate Christian and regional distortions from the inherited material and reconstruct the common Germanic system that no single Medieval source preserved.’ It is not as if the ‘hermeneutic circle’ can be escaped by assuming etic categories the moment before enacting the conclusions with an assumed ‘emic mindset’, nor by appropriating the work of sympathetic scholars. This is because all scholars who attempt to systematize are still bound to the preconception of there being a ‘single object’ which ‘can be reconstructed’. There are often romantic or ideological reasons for this, such as with Jacob Grimm’s imagined pan-Germanic history being simultaneously a vision of the future he was striving for. But perhaps the most quintessential example of this is found in Viktor Rydberg. Because Rydberg is also the main influence on the modern Norroena Society (who presents themselves as the premier Folkish Heathen organization for accuracy with their reconstruction) it is especially important to understand the weaknesses and dangers of adhering to scholarly interpretations as the foundation for a religious practice.

Like Snorri, Rydberg attempted to homogenize all Norse mythology into a single system - but by also adding other Germanic material into his efforts. H. R. Ellis Davidson says that Rydberg:

“accepted every detail in Old Norse mythological literature as reliable, and showed much ingenuity in building up a complex mythological scheme to include it all, smoothing over apparent contradictions. Such approaches arise from an assumption that the mythology was once complete and rational, so that it would prove satisfactory to a modern observer. It was felt to be something which could be decoded, once one discovered the meaning of the different symbols which formed part of it. However we are dealing here with many different levels of belief, and also with confused traditions [...]”

Presuppositions that there was a comprehensive, pre-systematized ‘original mythology’ that can be retrieved through the dearth of sources by rational and totalizing means will only ever be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Another strong critique of Rydberg’s technique, Anatoly Liberman, states how:

“merging eddic characters and looking for hypostases is an unprofitable occupation. It allows any god (giant, dwarf) to become anybody else, as happened under Rydberg’s pen.”

Rydberg’s reconstruction of the “sons of Mim” demonstrates how quickly his method moves from interpretation into invention. Voluspa (st. 46) only says that “Mim’s sons move” (or “play”) when Gjallarhorn sounds at Ragnarok. It gives these ‘sons’ no number, names, occupation, dwelling, history, or function. Nevertheless, Rydberg intended to identify them. This process begins with the Christian poem Solarljod (st. 56) which mentions “seven sons of Nidi” seen drinking clear mead from the “ring-Regin’s well”. By arguing that Nidi is another name for Nidhad (an Old English name) and that both should be translated as “the subterranean one,” Rydberg then goes on to associate Nidi and Mimir through misassociations with characters from different iterations of the Volund cycle. Rydberg then argues that because Hyndluljod names Dain and Nabbi as makers of a golden boar, while Skaldskaparmal assigns a comparable boar to Brokkr and Sindri, the two smith-pairs must be identical: Dain is Brokkr and Dvalin is Sindri who is also Nabbi. Now, elsewhere, Rydberg had identified Modsognir with Mimir by interpreting Modsognir as “the mead-drinker” and combining his role as ‘chief creator of the dwarves’ with traditions portraying Mimir as the primordial master-smith and source of creative wisdom. Since Voluspa places Dvalin among Modsognir’s craftsmen, Rydberg then treats Dvalin as Mimir’s subordinate and disciple, reinforcing the association through Dvalin’s supposed access to Mimir’s mead, his runic knowledge, and his connections with figures whom Rydberg locates in Mimir’s subterranean realm. Because of this identification in the chain of equations, Rydberg can recast Sindri-Dvalin and the other smiths as the otherwise unnamed “sons of Mim” from Voluspa - the ‘sons of Mimir-Modsognir-Nidi.’ Furthermore, because Dvalin’s name can be interpreted as “the sleeper,” and because Latin sources and later folklore preserve stories of armed or treasure-guarding men sleeping in northern caves - known as the ‘Seven Sleepers’ - Rydberg identifies Mimir’s sons with a ‘pre-Christian Norse-Germanic core’ behind the Christian legend of the Sleepers. He reads the verb “move” from Voluspa as their awakening at the blast of Gjallarhorn, thus completing the identification.

This conclusion is not stated nor implied by any primary source. The apparent coherence of the reconstruction-work is owed entirely to the cumulative product of allowing each unsupported identification to serve as a ‘proof’ for the next - a methodology built on tremorous rather than shaky ground. Rydberg’s formula for this methodology operates something like this: A≈B; C≈D≈B; E≈F; (E+G)~(E+H)~(F+I)→G≈H≈I; G~A≈B→(G+H+I)~J; B→K≈J; G~L+(G~J)→J≈L. An overreliance on speculative heiti (associating different gods names as referring to the same god) and conjectural etymologies (recreating the ‘original meaning’ of words) allows the reconstructionist ample opportunity to make the mythology in their own image. Indeed, one allure of reconstructing ‘Pagan mythology’ and subsequently ‘Pagan theology’ is in its opportunity for idiosyncratic, synthetic production.

Other than taking for granted that the Northern mythology was internally compatible and intelligible, Rydberg made a further assumption: that the Eddic material could illuminate material from elsewhere in the Germanic world, effectively treating Continental or English sources with an interpretatio Scandinavica. The Eddas are effectively granted canonical authority, while every non-Eddic source is made subordinate to them. Rather than allowing an unfamiliar Continental or English god to reveal the limits of the Scandinavian system, Rydberg neutralizes the difference by declaring the figure another manifestation of a god already found in the Eddas. With Rydburg, the Eddas became the measuring instrument by which all other material came to be measured. As we noted above, the Folkish Heathen will either take unique folk traditions and blend them into a ‘form’ of Germanic Heathenry or they will take Anglo-Saxon, Continental, and Norse as separate entities which still rely though on the other folk traditions to make sense of the dearth of data.

But if Rydberg turned fragments into an epic, then the modern Norroena Society turns Rydberg’s epic into a religion. By institutionalizing Rydberg’s presuppositions about the underlying intelligibility of the fragmentary sources along with the pan-Germanic material being compatible through the Scandinavian lens - and all of this being built on top of and incorporating Snorri’s systematization work on top of our previously-noted concerns with the nature of the material (single-cult perspective from a changing, regional custom which also shows signs of Christian influence) - the Norroena Society adds that this all can be translated into a ritual practice. This ritual synthesis practice is lauded, supported, or at least advertised by other Folkish Heathen authorities, including Imperium Press and Survive the Jive. But just as we did with Snorri and Rydberg, we should begin by looking into the Norroena Society’s presuppositions and methodology before investigating a particular case from their body of work.

To begin, the Norroena Society asserts that there was a pan-Germanic mythology and set of customs which was interrupted and “mutilated” by Christianity. So to regain authenticity of the mythology and revive the customs, the Christian elements must be effectively ‘scrapped off’ the primary sources. Their books claim to reconstruct the original mythology and ritual practice, specifically by “cleansing it of Christian elements”

“Although often falsely classified as ‘Norse’, these stories represent an ancient body of religious beliefs that were once celebrated from Austria to Iceland, and beyond.”

The Norroena Society therefore presupposes a ‘pure and pan-Germanic religion’ before classifying sources as ‘authentic’ or ‘corrupted’ - they then harmonize the ‘retained fragments’ and fill any perceived gaps through comparison and inference, and conclude by presenting the finished synthesis as the ‘recovered religion’ that justified the original classifications. Their prior theory of pan-Germanic unity authorizes the alterations, while the altered narrative is subsequently presented as evidence for pan-Germanic unity. The contradiction is not simply that the Society interprets while claiming not to interpret (or claiming only to ‘recover’) - the contradiction is that the Society alternates between presenting itself as an ‘archivist of inherited tradition’ while acting as a ‘legislature for a newly-constituted religion.’ The Society describes itself as ‘recording a tradition’ while simultaneously announcing that it will ‘cleanse’, ‘reconstruct’, ‘re-form’, and ‘interpret’ that tradition. Given that, the Society has not recovered the lost emic community capable of interpreting the Lore, it has etically appointed itself to replace or ‘stand-in for’ that emic community. Therefore, although the Norroena Society might create a seemingly coherent modern Heathen system, it cannot establish that that system is the recovered pan-Germanic religion of the ancestors.

Indeed, the Norroena Society seems to admit this when they say in their Asatru Edda:

“some stories here are drastically altered from their popular forms, while some accounts are missing and entirely unrecognizable narratives are presented. Tales famously attached to one character, such as Sigurdr, are here given to another (in this case Hodr). These are not errors [...]”

The surviving texts therefore occupy a conveniently unstable position for the Norroena Society. When they provide material for the reconstruction, they are indispensable, but whenever they conflict with the system that the Society believes once existed, they can be overridden. What is presented as ‘restoration’ is consequently governed less by fidelity to the extant evidence than by a prior conception of what the Lore ought to contain. The Society effectively concedes this when it admits that a perfect recovery may never be possible and instead celebrates a process in which “new customs are born” and new ideas are combined into something the community can call its own. In that case, its Asatru Edda is not merely an edition of inherited sources but an avowedly modern ‘confessional epic’ whose authors claim the authority to alter the archive in the name of the religion they intend to construct.

But this underlying concern with the accuracy of the sources is something that one sees with most other reconstructionist endeavors. Yet in the modern Heathen’s very attempt to rid the texts of all non-Pagan influence, they import a value which is foreign to the text and which undermines their endeavor. For anyone who would take the highlighter’s emphasis or the scissor’s redaction will fundamentally alter the message. As we ask again: if there is significant Latin-Christian influence in even one poem, and that poem has unique features to it, then how much will ‘pruning’ those aspects affect the theology? How much will ‘leaving it in’ affect the theology? Furthermore, where does the selection process become impaired by conscious knowledge of the effect it will have on the overall systematization? The Norroena Society furthermore also never articulates a consistent and falsifiable standard to adjudicate the authenticity of the sources. Consequently, what counts as ‘authentic’ often depends upon whether a passage can be fitted into the very pan-Germanic system whose existence the selection process is supposed to prove. If the Norroena Society prunes the sources based on ‘what feels Norse,’ then they’re projecting modern intuitions onto Medieval texts. One cannot even determine which sources, or what parts of the sources, are authentic without first knowing what ‘authentic’ is, but one cannot determine what authentic is without using the sources. It is yet again the same hermeneutic issue deriving from a lack of emic perspective. Methodologies don’t just analyze a pre-given subject, they construct it - by selecting evidence, fitting it into patterns, and conferring significance. Consequently, methods won’t deliver origins or objective truth so much as particular versions of reality shaped by our interpretive choices.

Shockingly, given these concerns, the Norroena Society still deigned to introduce foreign material into their reconstruction. For instance, in their section on Ask and Embla, the three most cited sources were Gylfaginning, the Oera Linda Bok, and the Bundehesh, which collectively account for about fifty percent of the cited sources in that section. The Oera Linda Bok is a Nineteenth Century hoax published in 1872 AD which presents a chronicle riddled with linguistic anachronisms and historical impossibilities. It is universally rejected by scholars as a modern forgery. The Bundehesh is a Middle Persian Zoroastrian compendium (c. 800-1100 AD) - written in Iran during the Viking Age - which summarizes Avestan cosmology and anthropogony. Only Gylfaginning is Nordic (and it is Snorri’s late, Christian-era prose systematization). Voluspa, the only true source for the Norse creation of humankind, ranks fifth, after Viktor Rydberg’s Investigations into Germanic Mythology. Given all this, one could ask what ‘Christian influence’ the Norroena Society actually finds in the sources or what they are actually preserving in their compilation if they are willing to bring in forgeries and Zoroastrian texts.

A few interesting examples of where they do identify ‘Christian influence’ - or misunderstandings about it - are in Aefinrunar Book I which is concerned with establishing the theory behind their ritual practice. The first claim is that in order to determine which fire-blessing scene is more accurate to the Historic Pagan world, the Norroena Society is able to identify one contender over the other because “the consecration of fire is not a Christian practice.” This is completely inaccurate and shows a deep lack of awareness with Medieval history. The Fourth Council of Toledo, (633 AD) Canon Nine explicitly regulates the blessing of the Easter candle and lamp, showing that Christian consecration of liturgical light was established before the Viking Age. In Tenth Century England - contemporaneous with the composition of Voluspa - the Regularis Concordia likewise prescribes the Holy Saturday rite of the “new fire,” which involves a fire be struck from flint and blessed at the church doors before being brought into the church and used to light the candle placed before the altar. The Benedictional of St Aethelwold also preserves a distinct formula for blessing the candles carried during the Feast of the Purification. Therefore, by assuming that consecrating fire was not a Christian practice, the Norroena Society’s selection process biases affect the shape of the reconstruction in a way contrary to the historic reality.

The second claim is that the hlautteinn mentioned in numerous Saga passages as ‘sprinkling blood’ should be seen as part of the Indo-European tradition, rather than a Latin-Christian import of the Aspergis holy-water sprinkling:

“There are some who have theorized that this is actually a Biblical reference imposed upon the narrative by Christian saga writers, and though the Aspergis Rite does share some similarities, we can look to the Indo-European studies to determine that the act of sprinkling is an ancient sacrificial practice, and similar devices exist within the Vedic literature.”

Historically, hlaut belonged to the Germanic vocabulary of ‘lots’ and ‘divination’ - not to something explicitly denoting ‘sacrificial blood’ - with hlautteinn most naturally meaning a “lot-twig.” So when the Sagas describe hlautteinn being associated with blood, the term itself either evolved in an Icelandic context or the Saga authors misunderstood the object’s function, retrofitting it into a blood-aspersion ceremony intelligible within the authors’ Biblical and liturgical world. Something to remember is that every detailed description of a hlaut ritual was written by a Christian author roughly a quarter-of-a-millennium after the Conversion of Iceland. There is no pre-Christian literary account or archaeological discovery that independently identifies the hlautteinn as a blood-sprinkling implement. More importantly, the main accounts of this practice show significant Christian-influence. The account with the most complete picture of the hlaut ritual comes from Snorri’s Hakonar saga goda (ch. 14) which follows a suspiciously Biblical sequence: animals are slaughtered, their blood is collected in bowls, the stallar (“altars”) are reddened with it, and the assembled people are sprinkled. Compare this to Exodus 24:6-8, which describes Moses likewise collecting sacrificial blood in bowls, throwing it against the altar, and then sprinkling the people with the blood. Similarly, Leviticus 14 prescribes dipping hyssop in sacrificial blood and water and sprinkling a person or house with the blood.

The Christian liturgical parallels reinforce the idea of influence. In the Sunday Asperges before the principal sung Mass, a priest dipped an aspergillum into a vessel of holy water and sprinkled the ministers, clergy, and congregation. In the dedication or reconciliation of a church, holy water was additionally cast upon the altar and the church walls. Hakonar saga goda (ch. 14) says that the hlautteinar were “made like sprinklers” and used to cast liquid upon the stallar, the temple walls inside and outside, and the assembled people. Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 4) explicitly compares the ‘inner sanctuary’ with the ‘choir of a church’, the ‘stalli’ with an ‘altar’, and the ‘hlautteinn’ with an Aspergis ‘sprinkler’. And the later Kjalnesinga saga (ch. 2) is believed to be influenced by the earlier accounts of the practice. The Saga descriptions therefore have an unusually close combination of implement, targets, and action with the Medieval Christian aspersion rites. The only substantive difference is that the Christian practice involved holy water, whereas the Saga accounts involved blood. But ‘blood’ is an easy short-hand ‘Paganification’ of the Aspergis’ ‘holy water’ for the Christian authors of these accounts. Since both the authors and audiences of these accounts encountered Church-based aspersion rituals within their own lived religious world, this immediate Christian liturgical background is methodologically more relevant than a remote comparison with vaguely Indo-European or Vedic material.

The inherently modern and programmatic nature of reconstruction is perhaps most expressed in the Norroena Society’s ‘Smyrja Rite’, where historic and poetic descriptions are transformed into an actionable ritual-form. It must be stated that the Smyrja Rite is not documented in nor inferred from any pre-Christian Norse-Germanic source - it is entirely a modern construction built by stitching together unrelated Norse texts using the template of Hindu prana-pratishtha rituals (“establishing the breath” of the god). The Smyrja Rite begins with the ritual blessing of implements in a ‘nine-square grid’ using the ‘hammersign.’ The idol is carried into the sacred space while the deity’s name is chanted. The idol is then passed over a flame for consecration. After that, ‘mind runes’ are etched into a mixture of butter, herbs, and leeks, and the ‘Creation of Ask and Embla’ stanzas are chanted as the idol is anointed with the mixture.

“The idea is not that the inanimate objects are divine themselves, but rather that they are imbued with a portion of deific strength and identity, which allows us to offer to them as if we were facing the Gods themselves. Their images are symbols of their power, and as such become a centralized force within our ceremony. They become the will of the divine, and our conduit to the worlds beyond.”

Whatever this quote is actually getting at, (other than a vague sense of ‘spiritual gravity’) there is no historically-attested Germanic notion of, let alone a ritual for, calling a deity into an idol and leaving within it a portion of ‘divine identity.’ We will go through each part of this ritual to show how little confidence one should have in any part of it being authentic or somehow representative of an ‘ancestral way.’

First, the ‘Nine Square Grid’ is the Norroena Society’s ‘signature ritual format’, used to translate its reconstructed ‘underworld cosmography’ into a physical ceremonial layout. There is a handful of evidence that the Norroena Society uses to warrant their architecture of this underworld cosmography into a Nine Square Grid format. A saga account seems to corroborate their arrangement by having divination occur within nine marked spaces. Furthermore, to the Norroena Society, fate was imagined as being woven, with Valkyrie being associated with and depicted with a three-by-three grid, which likely represents a ‘nine-squared web of fate’ (since ‘nine’ was also a sacred number). Square combat spaces, tafl game-boards, an iron-covered altar, grid-ornamentation on figurines, and comparable Hindu altar-grids all - to the Norroena Society - independently corroborate the same underlying pattern. When we examine the evidence itself, however, there is little to support this conclusion.

The Norroena Society treats an episode from Faereyinga saga (ch. 40) as direct evidence for its Nine Square Grid. In it, an investigating character attempting to solve a murder erects four grindr, (“lattice barriers”) marks nine reitar, (“enclosing lines”) and lights a fire. After this, three deceased spirits appear in sequence and go to the fire. Although the Norroena Society sees this as a warrant for there being a three-by-three grid of squares (and a containing four-point sacred space surrounding it) being the foundation for passage to and from the Underworld, the Faereyinga saga passage itself does not warrant that interpretation. Peter Foote argues that the nine reitar were probably ‘concentric square boundaries’ surrounding the enclosure formed by the four hurdles - not a three-by-three grid. He also interprets the hurdles and repeated boundaries as apotropaic devices intended to contain the manifested dead and protect the living, rather than as portals admitting spirits. This interpretation is based on how the apparitions are never said to ‘pass through’ the grindr, while their movement toward the fire suggests that the fire and investigating character’s silent magical exertion are what attract or reveal them. The scene is also unlike any other Norse encounter with the dead, in which a corpse or buried seeress is typically awakened through charms, songs, runes, or direct address. Other accounts of encounters with the dead noticeably lack the four hurdles, nine marked enclosures, and the central fire found in Faereyinga saga. Therefore, the passage may preserve a ‘ninefold protective enclosure’ used in literary necromancy, but it does not attest to a three-by-three cosmological map, a ‘web of fate’, or a ‘standardized Germanic underworld shrine’ which was actually or commonly practiced by Historic Pagans.

The only poem that mentions Valkyrie as ‘weavers’ is Darradarljod, (st. 1-3) where they use human body parts and weapons to form ‘battle-fates.’ The poetic imagery however, depicts this ‘battle-fate weaving’ by associating it with ‘loom imagery’ where human entrails serve as threads, heads as weights, spears and arrows are heddle-rods and shuttles, and swords serve as weaving instruments. War‑imagery like this underscores that the Valkyries are weaving a horrific ‘tapestry of battle,’ not laying out ‘nine neat squares.’ Although every woven fabric has crossing threads, to infer a ‘ritual nine‑cell cosmogram’ from artistic descriptions of weaving simply over‑reads the text. To supplement this, (and eisegetically interpret Darradarljod through their framing) the Norroena Society gestures to archeological finds which show armed women on horses above a three-by-three grid. At first, this seems like a striking corroboration but there are again numerous issues. First, these figures could be Valkyries, but they could also represent ritual performers, disir-like beings, mythic women from heroic legend, generic ‘armed women,’ or scenes whose identity does not neatly map onto later textual categories. Second, although there are also other small, ‘nine studded’ objects which have been discovered, these objects are not uniformly-shaped or even numbered. Some are circular disks with nine raised studs or even twenty-seven (nine multiplied by three) and other square-shaped finds have twelve studs on them. Scholars are unsure how to interpret these - They could represent a game-board or maybe a generic representation of ‘nine’.

“Although opinions are still divided on what this motif actually represents, it has been argued that it is semantically associated with the idea of shaping or altering human or divine fate.”

The variability of the finds undermines attempts to impose a fixed interpretation onto the data, especially because they do not all come in the form of that critical ‘three-by-three grid.’

The remainder of the Norroena Society’s evidence fares no better, because it repeatedly substitutes superficial resemblance for historical connection. The Society attempts to capitalize on the hypothetical game-board angle, but the Viking-era game of hnefatafl could be played on different-sized boards (seven-by-seven to thirteen-by-thirteen) and its reconstructed rules are primarily derived from an Eighteenth Century description of a Sami game, not from any pre-Christian source. Likewise, Saxo’s account is irrelevant to a three-by-three grid because it only states how two combatants mark out two separate squares as positions for single combat. Kjalnesinga saga provides the closest thing to actual ritual evidence, yet its relevant description of a skillfully constructed stalli (“altar-platform”) only mentions how it is covered on top with iron, with the Norroena Society projecting their Nine Square Grid format onto this bare mention of an ‘iron topping.’ The Kjalnesinga saga account says nothing whatsoever about an ‘iron lattice’, a ‘grind’, a ‘gate of Hel,’ or ‘nine compartments’. The Society’s admission that the covering was “likely” arranged as its grid reveals that the crucial feature has been supplied by the interpretation rather than the Saga evidence itself.

Even moreso, the ‘foreign evidence’ fails to support their format. The Norroena Society cites Hindu mandalas as ‘Indo European corroboration’. But these mandalas belong to their own separate theological systems and can employ an eight-by-eight or nine-by-nine arrangement of cells - not three-by-three. Regardless, these mandalas only prove that Hindus used grids religiously, not that pre-Christian Norse-Germanic ritual ever applied anything similar (this is what the historic and poetic data was supposed to provide). Similarly, the ‘Oseberg Buddha’ is not an altar or cultic diagram at all but an ‘ornamental bucket fitting’. It and other examples like it found in Norse graves were most likely produced in the Christian British Isles and then imported into Norway. Archaeologists identify its geometric ornament as characteristically Insular, not as a runic inscription. The Society therefore possesses no attested Nine Square Grid proper: it has a grisly poem about Valkyries weaving battle-fate, a disputed class of armed-female miniatures bearing objects divided into either nine or twelve fields, a gameboard with a nine-by-nine grid, two fighting plots, an iron-covered altar, a Hindu system with varying grid sizes, and an imported Christian item used as a bucket ornament.

Then we arrive at the problem of the items and placement that the Norroena Society assigns to each of the nine cells in the grid. From top-left to bottom-right, they lay out: a horn (urarhorn), a bowl for drinking, an oath-ring (lindbaugi), a hlautteinn, another bowl for sprinkling in the center, a hammer (mjolnir), runes, another bowl for offerings, and lastly a cell for fire. The bowls represent the three wells, while the remaining cells are assigned to various realms and regions of the Society’s reconstructed Underworld, with each ritual object placed according to an asserted mythological association with that location.

The urahorn perhaps best exemplifies the chain of increasingly remote conjectures of which the Nine Square Grid itself is a prime example. There is only a single attested example of this object from Sturlaugs saga starfsama (ch. 18) which says that a horn rested on a silver-covered table before an idol of Thor in a temple. It is stated to have come from a monstrous animal called an ur (“auruch”) which the Bjarmians - a Finnic-speaking people associated in Norse sources with the White Sea region - had empowered through sacrifice until it began to devour people and livestock, at which point it was driven into the sea and killed, with the artifact being retrieved from its corpse. The Norroena Society nevertheless converts this highly-specific episode into a reference to the primordial cow Audhumla by making the term urahorn (“auroch’s-horn”) into a symbol of Audhumla. They then perform a series of incredibly thin associations. First, Gylfaginning describes Audhumla emerging from ice cold and rime flowing out of Niflheim into Ginnungagap. Snorri also adds that the ‘primordial well-spring’ of Hvergelmir is in Niflheim as well. Second, Rydberg transforms Hvergelmir from a spring into a mountain or elevated region, identifies this ‘Hvergelmir mountain’ with Nidafjoll, and makes it the boundary between Hel to the south and Niflhel to the north. Third, the Norroena Society states that because Audhumla emerged from the northern cold of Niflheim, and because Rydberg situates Hvergelmir-Nidafjoll along the northern part of his underworld, the Society relocates Audhumla onto that mountain and declares that she “stood atop the Northern region of Nidafjoll.” The single source for this item existing says that it is ‘a horn on a silver table (note: not an altar or stalli) sitting before an idol of Thor.’ Every step from that scene to Audhumla, Nidafjoll, and the top-left cell in a grid requires total faith in the Society - the same institution that sourced the Oera Linda and was unaware of Medieval Christian fire-blessing rituals.

The compound lindbauga occurs nowhere else in Old Norse and appears in only one stanza of Volundarkvida, where it simply refers to rings that Volundr is forging in his smithy. Modern editors note that the compound is “otherwise unattested” and may plausibly mean “rings for the linden‑bast cord.” Even granting the serpentine reading, the poem offers nothing more than serpent-form jewellery in a Volundr story - it does not call the rings ‘magical’, place them in Niflhel or link them to the Underworld. Viktor Rydberg nonetheless translates lindbauga into “serpent‑formed rings” and then declares that, because serpents have secret qualities, these must be gand-rings (“magic rings”). He further speculates that the rope on which Volundr hangs the rings is itself a magical gand. The Norroena Society adopts this chain of associations and adds another: since rings are associated with oaths and oathbreakers are punished by serpents (importing Nastrond from Voluspa st. 40) and because serpents coil under Yggdrasil and Rydberg locates Niflhel in the northern underworld, a serpent-shaped ring must somehow connect to Niflhel. None of these steps is warranted by the poem or by standard lexical scholarship. Indeed, Ursula Dronke stresses how replacing lind- with linn- (“serpent”) would not naturally produce Rydberg’s meaning “serpent-shaped rings” because in ‘ring kennings’, linn- functions metaphorically as another word for the ring itself. In short, the evidence consists of a single ambiguous noun, with the ‘magical’ and ‘Underworld’ connotations being imposed on it through (again) a sequence of speculative rather than secure links.

Now, as for the hlautteinn in the fourth cell: we have already mentioned how it is likely that Saga descriptions are shaped by Biblical material and Medieval Latin-Christian liturgical rites of aspersion. However, one textual error must nevertheless be noted. The Norroena Society states that Kjalnesinga saga mentions the hlautteinn, but the Saga actually names only a large copper bowl placed upon the stalli. The blood of the animals or people offered to Thor was collected in this vessel, and the text explicitly calls the blood hlaut and the bowl a hlautbolli. It then says that the blood was sprinkled over people and animals without identifying any implement used to do so. Eyrbyggja saga, by contrast, explicitly mentions both objects and states that the hlautteinn stood inside the hlautbolli, from which the blood was sprinkled. The Norroena Society therefore imports the hlautteinn into a source that does not name it, but also separates the two objects into distinct cells of its grid even though the one saga that mentions both items presents them as a single functional apparatus: a sprinkler kept within its bowl.

This is indicative of how the sources never assemble the objects together, let alone into the Society’s standardized arrangement. Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 4) describes a stalli in the middle of an inner sanctuary, bearing a “seamless” oath-ring, a hlautbolli, and a hlautteinn used like a sprinkler, while the images of the gods stand around the platform. Kjalnesinga saga (ch. 2) gives a different arrangement: an iron-covered stalli stands before the divine images, Thor himself occupies the middle of the group, and the stalli supports a continually burning consecrated fire, a large silver oath-ring, and a copper vessel for sacrificial blood. Note how the ‘continually burning’ fire is different from what Norroena Society prescribes in how they have a cell with an unlit candle representing ‘fire’. Viga-Glums saga, Thorsteins thattr uxafots, and the Hauksbok version of Landnamabok corroborate the ritual oath-ring but explicitly associate it with sacrificial blood - something the Norroena Society fails to mention or import into their system. The Society also fails to mention how Kjalnesinga saga and Viga-Glums saga both describe the ring as silver. Is this an important aspect of the nature of the ring or is it an unimportant detail for the reconstruction and by what standard is that determined? Conspicuously, none of these sources call the ring lindbaugi, describes it as serpent-shaped, or assigns it to a northern or eastern association. Sturlaugs saga starfsama provides still another independent scene: the Urarhorn stands not upon this composite stalli but on a separate silver-covered table. It would seem like - from the Saga evidence - the core elements of a sacred space were: images of the gods, oath-rings, blood-bowls, sprinkling rods, and ritual fire. But the objects appear in different combinations, possess details omitted by the Society, and form functional-units that the Nine Square Grid pulls apart.

Furthermore, the Norroena Society does not preserve these objects in their attested ritual functionality. They are abstracted out of their functions and converted into symbols serving a reconstructed cosmography. Oath-rings, blood-bowls, sprinkling rods, horns, and fires cease to be instruments of oath-taking, sacrifice, libation, purification, or feasting and instead become ‘movable tokens’ assigned to whichever cell of the Underworld grid the Society’s associative system determines. Even granting that every individual object is independently attested somewhere in comparative Germanic practice, it would not follow that those objects were ever all required, let alone placed upon the same altar, arranged in nine cells, or understood as ‘representations of a reconstructed Underworld map.’ But once the ‘nine-square cosmogram’ is constructed and assumed, then the sources no longer determine the function or arrangement - the arrangement retroactively determines how the sources are read. An object is selected because it can be made to represent a realm. Duplicate vessels are differentiated because several wells require several containers. Vague directional motifs are treated as coordinates because the space that every object occupies must be justified. And once nine cells are set, those positions must be filled by something - and so nine objects must be extracted from the sources. Perhaps the Norroena Society would respond that ‘the Nine Square Grid represents the Underworld, and if the Underworld contains wells, serpents, fire, runes, fertility powers, and mythic regions, then arranging those powers on the Grid is a legitimate ritual synthesis.’ This would be reasonable - but that ritual synthesis must therefore be acknowledged as fundamentally modern. There is no reason whatsoever to believe or assert that this format is in any way representative of (nor required for) ancestral worship.

Secondly, the so-called ‘hammer sign’ rests on a single Medieval attestation in Snorri’s Hakonar saga goda (ch. 17), where the narrator says that Hakon makes the Christian ‘sign of the Cross’ at a feast, after which one of Hakon’s earls redescribes it as a hamarsmark (“hammer-sign”) only after a nearby Pagan objects. This would seem to be an ad hoc diplomatic excuse to prevent the feast from erupting into conflict. Furthermore, the story and term are absent from the earlier accounts of Hakon’s life from Agrip af Noregskonungasogum and Fagrskinna. The wording surrounding the term closely imitates Christian language for making the ‘Sign of the Cross’. This fits the broader source-critical problem in Snorri, who frequently reconstructs pre-Christian ritual through Latin-Christian vocabulary and categories along with Biblical analogies (as we saw above). There is, to be sure, independent evidence that Thor and Mjolnir possessed a genuinely indigenous hallowing function, but the evidence only establishes that Thor was invoked to hallow and that the hammer was a native sacred symbol. The most reasonable conclusion is therefore that the ‘hammer sign’ was probably either Snorri’s literary invention, the earl’s improvised excuse, or a Conversion-era, historic Pagan adaptation of the Christian ‘Sign of the Cross’. That said, the Norenna Society states quite confidently that the Sign of the Cross was “likely co-opted from our faith”, totally ignoring and inverting the historic transmission sequence due to anti-colonial ideological priors necessitating the ‘indigenous sanctity’ of all attested practices.

Thirdly, other than the Ask and Embla Voluspa quotation, there are a handful of other works that are cited or chanted liturgically. The conceptual framework of an ‘idol being animated’ is sourced from Ynglinga saga and Gesta Danorum. In Ynglinga saga (ch. 4), Odin receives Mimir’s severed head, preserves it with herbs, chants over it, and restores its power of speech so that it can reveal hidden knowledge. This is a story of ‘necromantic corpse preservation’, not the ‘consecration of a carved divine image’. The Norroena Society nevertheless claims that in Gesta Danorum (bk. 1) “this head becomes a statue” and that the supposed transformation “must contain remnants of the ceremonial idea.” But Saxo’s account does not say anything like that. In it, northern kings send a euhemerized Odin a golden image of himself, Frigg has its gold stripped away, and Odin later mounts the image on a pedestal and makes it speak by magic. The image is never identified as ‘Mimir’s head’ and it is not preserved with herbs. Regardless, neither account contains the Society’s proposed theology of ‘image consecration’: in Ynglinga saga there is animation but no image, while in Gesta Danorum there is an image but no indwelling deity. The Society has therefore manufactured continuity from the single superficial feature that ‘both objects speak’.

Two other sagas are utilized to source the concept of ‘an idol being smeared’ with something: Fridthjofs saga and Volsa thattr. Both of these sagas are dated to the Fourteenth Century (three centuries after Iceland’s Conversion) and treat Historic Paganism as a ‘comical farce’. In Fridthjofs saga, (ch. 9) women in a Historic Pagan temple are warming previously anointed idols by the fire when two of them fall into the flames. The oil causes them to ignite and the whole temple burns down. The episode is a veritable ‘slapstick’ depiction (and destruction) of pre-Christian Norse-Germanic space where the anointing functions as a way to dramatically increase the more narratively-central fire. Likewise, in Volsa thattr, an old woman preserves a horse’s severed penis with linen, leeks, and herbs until it becomes supernaturally enlarged. She then passes it around her household while each member recites a sexually charged verse over it. The grotesque ceremony culminates when the disguised Christian king Olaf seizes the phallus, throws it to a dog, exposes the household’s worship as diabolical foolishness, and converts the family to Christianity. Neither episode presents the smearing itself as a normative image-consecration rite - in each episode, that aspect is embedded within a Christian narrative that reduces Historic Pagan worship to comic disorder and eventual defeat.

Now, Volsa thattr is an especially precarious foundation for reconstruction because it is a late ‘Conversion tale’ designed to ‘feel Pagan’ with comedic effect for a Medieval Christian audience. The Norroena Society nevertheless says that it “truly believe[s]” the tale is a parody of an otherwise real ceremony for blessing divine statues. This is stated or asserted however without any independent evidence identifying such a ceremony as the object of the parody. The Norroena Society’s reasoning is therefore circular. It begins by assuming that the phallic household rite conceals an idol-consecration rite, then it removes the horse penis, sexual humor, diabolical framing, resistant participants, and Christian conclusion, then it transfers the remaining linen, herbs, leeks, and the ‘augmented are you’ refrain to a wooden statue, and then, finally, it presents the resulting modern rite as evidence for what the Medieval parody supposedly parodied. The lost idol rite is thus reconstructed principally from the prior assumption that it existed, and then read into the accounts which do not suggest it seriously. Because most Folkish Heathens have neither the time nor the inclination to sift through obscure Medieval texts and the accompanying scholarship to determine whether ‘worshipping a preserved horse penis’ actually represents the ancestral religion they claim to practice, organizations like the Norroena Society can easily appropriate and disarm the bizarre account into evidence for their ritual-system.

There are two other poetic sources from the Eddas that are cited liturgically: Sigrdrifumal and Havamal. The Society uses Sigrdrifumal to supply both the hugrunar (“thought-runes”) that participants are instructed to scrape into the ointment and the reference to truths spoken from Mimir’s head, which it treats as a precedent for employing runes to awaken or empower the ritual image. We have already discussed the problems with the hugrunar in Part I, Section III, where we showed that the poem names ‘functional classes of runes’ without preserving the characters, sequences, or ritual instructions required to reproduce them. Therefore, even though hugrunar identifies the category, the Society must therefore ‘etically determine’ (in this case synonymous with ‘conjure up’) what counts as the ‘thought-runes’ it orders participants to scrape. Furthermore, Sigrdrifumal does not say that runes caused Mimir’s head to speak - it presents the already-speaking head as a source of runic knowledge. The Society therefore converts an utterer of runic wisdom into a precedent for using runes to awaken or empower another object. ce thLikewise, the quotation from Havamal (st. 164) is employed as a solemn liturgical conclusion, as though reciting ‘the sayings of Havi’ authenticated the preceding actions as an ‘inherited Odinic ceremony.’ Yet the Havamal passage’s placement at the end of a Medieval wisdom poem supplies no evidence it functioned as a historical ritual dismissal, much less that Historic Pagan ceremonies concluded with it. Furthermore, the participants of the Smyrja Rite have not recited or performed according to ‘the sayings of Havi,’ they have performed a modern composite rite assembled from Fridthjofs saga, Volsa thattr, Voluspa, Sigrdrifumal, and Havamal.

Fourthly, despite all of this, rather than expressing some underlying pre-Christian Norse-Germanic theopraxic, the skeletal structure which these sources are giving shape to is the Hindu rite of prana-pratishtha. The way that the Norroena Society describes its Smyrja Rite is almost precisely the same as image consecration liturgies from texts such as the Agni Purana (chs. 58-60), where an idol is ceremonially led from the sculptor’s workshop, installed amid mantras and fire offerings, washed and anointed, ritually constituted as a body through nyasa, (“installation” of ‘divine principle’) and finally subjected to sannidhyakarana (“the act of making the deity reside in the image”). The Vishnudharmottara Purana (pt. 3, chs. 96-117) similarly prescribes purification, procession, fire sacrifice, awakening, bathing, anointing, offerings, and the summoning of the god into the image. Likewise, the Brihat Samhita (ch. 60) supplies sacred substances, hymns, fire, vigil, procession, and installation. The Norroena Society’s dependence on Hindu material is even explicitly stated in their book on ritual, Aefinrunar, where they say:

“In considering the indo-European concepts behind the establishment of a Skurdgod, [“Carved-God”] we consider the Prana-pratistha, wherein the murti (icon of a deity) is consecrated and instilled with the lifeforce of a god or goddess.”

Whereas India possesses coherent texts explicitly describing how and why a deity is installed within a manufactured image, the Norroena Society must manufacture the same ritual template through the Lore, artificially bringing the Lore into a tempo and function it does not explicitly or implicitly warrant.

What finally emerges from all of this as ‘the Smyrja Rite’ (which was actually performed by the Norroena Society during their ‘Summermal 2025’ event) is therefore analogous to another ‘Rydbergian meta-object’ assembled through a chain of speculative equivalences. A ‘severed head preserved for necromantic consultation’, a ‘golden image made to speak by magic’, ‘accidentally burned anointed idols’, and ‘a preserved horse phallus’ are fundamentally not equivalent objects and therefore do not perform equivalent ritual functions. Yet the Society selects features from each and treats their accumulation as evidence or warrant for the single ceremony that none of them describes. The result reproduces precisely the method by which Rydberg constructed his vast mythological identities in how each conjectural resemblance authorizes the next, until the coherence of the finished system is mistaken for evidence that the system once existed. But the Smyrja Rite exposes more than the methodological excesses of one organization: it reveals the general predicament of every interrupted tradition whose modern adherents must manufacture the interpretive authority, doctrinal coherence, and ritual norms that they claim to recover. The remaining question then is whether other interrupted traditions have escaped the same dilemma.

V.

Let us investigate some historical examples of the phenomenon of reconstruction or revival that Folkish Heathens are advocating for, closing out this article and this part of the series with a synthesis from that historical data. We must remember that the issues we have discussed thus far with regard to ‘reconstruction’ are not isolated to Heathenry - indeed, many familiar religious practices of the modern age are affected by the same fundamental hermeneutic issues stemming from a lack of emic perspective, historical rupture of practice, the desire to purge the faith of foreign elements, and a need to adapt to an environment it was not intended for. We will look at these aspects as expressed in Protestantism, Rabinnic Judaism, Shintoism, and Julian the Apostate’s attempted Reformation of Christian Rome.

Firstly, we have the historic example of Protestantism. In practice, the Reformers were not etic outsiders trying to become emic insiders. They were insiders contesting the meaning of a still-living inheritance. They had access to the original texts, early-Church commentary, and living ecclesial institutions in which that inheritance remained sacramentally and liturgically embodied. Yet appeals to Scripture and the ‘primitive Church’ only produced rival Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Anabaptist confessions because mere ‘possession of the evidence’ did not resolve the more critical question of who could authoritatively adjudicate its meaning. Each faction interpreted the same passage through (even subtly) different hermeneutics. The particular part of Scripture was interpreted through a preconception of the whole ‘meaning’, while that whole was itself supposedly being derived from the Scriptural parts. Yet moreso, the Reformers broke with the Catholic Church in its understanding of what even comprised that Scriptural whole - the ‘canon’ of books contained in the Bible. The Reformation therefore exposes three successive problems that every attempted ‘restoration’ must solve: which sources possess authority as a ‘canon’, how to ‘interpret’ the canon, and translating that interpretation into a present ‘application’.

Before a Protestant (or Heathen) can interpret Scripture (or Lore), they must construct the category of ‘Scripture’ and then populate it with the texts they determine. For our Heathen analog, this is done by determining which texts belong, which genres carry normative authority, which Christian-era sources are admissible, which regional material can be mutually-illuminating, whether later folklore preserves original belief, and whether comparative material from outside Northern Europe can help reconstruct missing content. Although historical criticism of the sources can determine descriptive facts about the sources, it cannot ultimately determine their normativity nor how the sources can (let alone should) be organized into one, cohesive whole. Those decisions must therefore be supplied by ‘modern judgements’ or ‘claims of revelation’ for either the Protestant or the Heathen. As we saw in Part I, Section III: if the canon is closed, a present authority must decide what closes it and which sources lie within it. If the canon remains open, that authority must determine which new revelations or traditions may enter it. The canon does not merely precede interpretation chronologically, it predetermines the field within which interpretation is capable of operating. And any appeal to ‘revelation’ carries with it very valid concerns about UPG.

Once the canon has been defined, its meaning still does not disclose itself though - interpretation can never be a neutral extraction of self-evidently applicable commands. For instance: sola scriptura does not specify in advance which passages are literal or symbolic, or which isolated statements should govern the interpretation of others. The interpreter must therefore approach the parts through some prior conception of the whole, even though that whole is supposedly being derived from those same parts. Under a living tradition, this circular movement can be disciplined by continuity of understanding and authoritative adjudicators, but after a rupture, the interpreter themself must supply the missing hierarchy and connective logic. This is what occurred historically when the Reformers, under the belief that the emic tradition had been ruptured (the Church had corrupted the faith), began addressing Christianity etically who had to ‘recover’ an original intent and practice. Their resulting theology therefore appeared to emerge from the canon while actually depending upon prior decisions about what the religion must have been or should presently be. A ‘reconstruction’ (or ‘Reformation’) proves only that the selected fragments can be arranged under a coherent hermeneutic - not that this arrangement was recognized by the original community, nor that rival arrangements are a priori false. The canon provides the words, the modern interpreter supplies the grammar by which they are made to speak as ‘one religion’. Likewise, modern Heathen organizations can construct internally coherent mythologies under their own creedal and institutional authorities, but those authorities are themselves products of the reconstruction and therefore cannot independently certify the given reconstruction as the ‘recovered ancestral religion.’ They are competent witnesses only to what their organizations presently teach. Protestant history shows how establishing a ‘confessional standard’ does not eliminate interpretative disagreement but merely relocates the dispute from the foundational texts to the meaning of the confession and to the authority entitled to interpret it. Where that authority is itself inherently etic - created after the rupture rather than continuously transmitted through the historic community - its judgments carry weight only insofar as they demonstrably correspond to the surviving evidence, not because it possesses the intrinsic authority of emic insight.

The same issues apply to ‘adapting the interpretation into a practice’. Saying that the religion ‘need not reproduce every attested detail present in the canon’ merely raises another set of disputed questions: which features are essential and which are accidental, what may be substituted, how much alteration is permissible, and when does adaptation become corruption? An appeal to ‘legitimate adaptation’ presupposes that the identity of the tradition is already known, even though recovering that identity is supposedly the purpose of the reconstruction. Heathenry must interpret its materials through some prior concept of what an authentic pre-Christian Norse-Germanic religion ought to look like, and convert those historical probabilities into rites, doctrines, calendars, offices, and obligations. But if this was an issue with Protestantism - which began with such direct continuation of Christianity and which has now fractured endlessly to the level of different sides of the same street - then how should we expect Heathenry to fare, a fortiori? The conclusion does not need to be that Protestantism is false because Protestants disagree, nor that ‘no interpretation can be better supported than another. It is that ‘possession of ancient materials’ cannot by itself warrant a religious system and indeed by relying on texts as the bedrock foundation, (which Heathenry does for any aspect of reconstruction) ultimately ensures an endless spiral of hermeneutic issues.

Secondly, the transformation of Judaism after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple illustrates what happens when a religious community survives but its central cult does not. When Rome destroyed the Temple in 70 AD, sacrifice could no longer be performed as the Torah prescribed. Judaism still had synagogues, prayer, Scriptural study, and a complete set of religious laws - yet these practices could not simply reproduce the lost Temple around which this spiritual economy gravitated. Over the following centuries, rabbinic teachers gradually organized Jewish life by effectively replacing the Temple with those other practices. Post-Temple Judaism therefore neither discarded the lost cult nor pretended that synagogue worship was identical to it. It became a historically-continuous but materially-transformed ‘successor tradition,’ which admitted that something essential was absent. Judaism retained its people, Scriptures, teachers, and living memories, but these conditions could not bring back old ‘cultic life.’ Modern Heathenry possesses no comparable continuity. Its rites may be sincerely constructed and performed, but they cannot constitute the recovery of the forn sidr. Each reconstruction is a new ‘successor religions’ constituted from the surviving remains of discontinued ones - and those remains are, as we have shown, adverse to understanding the original cultic life being invoked.

Thirdly, even religious systems in the modern world which are presented by Western ethnoreligious writers as ‘indigenous’ or ‘ancestral’ - Japanese ‘Shinto’ being the most favorable example - are vulnerable to being radically reshaped from a desire to ‘purge foreign elements’. Shinto is a favorite example of Folkish Heathens because it is seen to possess all the attributes they exalt: connection to the land, ethnically-derived and isolated, and polytheistic or animist. Yet this image of Shinto as a ‘tradition preserved intact from antiquity’ bears little resemblance to the historical reality. Buddhism was transmitted to the Japanese court principally through the Korean kingdoms during the Sixth Century, bringing its own spiritual and textual trappings into a society that had already acquired literacy through continental Chinese networks, frequently mediated through Korean scribes and immigrants. Over the succeeding centuries, Buddhist temples and kami shrines were frequently associated, jointly administered, or totally incorporated into the same religious complexes, with many kami being interpreted through honji suijaku (“original grounds and manifest traces”) theology as local manifestations or ‘traces’ of ‘original’ buddhas and bodhisattvas. Into this environment, two works were composed in the Eighth Century: the Kojiki (712 AD), and the Nihon Shoki (720 AD). These were court-sponsored mytho-histories compiled as a centralized state was taking shape, which required the ordering of diverse traditions into an imperial-centered account that traced sovereignty back to the gods. Although they preserved older myths, genealogies, songs, and ritual traditions, they did so through the political and historiographical priorities of the early-Eighth Century. Furthermore, because they were compiled after nearly two centuries of sustained interaction with Buddhist theology and Confucian cosmology, it is difficult to ascertain how much of some ‘untouched prehistoric religion’ they actually record.

In the Tokugawa period, (c. 1603-1868 AD) Chinese Neo-Confucianism dominated elite education, and it was against this background that the nativist Kokugaku (“national learning”) movement arose. Kokugaku thinkers used the same philological tools honed on Chinese classics to analyze Japanese texts – like Kojiki and Nihon Shoki – for an “Ancient Way” (kodo) imagined as prior to Buddhist and Confucian accretions. Motoori Norinaga’s fourty-four volume work, Kojikiden, reinterpreted the Kojiki text as a ‘true account’ of divine antiquity, transforming it from a relatively obscure court chronicle into a central work of the Japanese cultural canon. These works were, to the Kokugaku movement, effectively a ‘sacred repository’ of uniquely Japanese identity and emotion.

In the early-Nineteenth Century, Hirata Atsutane would carry the romantic Kokugaku concept of an ‘idealized archaic Japan’ well beyond Norinaga’s philological commentary and into the construction of a systematic theology. Where the ancient chronicles offered brief, disconnected, or ambiguous notices, he arranged them into a more comprehensive account of the cosmos, the divine hierarchy, and the fate of the human soul. For example, in his Koshiden, he elevated the deity Ame-no-Minakanushi - who only appears briefly at the opening of the Kojiki before ‘going into hiding’ - into an eternal deity occupying the celestial center and presiding over existence. Ame-no-Minakanushi is likewise described as having “no beginning and no end” in Atsuane’s Honkyo gaihen. Yet the materials with which Atsutane constructed this ‘recovered native theology’ were not confined to the ancient Japanese chronicles. His Tama no mihashira combined Japanese mythological exegesis with Hattori Nakatsune’s cosmological diagrams and calculations derived from Western astronomy in order to articulate the structure of the universe and the destination of the soul after death. Furthermore, Honkyo gaihen drew upon Chinese-language Christian works written by Jesuit missionaries, with one passage having been taken almost verbatim from the Venerable Matteo Ricci. Atsutane also utilized information from interviews he conducted during his own contemporary time. Supernatural beings and the transmigration of the soul were both evidenced by questioning the stories and memories of adolescents. Therefore, in attempting to reconstruct a native religion purified of Buddhist and Confucian accretions, Atsutane filled the silences of the ancient sources with Western astronomy, Chinese Jesuit theology, and contemporaneous supernatural testimony. His ‘restoration of the Ancient Way’ was therefore not the recovery of an untouched inheritance, but a new synthesis assembled through many of the foreign and later categories which he claimed to distinguish it from.

Members of Hirata Atsune’s school - including his ‘adopted heir’ Hirata Kanetane - would obtain positions in the religious and educational institutions of the early Meiji government. Beginning in 1868 AD, a series of shinbutsu bunri edicts (“separation of the kami and buddhas”) sought to dismantle the millennia of religious coevolution in Japan. Buddhist terminology was prohibited at shrines, Buddhist images and ritual objects were removed, and Buddhist clergy attached to shrine complexes were given the choice of either abandoning their clerical status or becoming shrine priests. Although these edicts did not formally order the destruction of Buddhist effects, local officials would frequently interpret them as authorization for haibutsu kishaku campaigns (“destroy the Buddah”) in which temples were closed or demolished and Buddhist objects were confiscated or destroyed. This separation also required formerly ‘combinatory deities’ to be assigned exclusively Buddhist or Shinto identities. Atsutane’s elevation of Ame-no-Minakanushi as ‘sovereign over the seven principal stars of Ursa Major’ supplied an apparently native counterpart to the Buddhist deity of the North Star and Big Dipper, Myoken. During shinbutsu bunri, numerous shrines to Myoken were consequently redesignated as belonging to Ame-no-Minakanushi. This ‘State Shintoism’ therefore developed through a series of administrative experiments rather than through a single founding act or by a widespread religious awakening. But things would go further. After measures adopted in 1906 AD, the Meiji government embarked upon a nationwide program of shrine consolidation, merging or abolishing smaller village shrines so that public support and offerings could be better concentrated. These mergers frequently eliminated local shrines or subordinated them to larger establishments, severing longstanding relationships among particular communities, sacred landscapes, and their tutelary kami in the name of producing a more uniform and administratively manageable national system.

The scale of this administrative reconstruction was enormous. In the six years after the 1906 AD program, the number of officially registered shrines was reduced by 83,000. This figure records ‘administrative abolition’ rather than ‘demolition’. In many cases, however, abolition was also physical. Shrine buildings were dismantled or abandoned, sacred groves were felled and sold as timber, and former precincts were converted into farmland, building lots, or other secular property. Upwards of 70,000 shrines were somehow physically altered or destroyed. This policy was enforced with particular severity in the Mie and Wakayama prefectures, where ninety-percent of local shrines were obliterated or merged. The result of all this bureaucratic reorganizing was the destruction of the actual, local relationships among community, landscape, festival, and tutelary kami that an ‘indigenous religion’ is supposed to preserve. The Meiji state suppressed tens-of-thousands of ‘inconvenient’ local forms in order to produce a more uniform and administratively-manageable national system. What emerged as modern ‘Shinto’ was a state-directed reconstitution that defined authenticity regardless of historically-authentic practice.

After the defeat of Imperial Japan during the Second World War, the Allied Shinto Directive formally abolished State Shinto by ending the direct governmental sponsorship of shrines. The reclassified ‘Shrine Shinto’ would be one spiritual practice among others which all had constitutional guarantees of religious freedom. In this postwar settlement, the pre-Meiji-era form of kami-worship was not somehow ‘restored’. The calendrical and ceremonial standardizations remained. The local shrines remained consolidated or destroyed, and some deities who had been replaced by others were not brought back into their original shrines. The example of Ame-no-Minakanushi is of particular interest in just how artificial it is. Again: although the deity Ame-no-Minakanushi appears in Kojiki - but lacks any demonstrable ancient shrine cult worship - his identification as an ‘eternal sovereign North Star deity’ by Hirata Atsutane (taking cues from Christian concepts of deity) would be institutionalized during the Meiji-era with State Shinto rebranding ‘Myoken sites’ to ‘Ame-no-Minakanushi shrines’, such that to this day Ame-no-Minakanushi is officially venerated at former Myoken centres (ex. Chiba Shrine). So we have texts that were written centuries into the acculturation of kami-worship, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which were later interpreted by a romantic scholar-theologian looking for a ‘native Japanese spirituality’, which would go on to influence a nationalist policy of rebranding shrines that in many places was never undone. This sounds very familiar to what we have seen with Voluspa, Snorri, Rydberg, and the Norroena Society …

The lesson of Shinto for the modern Heathen is that the language of ‘restoration’ conceals a transfer of authority - the reformer reaches into the vast and foggy past with open arms, grasping at whatever they can, and putting the objects into a glass-box they claim represents the tradition. To purge a tradition, (even a ‘broken tradition’) the reformer must first stand above its inherited history and decide which centuries of its actual development constitute the authentic religion and which constitute contamination. The ancestors are thereby made answerable to a modern theory of what their religion ought to have been. In Japan, this process allowed a national abstraction called ‘Shinto’ to supersede concrete and historically-accumulated practices. A pan-Germanic Heathenism performs the same reversal. No historical ancestor practiced ‘Germanic religion’ in the abstract. Saxons, Frisians, Danes, Swedes, Goths, Icelanders, and Anglo-Saxons inherited particular cults whose differences were themselves part of the inheritance. The more comprehensively a reconstruction claims to speak for all of them, the more it must suppress what made each tradition historically particular and ultimately: meaningful. It may produce a coherent modern religion from ancestral materials, but that coherence is not continuity. This act of reconstruction is achieved by making the modern systematizer - not the ancestors - the final judge of what the ancestral religion truly was. The attempt to recover a ‘founderless ancestral faith’ thus ends by installing the restorer as its founder.

Fourthly, the late Roman Empire itself records a failed attempt to restore, reorganize, and theologically reform its still-living traditional cults. The nephew of Constantine the Great, Julian, was raised Christian but abandoned the faith around age twenty under the influence of Neoplatonic teachers, for which Christian contemporaries and later Christian tradition remembered him as ‘the Apostate.’ After several successful campaigns against Germanic groups, Julian’s soldiers would acclaim him Emperor in 360 AD. He would become the sole, uncontested ruler after Constantius II died the following year. By the time of Julian’s accession, Christianity had enjoyed legal recognition and several decades of imperial patronage, while Constantius II had imposed increasingly severe restrictions upon sacrifice. Yet the Christianization of Roman society remained highly uneven, and traditional cults had retained substantial social and cultural support. As a Pagan ruler over this situation, Julian’s aim was not just to inculcate a renewed private devotion but a principled restoration of the cultus deorum as a public system. He intended to restore traditional polytheistic worship to imperial favour and public primacy, making Hellenic piety once again a principal religious foundation of Roman government and society.

To do this, Julian tried to give Roman Paganism some of the ecclesial features that had made Christianity so powerful. There was to be an intensified and more coordinated priestly hierarchy, built from existing Roman Pagan offices but reshaped in conscious competition with the Christian episcopate. Moral and disciplinary expectations were imposed upon priests. In the surviving Fragment of a Letter to a Priest, Julian directly attributed Christianity’s success to Pagan neglect: “the poor were neglected and overlooked by the priests [...] the impious Galilaeans [Julian’s pejorative for ‘Christians’] observed this fact and devoted themselves to philanthropy.” He therefore required Pagan priests to demonstrate their love for their fellow men by sharing with those in need and extending care to strangers - an organised priority for poor-relief with no real precedent from the prior civic cult. At the same time, he sought to weaken Christianity by cultivating Jewish support and restoring Jewish sacrifice. Julian authorised and financed an attempt to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple, a move aimed at undercutting Christian prophecy and prestige, though the project stalled amid fires and was ultimately abandoned.

Julian’s ‘revival’ failed for both contingent reasons (such as his untimely death after a reign of barely twenty months) and structural ones that matter for Reconstructionist Heathens. Julian’s programme depended on imperial fiat and on an institutional template borrowed from the very Church he opposed – a hierarchical priesthood, a religious program justified through Julian’s own strongly Neoplatonic and solar theology, and a novel ethic of organised care for the poor – all superimposed on older, local sacrificial cults that had never functioned as a single doctrinal community. In effect, he did not and could not ‘return’ to a pre-Christian religious world and compete with Christianity. Julian could only construct a new, hybrid Paganism shaped by Christian institutions, late-antique philosophy, and the political needs of his moment. If an emperor operating within a continuously functioning, still-Pagan milieu could only achieve a brief and limited ‘restoration’ by appealing to Christian forms, then modern attempts to revive religions which slowly evaporated a millennium ago are necessarily even more dependent upon modern interpretation, organization, and post-Christian assumptions.

To conclude this article: these four examples evidence that when an ancient faith faces rupture in continuity, any revival is necessarily partly invented, and in that invention: a spectrum of adverse possibilities arise between the poles of ‘pluralization’ and ‘reconstitution’ - the former from a lack of authority, the latter from an imposed authority. If no authority can settle divergent interpretations, rival traditions pluralize into competing denominations, each constructing a different religion from the same fragments (as we noted in Part I, Section II with Folkish Heathenry’s inability to achieve the goals of its ideological priors). Yet if an authority does settle interpretation, that authority becomes the founder of a transformed ‘successor tradition’ whose unity derives from its institutional capacity to enforce conformity rather than from the demonstrable truth of its reconstruction. Reconstruction is therefore not the discovery of meaning but the production of norms. A modern Heathen may possess an emic perspective within modern Heathenry, but he cannot retroactively acquire the emic perspective of Historic Paganism. In a living tradition, systematization operates upon an already inherited body of practice and meaning whereas for Reconstructionists, systematization must first constitute the body of practice that it subsequently claims to transmit. Nor can the reality of an ‘ancient plurality’ justify ‘modern denominationalism’ because the former arose within the abundant context of living, local transmission, while the latter arises from competing theories about what that absent, extinguished context once contained.

Yet because the historical object was actually plural, the archive of its content is fragmentary and mediated, and its apparent coherence is largely the work of later systematizers, the modern practitioner cannot simply receive the forn sidr - they must first etically construct the object that they propose to receive emically. This is what we have been repeating since the first article: the thing that consistently impedes the modern Heathen from making their rhetoric believable. Historical evidence constrains their construction by setting parameters around it, but the method by which descriptions are transmuted into norms are necessarily contemporary. Its self-framing as ‘emic’ is entirely specious.

Let us pray:

“O God, who made the Bishop Saint Cyril of Alexandria an invincible champion of the divine motherhood of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, grant, we pray, that we, who believe she is truly the Mother of God, may be saved through the Incarnation of Christ your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

Amen.

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Part Ii Section Ii Voluspa Parallels

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Today, on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, our minds are propelled to the beginning of a new era where the Truth is made intelligible to all peoples and spread throughout the world.

I.

In the prior article, we showed how the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic world was steadily exposed to the Latin-Christian system from Imperial Roman times through the Christianized Empire, past the Carolingians, and beyond the c. 950 AD composition date of the poem Voluspa. Throughout this near-millennia, economic, linguistic, cultural, and religious exchange permeated the ever-deepening relationship. We saw how the Anglo-Scandinavian milieu of the Danelaw seemed especially promising as an identifiable context where the poem’s compositor could have had direct and prolonged exposure to Christianity (whether or not they actually converted). There would have been ample opportunity as a skald attached to the court of Norse rulers to have gone to churches on ‘diplomatic missions,’ or asked questions to their Anglo-Saxon counterparts, or have taken interest in the ‘mythological dialogue’ that was already occurring, or otherwise been influenced by the ‘foreign prestige’ of Christendom in a milieu where Old English and Old Norse were effectively mutually-intelligible. We also made clear that our theory of Chrsitian influence was not hanging entirely on the composition of Volupsa occurring in this milieu, but that it proved the most likely early-candidate outside of Iceland itself - the Danelaw was at the intersection of the Scandinavian already-Christianized Germanic worlds. Lastly, we investigated the specific method by which Christian material could have influenced the anonymous compositor of Voluspa, concluding (with McKinnel) that vernacular homilies which combined Biblical and Patristic material into a digestible form best explained the viability and expected content of parallels.

In this present article, we will begin by addressing some preliminary concerns about ‘Voluspa as a reconstruction,’ before addressing two ‘common criticisms’ about the possibility of Christian influence, after which we will go through Voluspa stanza-by-stanza in a sort-of ‘commentary,’ then conclude with a ‘summary and rationale of the parallels.’ I will argue that Voluspa exhibits patterned correspondences with Latin-Christian salvation-history narratives. These correspondences are most persuasive where they occur as clustered sequences, especially in Voluspa’s ‘creation narrative,’ (including its anthropogony) its ‘death of the beloved god arc,’ its ‘eschatological signs,’ and its post-catastrophic ‘renewed world.’ On this basis, Voluspa is better approached as evidence of religious interaction than as a transparent witness to a self-contained pre-Christian Norse-Gemanic cosmology.

II.

It must be remembered at the outset that Voluspa does not survive as one stable, self-identical poem. What we call ‘Voluspa’ is actually the reconstructed product of two manuscripts and their emendation. The Codex Regius and the later Hauksbok witnesses have recorded slightly different versions of what can be considered ‘the same poem,’ with Snorri Sturlson’s quotes in Glyfaggining providing some further material indirectly. These are not neutral duplicate copies of a fixed original. They differ in wording, in stanza order, and at certain points, in the amount and shape of the preserved material. The modern Heathen, then, is not usually reading a single manuscript, but a reconstructed text assembled from several medieval witnesses.

That fact is more important than it might initially seem. Modern editions are not merely translating a poem as much as they are adjudicating between witnesses. This is a process of choosing among variant readings, supplementing one version with another, emending difficult lines, and smoothing the multiple manuscript transmissions into one continuous sequence: into a specific poem which no surviving manuscript transmits in precisely that form. What is commonly quoted as ‘Voluspa’ is therefore already a scholarly construction - not an untouched textual unit, but a mediated synthesis of divergent materials. The textual record itself therefore shows that the poem did not remain frozen because by the time it has reached us in writing, it has already moved, shifted, and been differently shaped in different hands. The consequence is methodological. Invoking ‘Voluspa’ as such as though it were a transparent relic of unfiltered Pagan antiquity misses how most reader’s interactions with the poem will be mediated through a scholarly project of reconstruction.

For that reason, every passage in the present study must be read with its witness-status in view. Some stanzas are attested in both Regius and Hauksbok with relatively slight variation. Others are preserved in both but in materially different form or sequence. Others appear only in one witness. These distinctions are not trivial. They determine how confidently one may speak of originality, omission, interpolation, redaction, or later literary reshaping. Any claim about Christian influence must therefore specify where that influence is being located: in the deeper tradition behind the poem, in one extant witness rather than another, in the medieval process of adaptation and transmission, or in Snorri’s own later reception of the material. Only then can the argument proceed on textual rather than rhetorical grounds.

With that said, for the purposes of simplicity, I will be using the Henry Adam Bellows translation as I have found that it is the ‘default’ among Heathens in its fairly accurate and readily-available nature. I will be clarifying certain terms and offering alternative translations as my commentary requires. I will not be enumerating every stanza in depth, as I do not believe that every stanza shows evidence of Christian-Latin influence. Instead, I will expound those which do show evidence and provide the argument as to why. The goal here is not to somehow ‘prove that Voluspa is actually Christian,’ but rather to show how ‘the arc and imagery of Volupsa generally reproduces Latin-Christian salvation history and therefore make the reconstruction (or theological understanding) of a truly pre-Christian Norse-Germanic custom significantly impaired if not inoperable.’ And as we spent great lengths to argue for in the prior article: all of the Biblical, Patristic (e.g., Austine, Isidore, Bede, etc.), poetic (e.g., Muspelli, Genesis A, Dream of the Rood, etc.), contemporaneous homiletic (e.g., Vercelli, Wulfstan, Aelfric, etc. ), visual (e.g., Gosforth Cross, Muiredach’s High Cross, Junius manuscript, etc.) and sensory material (the ‘smells and bells’ of the mass) we will be using as evidence for ‘Latin-Christian influence’ were widely known in an Anglo-Scandinavian milieu where a Norse ‘skaldic poet’ would likely have been operating in or known others who had when they composed Voluspa.

Now, there are still two recurrent objections to proposing the idea of Christian influence on the composition of Voluspa which state that any similarities between the poem and Latin-Christian materials merely reflect either ‘a shared deep-history inheritance’ or ‘the vernacularization of Christianity into pre-Christian Germanic idiom.’ Yet neither objection is able to perform the explanatory and dismissive assignment demanded of it. Firstly, the observation that Christianity emerged from Judaism and Judaism from an Ancient Near-East milieu, with that milieu being populated by Indo-European (IE) peoples and localized IE mythology which shares a Proto-Indo-European origin with the Norse-Germanic branch may explain the possibility of both Christianity and Norse-Germanic myths arising from a similar source, but it does not explain why Voluspa effectively recreates dense clusters of motifs from specifically Christian sources. As we argued in the prior article, an appeal to ‘remote inheritance’ can, at most, account for broad and cheap resemblance. It cannot account for similarities in poetic structure, nor for the sequencing of episodes, nor for the images associated with those episodes, nor for the specifically moral and eschatological pressure which they bear there. Therefore, in failing to explain those similarities (which we will soon see) this explanation cannot be used to better understand the material not to a priori dismiss Christian influence.

Secondly, holding that Christian texts in Germanic-speaking lands were often rendered through inherited vernacular forms and sometimes articulated through locally-intelligible native categories still does not do what its proponent might imagine. At most, this (otherwise historically-accurate) position identifies the process of translation and adaptation by which Christian material entered the North but it does not show that such material was therefore reducible to pre-Christian Norse-Germanic concepts already in place. This appeal is thus even less helpful than it first appears, because it confuses ‘medium’ with ‘source’ and ‘style’ with ‘function.’ The Heliand remains an orthodox life of Christ even if it is in Old Saxon alliterative verse and portrays the Apostles as retainers to Christ. Genesis A remains a vernacular Biblical and apocryphal paraphrase in the style of the Life of Adam and Eve medieval traditions. In the same way, Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies remain as exhortations of Latin-Christian mythology and theology even if they muster contemporary Anglo-Saxon concerns to that end. Germanic idiom, then, does not neutralize Christian content. It is one of the ordinary and expected historical vehicles by which that content was transmitted and made culturally legible in the North. The real question, therefore, is not whether individual images can be assigned some vague native analogue, but whether such analogues explain Voluspa’s extant form as effectively as the Christian comparanda do. Too often, these sorts of objections simply grant automatic priority to the hypothesis of indigeneity such that ‘what appears native’ is deemed ‘native,’ and ‘what appears Christian’ is redesignated as ‘native underneath.’ That is not a historical argument - it is an ideological, circular rule of interpretation. Because it treats what ‘appears native’ as a decisive diagnostic without specifying criteria that could falsify the judgment or distinguish ‘inheritance’ from ‘later adaptation,’ this inference is methodologically unstable. And as we shall see, actually identifying what is pre-Christian is much slipperier than might be initially expected due to our own contemporary expectations and our anachronistic projections.

Therefore, with these preliminary points stated, let us begin our commentary …

III.

1. Hearing I ask | from the holy races,

From Heimdall’s sons, | both high and low;

Thou wilt, Valfather, | that well I relate

Old tales I remember | of men long ago.

This first stanza sets up the dialogue between Odin and the Seeress who narrates the arc of the poem. Though it may seem entirely ‘indigenous’ at first glance, (female narrator, “Heimdall’s sons,” the recitation of “old tales”) this opening is actually very emblematic of the processes and subtleties which permeate the rest of Voluspa and are therefore particularly useful to show the underlying thesis of this article. Firstly, the Latin-Christian system had known since the mid-Fifth Century about using or ‘appropriating’ Historic Pagan prophetesses, especially with ‘the Sibyl.’ Augustine’s City of God (18.23) treats Sibylene material as originating with an authoritative speaker of truths about beginnings, endings, judgment, and the coming of Christ. Indeed, c. 900 AD, Sibyene material was set to music and incorporated into the Christmas liturgy through the Song of the Sibyl, which was intimately known by the contemporary Anglo-Saxon world through

“Early Christian authors (the Church Fathers) [who] frequently referred to the Sibylline books, maintaining that God’s revelation about the Last Judgement and the coming of God to the world was not limited to the prophets of Israel: God had revealed this truth to the classical Greek and Latin world before Christ was born.”

The Sibyl parallel is both formal and thematic. Voluspa does not begin like a narrow cult myth told to insiders, but like a public oracle: the seeress addresses a ‘total audience,’ (‘high and low’) and then claims the authority to recount primordial memory. That rhetorical posture closely resembles the Sibylline tradition, where the prophetess regularly addresses ‘mortal men’ or the whole race of man, speaks under divine compulsion, and presents herself as able to narrate the arc of sacred history from the first generations to the final judgement. The point, then, is not simply that ‘Christianity knew of a female Pagan prophetess,’ but that ‘Latin-Christian tradition had already made such a prophetess into an authoritative mouthpiece for universal truth.’ In that respect, the opening of Voluspa is already doing the same kind of legitimating work as the Sybil tradition by installing an archaic female revealer as the voice through whom a total sacred history will be disclosed. Conversely, the narrative framing of ‘Odin consulting a seeress’ could equally conjure parallels with Christian understanding of seeking wisdom from devils or the dead, such as with the ‘Witch of Endor’ episode from 1 Samuel 28. This framing could aid the Christians who preserved the texts by allowing them to view Voluspa as ‘self-admittedly demonic,’ in a sense.

The differences between the Regius and Hauksbok manuscripts are interesting here as well. In the earlier Regius manuscript of Voluspa, the word helgar (“holy”) is missing - it is only in the Hauksbok, later manuscript. Combined with the “Heimdall’s son, both high and low,” we come to a framing that Samplonius has argued is borrowed from homiletic and poetic works which refer to believers or ‘universal humanity’ in similar ways. Blickling Homily II opens with “Hear now, dearest people,” and Aelfric (Homily XIX) says “We men are children of God.” Judgement Day II says that “[...] paupers and mighty kings, the wretched and the blessed” will be under “one single law,” in a way where social classes parallel the ‘high and low born’ of Voluspa. This implies that Voluspa is effectively adopting a Latin-Christian anthropology that can view ‘humanity’ as such under ‘one fatherhood.’ Another interesting difference between manuscript sources is that Regius says viltu, at ek, Valfdr, vel fyr telja (“Do you wish, Valfodr, that I recount”) containing an Odin heiti in a nominative form used vocatively, while Hauksbok uses the same heiti in the genitive, villtu at ek vafodrs vel fram telia (“They want that I recount fully, Vafodr”). This is a subtle difference. However, in Regius, it makes the Seeress someone speaking to Odin, whereas in Hauksbok, the Seeress seems more to be more acknowledging the audience’s presence.

Taken together, then, the poem’s opening has been rhetorically-shaped into a universal prophetic exordium whose address to all ranks of humanity would have resonated within a Christianized culture already familiar with Sibylline prophecy through patristic citation, manuscript transmission, and liturgical performance.

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2. I remember yet | the giants of yore,

Who gave me bread | in the days gone by;

Nine worlds I knew, | the nine in the tree

With mighty roots | beneath the mold.

The Seeress here shows her epistemic authority by relating just how ancient she is and what she knows about the centrality of Yggdrasil. McKinnel has argued that this stanza almost certainly contains pre-Christian Norse-Germanic material because of its mention of ‘Nine-Worlds,’ which directly contradicts the Latin-Christian worldview, with that ‘contradiction’ being synonymous to ‘heresy’ and therefore forbidding its recitation or recording by a believing Christian. It could be ‘remembered’ (recontextualized) generations after Conversion as an artifact of ‘bygone days’ which only had real significance as a means to the end of distinguishing Iceland and Scandinavia within the broader Latin-Christian system and as opposed to the Greco-Roman mythology they were encountering in literature from the south (more will be said on this in the next article).

Samplonius has briefly mentioned that ‘mjotvid moeran,’ which is commonly translated as something like ‘glorious world-tree’ and is here reproduced as ‘the tree with mighty roots,’ could be translated as ‘measure-tree’ (mjot = “measure” + vidr = “tree” or “wood”). If this translation is accurate, then the compositor could be symbolically associating ‘Yggdrasil’ with the ‘Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’ here since both trees stand at the intersection of order, limit, and access to a kind of ‘divine cognition.’ Yggdrasil itself is ultimately analogous to a ‘Tree of Knowledge’ in the Norse corpus since the Norns inscribe and legislate fate on it (Voluspa st. 20), the gods ride there daily to hold their tribunal beside Urd’s Well (Gylfaginning ch. 15), Mimir’s Well - where Odin pledges his eye in exchange for wisdom - is located beneath one of the tree’s roots (Gylfaginning ch. 15; Voluspa st. 28), and Odin gained hidden knowledge by hanging from it for nine nights (Havamal 137-140). We will have more to say on this later.

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3. Of old was the age | when Ymir lived;

Sea nor cool waves | nor sand there were;

Earth had not been, | nor heaven above,

But a yawning gap, | and grass nowhere.

• “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2)

• “Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground” (Genesis 2:5)

This stanza recounts the precreation state of reality, when all that there was was Ymir, who is known from the Norse corpus as the second primordial being (after the cosmic-cow, Audhumbla). A curious textual analysis reveals that in Snorri Sturlson’s Prose Edda, the first line of this stanza was altered to “It was early in ages, when there was nothing,” conspicuously replacing ‘Ymir’ with ‘nothing.’ It would seem that Snorri recast the native Norse myth to be more ‘in-line’ with Latin-Chrisitan cosmology - or, if we do not want to accuse him directly, then we could blame the Christianized-milieu of his contemporary Scandinavia. This ‘mythological domestication’ was accomplished by removing the primordial being who cannot fit into the Latin-Christian cosmology. Yet the fact that the Voluspa variant which Snorri was using could be changed ever-so-slightly to be compatible with an entirely Christian reading should show how compatible Voluspa already was.

The privative or negative litany of what ‘did not exist’ should call the audience’s attention to ‘what will exist’ and by doing so, asks them to subtract those features from their mind to imagine the ‘nothingness’ which preceded it. This feature of Voluspa is shared with the Biblical account of Genesis and other Christian texts from the Medieval world. For instance, the Wessobrunn Prayer, (early-Ninth Century) significantly resembles this format, with both narrating their precreation account with a similar string of negations:

“[...] neither earth there was, nor sky above;

Nor tree, nor hill there was.

Nor stars there were; nor shone the sun.

Nor moon-light there was, nor the salty sea.

Nothing there was: neither end, nor limit.

And there was the One Almighty God”

Both mention how there was ‘no sea,’ ‘no earth,’ ‘no heaven/sky,’ (atmosphere) ‘no grass/tree,’ (vegetation) and that there was simply a sort of ‘nothingness’ before Creation. There is also similarly-phrased material from Anglo-Saxon Old English poetry. The poem Genesis A (composed in the early-Eighth Century ; written c. 1000 AD) says:

“Nor was there any creation here yet -

nothing but shadowy darkness,

yet this wide ground stood, deep and lightless,

remote from the Lord, idle and unavailing.

[...]

The earth was not yet green with grass; the spear-waves

were covered by the black endless night, broad and wide,

the dark tides.”

The poem Christ I (c. 900 AD) says that before Creation, “There were no angels yet made.” And the apocryphal 2 Edras 6 (which was available to the Medieval world through its inclusion in the Vulgate Latin-translation of the Bible) likewise gives a privative litany which includes:

“before beautiful flowers were seen [...] Before the heights of the air were lifted up, before the measures of the firmaments were named [...] before the present years were reckoned out.”

It seems like this rhetorical format was widely in circulation in the medieval Latin-Christian world, and well before the composition-date of Voluspa.

Now, a Heathen might retort here that ‘of course this format was widely-circulated because this phrasing was common to the Norse-Germanic world since the imagery is indigenous and pre-Christian, with the Latin-Christian world only adopting it syncretically to aid in conversion.’ However, as we stated above at the start of this article: to reason that any apparent similarity between Voluspa and prior, explicitly Christian material proves the greater antiquity of Voluspa is simply to assume Pagan priority at the outset and then ‘rediscover it’ in the evidence. The fact that 2 Edras was written in the Second Century, Genesis A was composed in the Eighth Century, and that Christ I and the Wessbrunn Prayer were both composed in the Ninth Century, with all of these Christian sources describing a primordial emptiness where there is no earth, sky, sea, or vegetation before God creates the world, which describe the nihilo nothingness from which God creates from, should incline us to reject the presupposed indigeneity of this rhetorical format since Volupsa (our first recorded ‘Pagan source’) was composed later, in the Tenth Century, when this format was already widely known in the Christian world.

At the end of the stanza, we have the enigmatic “yawning gap” (gap var ginnunga, or often called ‘Ginnungagap’). Curiously, this term - from which there are infinite theological implications - seems to be attested only here in Voluspa with the later Prose Edda glossing it. There, Snorri adds details about the realms of Niflheim and Muspelheim being on opposite sides of this apparent ‘void’ (with those two realms unaccounted for by any source other than Snorri). ‘Ginnungagap’ as a term has been translated as “a chasm of the abyss”, a “yawning / gaping abyss”, and a “sacral /magically charged void”. If we reference OE ginne (“wide,” “expansive”) and OHG ginunga, (“wide,” “maw”) the ginnunga prefix could just be a way of stating how ‘expansively large’ the gap being described was - a void which is describable only by its sheer scale and open absence.

The apocryphal 1 Enoch 18 records how the eponymous narrator witnessed what was past the edge of the world:

“And beyond that abyss I saw a place which had no firmament of the heaven above, and no firmly founded earth beneath it: there was no water upon it, and no birds, but it was a waste and horrible place.”

Now, even though 1 Enoch would not have been in the Bible which was available to Medieval parishes, it does seem that it was known to clergy. In the early-Eighth Century, Bede (Commentary on the Seven Catholic Epistles) discusses how the author of the book of Jude must have known about the book of Enoch. Likewise, the ‘BL Royal 5 E. XIII manuscript,’ which similarly dates to Eighth Century England, seems to preserve a fragment of Enoch in Latin. The closeness of both the language of an “abyss” which has privative traits (“no heaven,” “no earth,” “no water”) is strikingly analogous to Voluspa’s Ginnungagap. Thus, Ginnungagap functions less as a fully-developed mythic realm than as a toponymic localization of pre-creation absence with the poem giving the ‘not-yet’ of creation a ‘where’ only by naming the void that precedes the world. Given all this, we can say that, in Volupsa, Ginningagap is functioning as the ‘place-name of nihilo’ for the creatio ex nihilo to come.

Interestingly, in Gesta Hammaburgensis, (Book IV, the ‘descriptio insularum aquilonis’) Adam of Bremen gives a similar description to the vast northern oceans beyond Vinland, c. 1075 AD:

“[...] all those regions which are beyond are filled with insupportable ice and boundless gloom [...] from the gulf’s enormous abyss, where before his eyes the vanishing bounds of earth were hidden in gloom.”

A much later Fifteenth Century annotator made a marginal gloss to this description which explicitly adds: “this place is called in their [Norse] language Ghimmendegop.” Whether an experiential thallasography was influenced by a religious understanding or vice-versa, we cannot know. But it does seem that, at least by the Fifteenth Century, the term ‘Ginnungagap’ had become associated with the boundlessly cold, pelagic world away from the coast. If this understanding was known earlier during the Tenth or Eleventh Centuries (around the composition date of Voluspa) - which Adam of Bremen’s descriptions temptingly imply - then this would strengthen the parallels between the Genesis creation account of ‘dark’ ‘deep’ chaotic waters and Voluspa’s account of the Ginnungagap void.

It should also be noted here how there is a difference between Voluspa’s presentation of creation and the other Norse poem which does so. In Vafthrudnismal, Ginnungagap is not mentioned whatsoever, nor is there any indication of a ‘primordial abyss.’ The world is also not ‘lifted up’ but instead created from or constituted by body parts. In contrast, Voluspa does not mention the Elivagar or the venomous drops that form the primordial being, Ymir.

“There is, however, no reason to press the argument to harmonise the two descriptions. These kinds of differences are completely normal for mythologies in oral cultures. The fixed forms belong to literacy and bookish societies.”

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4. Then Bur’s sons lifted | the level land,

Midgard the mighty | there they made;

The sun from the south | warmed the stones of earth,

And green was the ground | with growing leeks.

• “And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground ‘land,’ and the gathered waters he called ‘seas.’ And God saw that it was good. Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.’ And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:9-12 [the third day])

The association between the primordial waters of Genesis and the Ginnungagap of Voluspa is made more operative given that in both myths, after the narrative establishment of the void, land emerges. Later in Voluspa, the rising of the green Earth from the waters “again” (st. 59) would seem to indicate that this initial “lifting” of the land is ‘from the water,’ which would even more closely mirror Genesis and draw more parallel with Ginnungagap being understood as a ‘watery void.’ Furthermore, after the land is brought forth, it begins to grow vegetation in both Genesis and Voluspa. Both texts present Creation as the ordering of habitable space out of an earlier, undifferentiated condition. Even though it has retained some native, pre-Christian aspects of Norse-Germanic mythology, Voluspa is participating in a recognizable, Latin-Christian Creation-pattern. Suspiciously, Dronke notes how “the legend that earth was raised from a watery void by the sons of a primordial giant is not found elsewhere in Old Norse.”

The term ‘Midgard’ is very interesting for our present purpose. It is often translated as ‘Middle-enclosure’, ‘Middle-yard’, ‘Middle-dwelling’, or ‘Middle-Earth.’ The term has forms in every other branch of the Germanic ‘language-tree:’ the Gothic midjungards (Gothic Bible, c. 300’s AD), the Old English middangeard (Caedmon’s Hymn, c. 670 AD), the Old Saxon middilgard (Heliand poem, c. early-900’s AD), and the Old High German mittilagart (Muspilli poem, c. 800’s AD). Even though all of the examples provided are from Christian texts, the broadness of Midgard’s use strongly points to it being a ‘native Germanic word,’ not one that was merely imported in or borrowed from the Latin Christian system (as we saw was the case with many other terms in the prior article). However, what the term actually denotes likely did originate in Christianity.

In the Gothic Bible, midjungard is used as the rendering of the Greek word oikoumene, as in Luke 2:1, where the emperor Augustus decrees a census of “all the inhabited world” - with midjungard representing ‘inhabited world’ / ‘all the world.’ Luke 4:5 and Romans 10:18 similarly translate oikoumene (‘all the world’ / ‘the whole world’) and translate it with midjungard. The deliberate nature of this translation is made more apparent when we see that kosmos (‘world’) is translated as manaseths and fairhwus, while ge (‘earth’) is translated as airtha. This is significant because Wulfila, the bishop who translated the Bible into Gothic, was not simply preserving preexisting vocabulary in how he is conveying concepts from one language to another, but instead organizing it according to Christian cosmological distinctions.

The Latin of these three Biblical passages render oikoumene as orbis / orbis terrae / orbis terrarum, which would be used throughout the Middle Ages to discuss ‘the world’ in a specific way. Already c. 370’s AD, Basil of Caesarea, (Hexaemeron, 1.10) was stating that the world was “placed, they say, in the middle of the universe [...] it occupies the centre of the universe, its natural place.” And by the end of the Fourth Century, Ambrose (Hexameron, 1.6) was saying that Earth “keeps its position in the midst of the world [orbem] in accordance with nature.” In the early-Fifth Century, Augustine was using orbis terrae in The City of God as a way of denoting the widest circle of human society - ‘the inhabited world.’ In the early-Seventh Century, Isidore of Seville (Etymologiae, 14.1.1) said that:

“The earth [terra] is placed in the middle region of the world, [mundi] standing at an equal distance from all parts of heaven in the manner of a center; and in the singular number it signifies the whole orb, [orbem] but in the plural the individual parts.”

And a century later, Bede (De natura rerum, ch. 3) was saying the same thing in England, that, “the earth itself, which, being in the middle of the world and the lowest part of it, is suspended immovably, being poised by its rotating surroundings.”

With this background, ‘Midgard’ is not simply an inherited Germanic noun. It is a vernacularized way of naming the ‘inhabited middle world’ within a Latin-Christian cosmographic order. As Dronke observed, the term is effectively operating as an alliterative calque which is lexically Germanic in its linguistic origin, but is semantically carrying the conceptual and theological freight of orbis terrae and mundi. Norse poetry expresses the same basic learned idea through the native compound of midr and gardr (“middle” and “enclosure”) - ‘all the inhabited world’ where humanity is kept safe from the cosmic enemies of the gods. This is how we can see close cosmographic and creative echoes between the Norse-Germanic world in Volupsa with something like how Caedmon’s Hymn narrates Creation:

“He first created for the sons of men

heaven as a roof, holy Creator;

then the middle-earth, the Guardian of mankind,

the eternal Lord, afterwards made

the earth for men, the Lord almighty”

Indeed, the Old English literary world prior to 900 AD contains the following works which all use the term middangeard / middaneard / myddangeard in a thoroughly Christianized context: Cædmon’s Hymn, Genesis A, Dream of the Rood, Christ II, Juliana, Elene, and The Fates of the Apostles. Therefore, we can see how Christian translators and scribes are the ones who first preserve Midgard extensively, align it with oikoumene, orbis terrae and mundi, and embed it in a literary world oriented by the contrast between ‘the earthly realm’ and ‘the heavenly realm.’ That does not make Midgard a Christian invention. However, it does mean that when Voluspa uses Midgard in a creation scene, the term is not operating in a neutral mythological or semantic vacuum. It belongs to a vocabulary that had already been made intelligible within the cosmological habits of the Latin-Christian world for centuries prior.

So if we are following the parallels between Voluspa and Genesis thus far, we have: ‘a void or pre-ordered state,’ followed by ‘the emergence of land,’ followed by ‘the appearance of vegetation.’ If we were prone to expect more parallels, then what follows in Voluspa should be ‘the ordering of luminaries and establishment of astronomical temporality’ …

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5. The sun, the sister | of the moon, from the south

Her right hand cast | over heaven’s rim;

No knowledge she had | where her home should be,

The moon knew not | what might was his,

The stars knew not | where their stations were.

6. Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats,

The holy ones, | and council held;

Names then gave they | to noon and twilight,

Morning they named, | and the waning moon,

Night and evening, | the years to number.

• “And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights - the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:14-18)

These two stanzas present the Sun, Moon, and stars as existing before their cosmic roles are properly assigned, then narrate their formal placement in a calendrical order. The mention of ‘they did not know their station’ is similar to the privative creation in how the celestial being do not have knowledge which they will be given, That sequence aligns strikingly with Genesis 1:14–18, even if Voluspa expresses the same ordering through native mythic agents and legal-council imagery. Notably, the drawings in the ‘Junius manuscript’ (c. 1000 AD) depict Christ above the waters, then there being a vegetative land with some animals upon it, then there being celestial lights in one sequence of three images. These images very closely match the narrative of Volupsa thus far. This is not to imply that ‘Voluspa copied from the Junius manuscript,’ but rather to restate our thesis that this sequence was known in the Latin-Christian world prior to Voluspa and could have become known to the compositor through audio-visual intermediaries..

The phrase “edge of heaven” exists in the editing together of the two manuscripts. The Codex Regius text has um himin iodyr, while Hauksbok has the shorter and clearer iodur. Modern editors often combine the two texts into himin-jodurr, understood as something like “heaven’s edge” or “rim of the sky.” That may be a sensible solution, but it is still a solution - an editorial choice in ‘reconstruction.’ Neither witness by itself simply hands us the smooth cosmographic phrase that appears in many translations, thus making the ‘reconstructed poem’ look more stable and transparent than either manuscript actually is. The significance is not merely lexical but interpretive as well. If one accepts himin-jodurr, then the stanza reads as a fairly ordered creation scene: the sun is already moving along a recognizable cosmic boundary, even though the heavenly bodies have not yet received their proper stations or functions. The result is a world that is unfinished but already intelligibly structured. By contrast, if one stays with Regius as transmitted, the line is rougher and more resistant. The Sun is in motion, but the object of that motion is textually obscure, so the image feels more like a primordial scene not yet fully brought into conceptual order. Hauksbok, on the other hand, leans more naturally toward an ‘edge’ or ‘boundary’ reading, and thus toward a more legible cosmic geography. But even there the familiar phrase “edge of heaven” is still the product of editorial synthesis rather than direct manuscript givenness. The smoother the line becomes through editing, the easier it is to read the stanza as a neat cosmological tableau. The rougher the manuscript reading remains, the more primordial, unstable, and textually-mediated the scene appears. So the issue is not just whether “edge of heaven” is a good emendation. It is that the emendation itself shifts the poem toward a more coherent and orderly cosmography than the transmitted witnesses, especially Regius, straightforwardly provide.

Now, we cannot argue that the specific item of ‘calendrical order’ is definitely borne of Christian influence for two reasons. Firstly, because this is a fairly organic and intuitive thing to understand and incorporate into mythology considering that pre-literate people fully require celestial objects to monitor the passage of time. Secondly though, another Eddic poem, Vafthrudnismal relates in stanzas 24-25 how the Moon-Sun and Night-Day pairs were beget by different fathers but were fashioned “to tell the time for men.” Now, in Vafthrudnismal, the luminaries are placed in a more genealogical or mythographic frame whereas in Voluspa they are in a creation-ordering frame. But the ‘motif’ exists in both and can be said to be ‘indigenous’ to an extent in that way. This is also mirrored somewhat in language with the verbiage of Havamal 60. Now, we could argue that this ‘indigeneity’ is actually spurious and the idea came into the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic world through Christian exhortation. Indeed, in the late-Seventh Century Life of St. Eligius (2.16), it is recounted how Eligius, a bishop living with the Frisians and Suebi, would pastorally preach to them against astronomical superstitions and paranoia when the Moon was obscured. He says that “God made the moon for this reason: to mark the time and moderate the shadows of night.” So the concept of astronomical bodies being made for time-keeping could have been introduced as part of the Conversion process. Regardless, however, the stronger claim here is about the concept’s literary framing in the arc of Voluspa’s narrative. As we have already noted in our commentary thus far, a Medieval Christian audience would have been able to anticipate that this very scene was going to occur in the narrative strictly though their knowledge of the first chapter of Genesis. A parallel narrative working this strictly is one that has already shown signs of significant influence.

The refrain about ‘the gods holding council in their assembly seats’ will recur throughout the poem as important decisions need to be made. The word translated as “assembly seats” is rok stola which is more comparable in tone to something like ‘judgement seats’ or ‘thrones of fate,’ indicating that the gods are deliberating over questions of grave importance and destiny. The refrain therefore also takes on a native Icelandic legal-political diction. Indeed, it is possible that this ‘divine council imagery’ might have originated in a specifically Icelandic context, with the island being more ‘republican’ and formed ‘against’ the Norwegian monarchy. The ‘judgement seats’ invoke deliberative, thing-court vocabulary rather than monarchical edicts. Indeed, nowhere in the Poetic Eddas is Odin described as a ‘king’ (konungr) - instead, he is depicted as a divine being with ‘premier authority’ among other authorities. In this way, it is possible that this language reflects a uniquely Icelandic rather than broadly Norse-Germanic conception of the pantheon.

However, there is much parallel with the Latin-Christian understanding of the way that the ‘Heavenly Court’ operates. Psalm 82:1 says that “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.” The early Germanic poem Muspilli had already cast Doomsday in the idiom of a Germanic legal assembly. All people must appear at the mahalsteti (“assembly-place” or “court-place”) of “the mighty King,” while the angels rouse the nations and lead them to ze dinge (“the assembly” or “the court”). Augustine too had commented on Psalm 121(122):5, which reads “There stand the thrones for judgment / the thrones of the house of David.” The Old English poem Genesis A makes this imagery very vivid:

“Ever in majesty He reigneth over celestial thrones [heofenstolas]; in righteousness and strength He keepeth the courts of heaven which were established, broad and ample, by the might of God, for angel dwellers, wardens of the soul.”

And Vercili Homily X, calls out, “your high-seat [heahsetl] is filled entirely with glory and established with truth and righteousness.” It is no leap to see how this language, which had already permeated the Medieval world by the time that Voluspa was composed, could have seeped-into the consciousness of an already ‘republican people.’

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7. At Ithavoll met | the mighty gods,
Shrines and temples | they timbered high;
Forges they set, and | they smithied ore,
Tongs they wrought, | and tools they fashioned.

8. In their dwellings at peace | they played at tables,
Of gold no lack | did the gods then know,--
Till thither came | up giant-maids three,
Huge of might, | out of Jotunheim.

These two stanzas relate how the gods establish their divine society and enjoy a brief peace and abundance. these stanzas do not closely parallel Latin-Christian cosmology as such, but they do call to mind an Edenic or paradisal interval within sacred history - a ‘first state’ of peace, abundance, and ordered dwelling that is then broken by an incursion from the outside. Paradise before the Fall. This parallel is made even more clear since the place-name ‘Ithavoll’ could be translated as “splendor plains.” It will reappear at the end of the poem, after Ragnarok, when the gods return to Ithavoll. This return could be viewed as a kind of ‘renewed world after judgment’ - closer in narrative shape to ‘Paradise restored’ than to a mere ‘cyclical reset.’

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10. There was Motsognir | the mightiest made

Of all the dwarfs, | and Durin next;

Many a likeness | of men they made,

The dwarfs in the earth, | as Durin said.

11. Nyi and Nithi, | Northri and Suthri,

Austri and Vestri, | Althjof, Dvalin,

Nar and Nain, | Niping, Dain,

Bifur, Bofur, | Bombur, Nori,

An and Onar, | Ai, Mjothvitnir.

12. Vigg and Gandalf) | Vindalf, Thrain,

Thekk and Thorin, | Thror, Vit and Lit,

Nyr and Nyrath,-- | now have I told--

Regin and Rathsvith-- | the list aright.

13. Fili, Kili, | Fundin, Nali,

Heptifili, | Hannar, Sviur,

Frar, Hornbori, | Fræg and Loni,

Aurvang, Jari, | Eikinskjaldi.

14. The race of the dwarfs | in Dvalin’s throng

Down to Lofar | the list must I tell;

The rocks they left, | and through wet lands

They sought a home | in the fields of sand.

15. There were Draupnir | and Dolgthrasir,

Hor, Haugspori, | Hlevang, Gloin,

Dori, Ori, | Duf, Andvari,

Skirfir, Virfir, | Skafith, Ai.

16. Alf and Yngvi, | Eikinskjaldi,

Fjalar and Frosti, | Fith and Ginnar;

So for all time | shall the tale be known,

The list of all | the forbears of Lofar.

The litany of dwarf names from stanzas 10-16 is a secondary, textually unstable block that interrupts the poem’s main narrative rather than advancing it. They are widely held to be a later insert into the text:

“The key argument here is that ‘Unz thir qvomo or thvi lidi’ cannot be explained from the passage on the dwarves because the three ‘aesir’ do obviously not belong to the dwarves. If the catalogue were removed, our stanzas would follow stanza 8,”

The catalogue feels like an attempt to populate the early cosmos in a taxonomic expression of a certain curious race. In that way, this could be a parallel with Genesis and its narration of how the world was populated by various creatures. Regardless, the lists of dwarf names have differences between the manuscripts. Fjalar, Frosti, Finnr, and Ginnarr are present in Regius but absent from Hauksbok. Billingr, Bruni, Bildr, and Buri are present in Hauksbok but absent from Regius. Nar, Nain, Nipingr, and Dainn appear twice in Hauksbok. Other names are present in both manuscripts but their placement in the sequence is different. And as one Folkish Heathen has noted, “Gandalf and Vindalf are elf names and seem to indicate that they were incorrectly added to the list of dwarf names.”

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17. Then from the throng | did three come forth,

From the home of the gods, | the mighty and gracious;

Two without fate | on the land they found,

Ask and Embla, | empty of might.

18. Soul they had not, | sense they had not,

Heat nor motion, | nor goodly hue;

Soul gave Othin, | sense gave Honir,

Heat gave Lothur | and goodly hue.

• “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27)

• “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)

These stanzas relate the endowment of life to the first two human beings by three gods. We see a sort of recapitulation of the creation of the world in how it is related to what is lacking before those very things are generated or given over. However, we must take a brief moment to discuss the emendation here before we get into the narrative content. When we set the opening of Hauksbok st. 17 beside its Codex Regius equivalent, the Hauksbok version appears damaged and contaminated. Regius has “Unz thrir komu / or thvi lidi” (“Until three came / from that company”), which makes narrative sense if we remove the litany of dwarf names which come prior (as we mentioned above). Hauksbok, though, seems to read “Vndz thriar komu / thussa [...]”, followed by what appears to be the word brudir (“brides”). Thussa brudir would translate to “brides of giants,” which makes little sense given that the line then immediately identifies the three beings as male Aesir gods. Editors therefore often emend the phrase to thussa broedr (“brothers of giants”), but this is a repair-job, not a secured reading. Pettit remarks that neither the Hauksbok nor the Regius version makes good sense here and that there is probably “some deep textual corruption.” The most plausible explanation is contamination from Hauksbok st. 8, where the poem used the natural phrase thussa meyjar (“maidens of giants”), with that line being retained in the mind of the skald reciting the poem as the transcriber recorded the recitation on paper. Therefore, we can see how the Hauksbok text at this point has suffered scribal or memorial interference and therefore must be handled with caution. Now, to return to the narrative …

There are only two other accounts in the entire pre-Christian Norse-Germanic corpus which deal at all with ‘anthropogony through wood.’ In Germania (ch. 39), Tacitus says the Semnones would gather to a sacred grove because it was believed that “from this place the nation drew their origin.” And in Vafthrudnismal (st. 45), two humans, Lif and Lifthrasir, hide in “Hoddmimir’s holt” (Yggdrasil) during Ragnarok, live on morning dew, and survive the apocalypse to repopulate the world. However, Tacitus is incredibly vague in his account of a specific, Continental tribe, and Vafthrudnismal is recounting what will happen at the end of the world (or before its next cycle). Neither source mentions how there were originally two humans, nor their names, nor the traits they were endowed with, let alone how they were originally of wood not merely emerging from it. Therefore, we can say that even if there is some sort of ‘theme of trees’ with the origin of humanity, the details and clarity of the account in Volupsa (and Snorri’s later Prose Edda quotations and additions) is unique in the entire pre-Christian Norse-Germanic corpus. Other than these few lines from Voluspa, Snorri recaps and adds to them in Gylfaginning (ch. 9)

“As Bor’s sons walked along the sea shore, they came across two logs and created people out of them. The first gave breath and life, the second consciousness and movement, the third a face, speech and hearing and sight; they gave them clothes and names. The man was called Ask, the woman Embla, and from them were produced the mankind to whom the dwelling-place under Midgard was given.”

But whereas Voluspa names Odin, Honir, and Lothur as the ones who make Ask and Embla, Snorri names “Bor’s sons” which he noted earlier in his text were ‘Odin, Vili, and Ve.’ The difference could be explained away as heiti for the same deities, but if so, we are simply trusting that Snorri got it right. Nothing, however, compels the equation unless one is possessed by the desire to smooth the two sources into one same account. To treat the latter as mere aliases for the former is possible, but it is still conjectural, and scholarship offers no consensus that would let the matter be treated as closed.

Let us go through the account. First, we should note that Ask and Embla are from the ‘non-human, organic material’ of wood found on the shore. Iceland would undergo extensive deforestation after settlement c. 874 AD onward, making driftwood into a sort of commodity which would prompt islanders to go over to it and investigate. Samplonius has suggested a very interesting hypothesis about how the beach setting

“may be due to the influence of native lore about the high-seat pillars (ondvegisulur), which according to tradition the first settlers of Iceland threw overboard on first sighting land. The places where these pillars washed ashore were believed to mark the territories divinely destined for these new settlers”

Therefore, humanity, washing ashore on the ‘land raised up (from the waters)’ would mark Midgard as where they should be settled. In these ways, the Voluspa anthropogony should be read as something more unique to Iceland or Scandinavia broadly than emblematic of what the Germanic peoples as a whole might have believed, because the episode is bound up with specifically Icelandic cultural heritage.

Now, the Biblical account involves God making Man from the dust of the Earth - a ‘non human material’ but one of entirely different substance and symbolic measure. But as this relates to Latin-Christian influence or ‘readability,’ there was the ‘arbor inversa tradition’ within the Medieval world that associated human beings with ‘inverted trees.’ In Exhortation to the Heathen, Protrepticus, (ch. 10), Clement of Alexandria - quoting Plato and Philo - says that man is “a truly heavenly plant.” Writing later in the Twelfth Century, Guerric of Igny, (Sermo 2) says that “the physicians say that man is an inverted tree, because the sinews of the body have their root and beginning in the top of the head.” And the Vita Adae et Evae tradition (specifically the Post Peccatum Adae) records how sacred wood grew out of Adam’s body. Now, this is not saying that ‘Adam came from wood,’ but it is apocryphally relating the two together. We know that this was known to Icelanders because a version of the tradition was written in Hauksbok - the same manuscript that also records a version of Voluspa. In Homily XXI, Aelfric also compares how human beings and trees both have life in them. Therefore we can see how the boundary between humanity and tree-symbolism is permeable in the Christian Anglo-Scandinavian milieu where skalds were operating. That said, this connection is certainly not conclusive of influence.

Secondly, the importance of the episode lies not merely in the fact that the pair are animated, but in the fact that they are presented as the ‘original, first, named couple,’ ‘male and female.’ The meaning of their names carries some interest as well. ‘Ask’ is very straightforward as the Old Norse word for “ash tree” - poetically implicating that this pre-human object may have been a branch or twig from Yggdrasil. ‘Embla’ however is notoriously uncertain in meaning. The older hypothesis that her name derives from almr (“elm”) is philologically awkward because ‘elm’ is masculine in Old Norse. This explanation also does little to explain why the pair are configured as they are - after all, why would they be made of different woods? A more suggestive proposal connects Embla with the Greek word ampelos, as a ‘twining creeper’ such as ivy or bindweed. On that reading, the image is no longer just ‘two random pieces of wood’ but a differentiated pair that are discovered together. There is a male piece of ash-wood and a female plant entwined around it. This reading would widen the configuration between Volupsa and Genesis. In Voluspa, Ask and Embla are found together on the shore where, presumably, Embla would be ‘taken from’ or ‘taken off of’ Ask. In Genesis 2:21-22, Eve is generated from a rib taken from Adam’s side. Ultimately, the significance is that there are two original human beings who are male and female who come from non-human, organic material. Whether we can add that the female is taken from or taken off of the male is debateable, but regardless, that unargued narrative arrangement is easy to align with the anthropogony in Genesis 1-2, and even easier when we see the nature of the ‘gifts’ that the gods bestow.

Thirdly, the ‘gifts’ that the three gods bestow in order to ‘humanize’ the ‘non-human, organic material’ are ond, (“breath” / “soul”) odr, (“reason” / “mind” / “awareness”) and la (“heat” / “blood”) with lita goda (commonly translated as “fair hue”). Before getting into the individual gifts, we should overview how the Biblical parallel with ond can be easily deduced from Genesis 2:7 where God “breathed into [man’s] nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” It must be noted that this ‘breath’ was associated with the soul in the Latin-Christian worldview, and that the soul was in turn associated with the reasoning mind. This connection is articulated early in Church History, with Augustine’s The City of God (13.24), noting that:

“[...] we must understand in what sense man is said to be in the image of God, and is yet dust, and to return to the dust. The former is spoken of the rational soul, which God by His breathing, or, to speak more appropriately, by His inspiration, conveyed to man, that is, to his body; but the latter refers to his body, which God formed of the dust, and to which a soul was given, that it might become a living body, that is, that man might become a living soul.”

Likewise, Isidore of Seville explains in his Etymologiae (XI.1.10-13) how:

“the soul [anima] is so called because it gives life, whereas spirit [spiritus] is named either from its spiritual nature or because it breathes within the body. Likewise, mind/spirit [animus] is the same thing as the soul, but the soul belongs to life, while the animus belongs to counsel/intention. [...] when it gives life to the body, it is soul [anima]; when it wills, it is animus; when it knows, it is mens; when it recollects, it is memory; when it judges rightly, it is reason; when it breathes, it is spirit [spiritus]; when it perceives something, it is sense.”

And in Homily XX, Aelfric rhetorically asks:

“In which part has man the likeness of God in him? In the soul, not in the body. The soul of man has in its nature a likeness to the Holy Trinity ; for it has in it three things, these are memory, and understanding, and will”

And we also have the Latin Sibyl tradition (Mundus origo mea est) which describes the creation of man:

“Added body to bones, and in the bones marrow,

Made firm the sinews, and veins filled with blood,

Who formed the gleaming skin from glutinous mud,

And inserted souls and added senses to minds”

Thus we can see how this narrative of ‘divinity bestowing a breath/soul to organic material in order to give it a reasonable mind’ is something very much at home in the Latin-Christian system.

Then we move to the final gift: la with lita goda. The ‘heat’ / ‘blood’ / ‘vital warmth’ of la is effectively acting as the phenomenon that gives ‘life’ to this wood. But lita goda is much more difficult to translate. Often, it is rendered as “good hue,” which implies that there would be a ‘bad hue’. In Gylfaginning (ch. 49), Snorri notes that Hermodr is challenged as they approach the underworld with the observation that “[...] you do not have the ‘hue of dead men’ [lit daudra manna]. Why are you riding the road to Hel?” To Samplonius, the note of ‘good-’ or ‘fair-hue’ is contrasted against this ‘pale-’, ‘sickly-’, or ‘dead-hue,’ meaning that lita goda should be read as a synonym for ‘life’. Combined together then, la with lita goda should be read as something analogous to a ‘life force’ which makes Ask and Embla into ‘living beings.’ Perhaps though, lita goda could be read as “the appearance of the gods”, as Snorri seems to suggest and one Folkish Heathen asserts. Would this not be an even more direct parallel to the language that they are being made “in the image of God”? Even if we read lita goda differently as meaning something like “beauty,” there is still precedent from the Latin-Christian system in understanding humanity in this way. The poem Genesis A notes how Adam and Eve, “were both brightly beautiful in their youth, brought forth into the world by the might of the Maker.” And again, in the City of God (22.24), Augustine says:

“The organs of sense and the rest of the members, are not they so placed, the appearance, and form, and stature of the body as a whole, is it not so fashioned, as to indicate that it was made for the service of a reasonable soul? [...] there is such a symmetry in its various parts, and so beautiful a proportion maintained, that one is at a loss to decide whether, in creating the body, greater regard was paid to utility or to beauty. Assuredly no part of the body has been created for the sake of utility which does not also contribute something to its beauty.”

Note how this litany matches the list articulated by Snorri. It should also be noted that of Snorri’s additions, he lists how the gods “gave them clothes” before going to Midgard, which likewise mirrors the account of Genesis 3:21-24 where God clothes Adam and Eve before they are exiled from the Garden and sent out into the world. Likewise, Sirach 17 recaps and adds to the Genesis anthropogony by saying how God made humanity “to be like Himself, and gave them His own strength,” bestowing them with

“their tongues, their eyes, their ears, their minds, and their consciences. He filled them with knowledge and understanding [...] [and] gave them His own insight to let them see the majesty of His creation.”

This too mirrors Snorri. Furthermore, none of the other attested vocabulary of ‘personhood’ (hugr, hamr, hamingja, fylgja, etcetera) are present in this Voluspa account, making the fact that the three gifts map well onto Latin-Christian understandings of the soul even more pronounced. Again, it cannot be overstated how this is the only episode in the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic corpus which mentions the creation of humanity - so the fact that the parts of the soul are conspicuously different from other terms relating to ‘Pagan personhood’ is very telling. Therefore, we can see how half-a-millenia before the composition of Voluspa, the Latin-Christian system had already learned to divide human personhood into breath/life, mind/reason, and bodily form or appearance, making the Voluspa gifts suspiciously easy to align with Christian anthropology.

Fascinatingly, there is yet another curious intersection of Medieval Christian anthropogony with pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology. In the Vita Adae et Evae, (a very popular narrative tradition dating back to Second-Temple Judaism) Adam is made from a series of gifts: the earth becomes his flesh, the sea becomes his blood, stones become his bones, clouds become his thoughts, wind becomes his breath, the Sun becomes his eyes, the light of the world becomes his knowledge, and the Holy Spirit becomes his soul. This appears to be a developed reworking of the older Adamic account from 2 Enoch 30, where Adam is similarly assembled from earth, dew, sun, stone, cloud, grass, and divine breath. By contrast, the Norse cosmogony includes the myth of Ymir’s ‘decreation’ which seems to invert Adam’s creation - instead of Adam being made of constituent parts of reality, reality is constituted by being made of Ymir’s parts. Gylfaginning (ch. 8) relates how Ymir’s flesh becomes the earth, his blood becomes the sea, his bones become the mountains and crags, his brain becomes the clouds, his hair becomes trees, and his brows demarcate Midgard. In the Adam tradition, the specific elements of the world world are gathered into the primordial man, whereas in the Ymir tradition, the primordial being is diffused outward into the specific elements of the world.

Taken together, the point is not that Voluspa simply reproduces Genesis under Pagan names, but that it presents the origin of humanity in a form which is dubiously legible within the Latin-Christian system. A first male-female pair is fashioned from non-human material, completed through a sequence of divine endowments, and brought fully into human life by a triadic agency (which a Medieval Christian reader could construe through Trinitarian habits of interpretation, even if it remains formally indigenous in its particular expression). The compositor of Volupsa appears to be performing an interpretatio Norroena of Christian anthropogonic tradition, recasting it in Norse materials, agents, and cosmology. The Ask and Embla episode is thus best read not as an untouched survival of pre-Christian Norse-Germanic anthropogony, but as a Norse recasting of creation whose structure had become strikingly readable through Christian anthropology.

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19. An ash I know, | Yggdrasil its name,

With water white | is the great tree wet;

Thence come the dews | that fall in the dales,

Green by Urth’s well | does it ever grow.

20. Thence come the maidens | mighty in wisdom,

Three from the dwelling | down ‘neath the tree;

Urth is one named, | Verthandi the next,--

On the wood they scored,-- | and Skuld the third.

Laws they made there, and life allotted

To the sons of men, and set their fates.

• Genesis 2:9-10 - “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.”

The cosmic tree of Yggdrasil is now truly narratively introduced with the accompanying imagery of a holy well, vivifying dew, and unfading greenness. Although the tree, the well, and the river seem to be deep facets of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs, the sequencing of this image in the cosmological narrative continues to align with Genesis. After Man is created, he is put in the Garden of Eden where the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are present and central. Therefore, the placement of Yggdrasil at this point in the creation-sequence makes the comparison to the Genesis trees especially tempting in how it creates convergence with the prior anthropogony and the ‘fall’ that is to come.

The categories of life, water, greenness, wisdom, and human are the same categories that dominate Edenic Paradise imagery as well. The Old English poem Genesis A mentions how “flowing waters from gushing springs beautifully irrigated that pleasant land.” Likewise, the poem The Phoenix contains this image:

“there streams of water, wondrously intricate, springs forth in wells, in fair surgings of flood. The ground is slaked with winsome waters from the midst of the woods.”

And as we have already mentioned above, there is an argument to be made that Yggdrasil represents a sort of ‘tree of knowledge’ in its relation to the dew that descends from it and its evergreen nature, while also representing a ‘tree of life’ in its relation to the Norns’ measuring and ordering of human life. In Tree of Salvation, G. Ronald Murphey has argued that wooden stave churches and their baptismal fonts draw explicit comparisons to Yggdrasil and its wells. Indeed, Snorri’s gloss of these stanzas in Gylfaginning (ch. 16) makes the comparison more clear in how he explicitly calls the water from the well “holy,” much as how the baptismal font held holy water that would grant access to eternal life. Regardless, to a Christian audience, or a compositor attempting to mirror the arc of Latin-Christian cosmology, we should next expect a sort of ‘Fall’ with the introduction of a ‘foreign element’ into this Paradise …

_____

21. The war I remember, | the first in the world,

When the gods with spears | had smitten Gollveig,

And in the hall | of Hor had burned her,

Three times burned, | and three times born,

Oft and again, | yet ever she lives.

22. Heith they named her | who sought their home,

The wide-seeing witch, | in magic wise;

Minds she bewitched | that were moved by her magic,

To evil women | a joy she was.

23. On the host his spear | did Othin hurl,

Then in the world | did war first come;

The wall that girdled | the gods was broken,

And the field by the warlike | Wanes was trodden.

24. Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats,

The holy ones, | and council held,

Whether the gods | should tribute give,

Or to all alike | should worship belong.

25. Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats,

The holy ones, | and council held,

To find who with venom | the air had filled,

Or had given Oth’s bride | to the giants’ brood.

26. In swelling rage | then rose up Thor,--

Seldom he sits | when he such things hears,--

And the oaths were broken, | the words and bonds,

The mighty pledges | between them made.

These stanzas mark the poem’s turn from an early cosmic ordering to the first great rupture in divine society. Gullveig/Heith goes to the gods and bewitches them, which leads to them torturing her but she lives, (or is “reborn”) which then leads to the first war which breaks the wall of the god’s home, leading to the gods making a bad arrangement to have it repaired which they themselves break. The narrative thrust is that the gods’ world is no longer stable or unified, with there being magic and warfare and broken oaths. Despite this being one of the least directly Biblical or Christian sections of Volupsa in imagery and subject - and one of the most contested in structure and meaning - it is still open to a Christian-functional reading at the level of ‘narrative logic’ with these six stanzas effectively operating as the Voluspa equivalent of ‘The Fall’ or ‘The War in Heaven.’

The ‘War in Heaven’ or ‘Satan’s Rebellion’ was a core part of Latin-Christian cosmology in the Medieval world and directly slotted into talk about humanity’s ‘Fall’ from grace as related in Genesis 3. In the Latin Vita Adae et Evae, Satan explains that his deception of Eve grew out of an earlier heavenly rupture: he refused to honor Adam as the image of God, lost his heavenly glory, and then deceived Eve so that Adam might be expelled from Paradise as Satan had been expelled from heaven. This gives the Fall a two-stage structure: first angelic rebellion, then human deception. In his Sermon on the Beginning of Creation, Aelfric says:

“God created as a great angel him who is now the devil: but God did not create him as the devil: but when he was wholly fordone and guilty towards God, through his great haughtiness and enmity, then became he changed to the devil”

And Genesis A says:

“the High-King of Heaven, raised his lofty hands against their forces. Then he grew furious, smiting the sinful rebels with his victorious might, his magnificence and power - depriving his enemy of their joy, peace and all happiness, their bright glory - and mightily avenged his anger upon his enemies with his own majesty, a violent throwing down.”

It is after this that the Serpent / the Devil / Satan comes into the Garden to corrupt humanity. This is mirrored in Volupsa in how Gullvieg goes to the gods to bewitch them, and how this episode occurs after noting the peace of the Garden / Yggdrasil. 2 Corinthians 11:3 says that “the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning,” so minds may be “led astray” or “corrupted.” And again, Aelfric says in his Sermon on the Beginning of Creation, that “the woman was seduced by the devil’s counsel.” The poem Genesis B says that the Devil:

“led her with such lying words and with skillful enticings, the woman into that unright, until the serpent’s thought began to be moved within her [...] she was secretly corrupted then, seduced by deceptions [...] through the schemes of the Wrathful, through the Devil’s craft”

The poetic juxtaposition of Gullveig being the “pleasure” of every “wicked woman” does call to mind the Biblical dichotomy of the fruit being “pleasing to the eye” and Eve’s eating it and offering it to her husband, Adam, which prompts the pain of the Fall. Both Voluspa and Genesis seem to frame the rupture of an original peace through alluring wisdom, pleasure, and corrupted desire. It is after humanity succumbs to the Devil’s corruption that God curses the serpent but allows it to live, and curses humanity with ejection from the Garden. Wisdom 2:23-24 says that “by the envy of the devil, death entered the world.” So the image of a ‘foreign agent coming into a peaceful setting and corrupting / seducing / deceiving actors through a craft’ and that this agent was involved in or somehow caused ‘the first war’ does map onto the narrative arc we have been describing, even if the images and characters used here in Volupsa are stubbornly indigenous.

We must also take another moment to look at the emendation of these stanzas, which differ greatly between Regius and Hauksbok. In Regius, the breach begins with Gullveig. She enters the world of the gods, is violently attacked and reborn, spreads her magic and seduction, provokes debate over compensation, and then war breaks out, after which the poem retrospectively frames the rupture in terms of polluted air, Freyja’s illicit giving, and broken oaths. In Hauksbok, by contrast, the order is darker and more morally front-loaded. The crisis begins with polluted air, Freyja promised to the giants, Thor’s anger over broken oaths, and apocalyptic signs such as Ironwood, monstrous offspring, and darkened weather, (which do not appear in Regius until much later in the narrative). Only after this does Gullveig arrive, the compensation debate occurs, and the first war is mentioned. The result is that Hauksbok much more readily presents cosmic corruption and oath-breaking as the prior moral catastrophe, with the war and subsequent punishments reading as a judicial response to that breakdown, whereas Regius supports a reading in which the war emerges from the destabilizing intrusion of Gullveig herself. The differences are so great in the sequencing of events that one could draw different theological conclusions about the nature of this ‘fall from grace’ unless one ‘prefers’ one sequence over the other and reads the sequence of the other as a ‘poetic narration’ of the same sequence.

Because this is the last of the ‘Genesis parallels’ that Voluspa has, we should take a moment to recap just how intricately the two mirror one another. Stanza 3 opens with a negated, formless pre-creation, which matches Gen 1:1-2 and echoes other non-Biblical privative conditions before Creation such as with the Wessobrunn Prayer and Genesis A. Its unique ‘Ginnungagap’ can function as a dark, watery abyss analogous to the biblical “deep,” or as the ‘nihilo’ which precedes Creation. Stanza 4 follows with land being raised up (presumably from the waters) with vegetal flourishing populating the earth, which parallels Gen 1:9-12. The naming of Midgardr (“the inhabited middle world”) aligns with Latin-Christian cosmography, acting as a vernacular calque that makes the scene mutually intelligible across audiences. Stanzas 5-6 then assign the Sun, Moon, and stars their stations to mark the times and seasons - precisely what occurs with the celestial bodies in Gen 1:14-18. The refrain about the gods’ “seats of judgment” maps native legal imagery onto the well-known Latin-Christian “divine council” topos. Stanzas 17-18 present organic non-human material being animated by a triad of gifts - breath/soul, reason/mind, and life-force - to become the first two humans, male and female. That matches the Latin-Christian exegetical formulas for Gen 1:27;2:7 almost exactly. The narrative introduction of Yggdrasil matches the establishment of the trees in the Garden of Eden (in sequencing and imagery). And lastly, with Gullvieg-Heith, we find a parallel to the ‘Fall’ from Genesis 3. In sum, Voluspa and Genesis both have: ‘creation from void’ to ‘land/vegetation’ to ‘luminaries for calendrical order’ to ‘ensoulment of the first pair’ to ‘cosmic tree’ to ‘seduction, corruption, and fall from grace.’ This is significant functional and verbal convergences between the narratives, and begs the question on just how much the overall arc of Norse mythology might have been influenced by Latin-Chrisitan thinking.

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27. I know of the horn | of Heimdall, hidden

Under the high-reaching | holy tree;

On it there pours | from Valfather’s pledge

A mighty stream: | would you know yet more?

28. Alone I sat | when the Old One sought me,

The terror of gods, | and gazed in mine eyes:

“What hast thou to ask? | why comest thou hither?

Othin, I know | where thine eye is hidden.”

I know where Othin’s | eye is hidden,

Deep in the wide-famed | well of Mimir;

Mead from the pledge | of Othin each mom

Does Mimir drink: | would you know yet more?

29. Necklaces had I | and rings from Heerfather,

Wise was my speech | and my magic wisdom;

. . . . . . . . . .

Widely I saw | over all the worlds.

These stanzas relate how authoritative the narrating Seeress’ knowledge is by stating directly that she knows about the location of Heimdall’s horn and Odin’s eye. After this disclosure, Odin pays her in jewelry, presumably to continue on with her vision. Interestingly, this entire sequence is absent from Hauksbok and only present in Regius.

_____

30. On all sides saw I | Valkyries assemble,

Ready to ride | to the ranks of the gods;

Skuld bore the shield, | and Skogul rode next,

Guth, Hild, Gondul, | and Geirskogul.

Of Herjan’s maidens | the list have ye heard,

Valkyries ready | to ride o’er the earth.

As we noted in the prior article, the list of Valkyrie-names here indicates that the compositor likely misunderstood a similar list from Hakonarmal st. 12 where “geir-Skogul” (spear-Skogul) was functioning as a compound, not a proper name, as it does here. The catalogue of Valkyries here only appears in Regius, not Hauksbok. This stanza also operates as a sort of ‘hinge’ where the weight of the narrative shifts from ‘the beginning’ to ‘the end.’ Although time proceeds in a progressive fashion throughout Voluspa, from this point, (and especially after the Baldr episode) the tone shifts to firmly anticipate the eschaton. In that sense, the mustering of the Valkyries feels like the excitement of the cosmos anticipating what is about to occur where they will be gathering the dead. Because this stanza occurs immediately before the Baldr episode, (which we will be showing has significant parallels to Christ) we might also liken it to how the Dream of the Rood imagines hosts of angels pointed to the Cross:

“Many bands of angels, Fair throughout all eternity, looked on. No felon’s gallows that, but holy spirits, Mankind, and all this marvellous creation, Gazed on the glorious tree of victory.”

Indeed, it is very easy to read ‘angels’ when we see ‘Valkyries.’

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31. I saw for Baldr, | the bleeding god,

The son of Othin, | his destiny set:

Famous and fair | in the lofty fields,

Full grown in strength | the mistletoe stood.

32. From the branch which seemed | so slender and fair

Came a harmful shaft | that Hoth should hurl;

But the brother of Baldr | was born ere long,

And one night old | fought Othin’s son.

33. His hands he washed not, | his hair he combed not,

Till he bore to the bale-blaze | Baldr’s foe.

But in Fensalir | did Frigg weep sore

For Valhall’s need: | would you know yet more?

These stanzas relate the Volupsa version of Baldr’s death. This is another instance where only Regius preserves the Baldr death and vengeance sequence, with it being omitted from Hauksbok. It is impossible to strip our impression of Baldr from other stories about him and to only focus on the material as it is related to us here in Voluspa because we must understand the broader oral mythology which the compositor was performing within to understand the specific poetic vision that they were attempting to communicate. Along with these stanzas, at the end of Voluspa, it is said that Baldr and Hoth will return after Ragnarok. The poem Baldrs Draumar repeats essentially the same facts found here in Voluspa only adding that Baldr was having dreams about his impending death. In Lokasenna, Loki taunts Frigg (Baldr’s mother) that he was the reason Baldr will never ride home again, implying that Loki was somehow related in the killing. This makes sense given how the following stanzas in Voluspa (after this account of Baldr’s death) relate how the god Vali binds Loki. Snorri’s Skaldskaparmal serves as a ‘reference reservoir’ of how to write skaldic poetry, citing numerous kennings for Baldr, such as: “son of Odin and Frigg,” “husband of Nanna,” “father of Forseti,” “enemy of Hod,” and “Hel’s companion.” But the fullest Norse account of Baldr’s death comes from Gylfaginning (ch. 49), where Snorri presents the event as a sort of central, divine catastrophe around which everything gravitates. After Baldr is troubled by ominous dreams, Frigg secures oaths from almost everything in creation not to harm him, but Loki discovers that mistletoe was overlooked. Loki then places the mistletoe in the hands of the blind Hodr - Baldr’s brother - who uses it to accidentally cause Baldr’s death. The gods then give Baldr a magnificent funeral, where his wife, Nanna, dies of grief. Afterwards, the god Hermod rides to Hel, finds Baldr already there, and learns that Baldr can return but only if all things weep for him. When nearly all creation does so except Thokk - who is identified as Loki in disguise - Baldr remains in Hel. Snorri frames Loki’s later capture and punishment as vengeance both for causing Baldr’s slaying and for preventing his release.

But there are other accounts outside the Norse corpus, which differ greatly. In Gesta Danorum (bk. 3), Saxo Grammaticus gives a euhemerized story of Balderus (Baldr) and Hotherus (Hoth) as rivals for a woman named Nanna, who in the Eddic tradition was Baldr’s wife. Balderus is killed by Hotherus in a more heroic-historical narrative. Using a magic sword, Hotherus plunges the weapon into Balderus’ side and leaves him for dead. After three days, Balderus succumbs to his wounds and is buried in a barrow. The poem Beowulf also relates another version where Herebald (Baldr) is shot by his brother Haedcyn’s (Hodr) stray arrow, leaving their father, Hredel to die of grief because he cannot avenge Herebald by killing his killer because that would be a ‘kinslaying,’ which was perhaps one of the worst atrocities of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic custom. It could be that this story had so much value to the Pagan world because the story discloses a fundamental ‘flaw’ in their system of reciprocal violence by implicating the kin itself: how can one avenge a kin-slaying when it was kin who slayed kin? Regardless, the fact that there are three distinct variants of this story across the Norse-Germanic world would strongly indicate that this story was dominant in the Pagan mind. In the Norse account however, as expressed in Voluspa, we have a number of important elements: there is a ‘son of the high god’ with ‘foreknown / fated doom’ who ‘suffered bloodily’ by a ‘hurled shaft’ which caused his ‘mothers lament’ but was ‘avenged by a brother’ and who will ‘return later after the apocalypse.’ These elements very closely match the image of Jesus Christ from the Latin-Christian worldview.

First, we have the ‘son of the high god.’ Baldr being the son of Odin and Christ being the Son of the Father or the ‘Son of God’ can immediately begin to draw parallels. This is not conclusive of course for a number of reasons (perhaps most notably that Odin has many sons) but it opens up the possibility for deeper connections. It should also be mentioned how - although Voluspa does not mention so - Snorri describes Baldr as dwelling in Breidablik, a heavenly hall than which “there is not in heaven a fairer dwelling,” and where “nothing unclean may be.” Christ is similarly described as holy, innocent, undefiled, and set apart from sinners (Heb. 7:26), and the Heavenly Jerusalem is likewise described as a place into which nothing unclean may enter (Rev. 21:27). Secondly, we have that this figure knew about his fated doom. One of the defining features of Christ is that He goes knowingly to a death foreordained in the divine plan. As Acts 2:23 says:

“This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”

Revelations 13:8 also calls Christ, “the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.” The difference between Baldr and Christ in this regard is that Christ goes willingly to His own Passion, whereas Baldr’s approaching death is marked by a sense of dread and tragedy. Thirdly, we have that the figure suffered in a specifically bloody way. John 19:34 notes that “one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.” The ‘blood of Christ’ is also a central theme in Christianity as made apparent by passages like: Matthew 26:28 and Luke 22:20, John 6:53-56, Romans 3:25-26, Hebrews 9:12-14, and 1 Peter 1:18-19 among many others.. The Old English poem Dream of the Rood, the Cross itself says “I’m all ooze, bedrooled with blood, sluiced from, juiced from his side.” And Blickling Homily VI says that “the Jews hung him on the cross where his blood spurted out for our salvation.” Therefore, we can see how descriptions of the ‘son of the most high god’ who has a ‘fixed fate’ and ‘bleeds’ could match either Baldr or Christ.

Fourthly, we have the ‘hurled shaft’ of the figure’s demise. Understanding this fully requires more explanation than the prior three points. First, we should note that it is the mistletoe which is being ‘hurled’. As we noted above in Part I, the specific, ‘culturally English’ mistletoe can be argued to reflect Danelaw/Anglo-Christian contact zones rather than indigenous Icelandic botany, showing a line of possible ‘foreign influence.’ There are, however, no associations between the mistletoe and the Cross from this era - all are significantly later apocryphal accounts well outside our milieu. There is however a ‘polyvalent runic charm’ called the Thistle Mistletoe Formula which seemed to have been used in different contexts and for different purposes ranging from ‘curses’ to ‘protective pleas,’ to ‘fertility aids,’ to ‘healing,’ and even ‘Christianized apotropaic use.’ There seemed to have been something especially potent about mistletoe’s spiritual properties to the Norse-Germanic world.

Secondly, then, we should ask, ‘what does hurling mean - is this something to be thrown (like a spear) or shot (like a bow)?’ The actual Old Norse is “harmflaug haettlig, Hodrr nam skjota” - which must be dissected to uncover its full meaning. We have the ‘harmflaug haettlig,’ which could be translated as ‘perilous harm-dart’ or ‘dangerous, baneful missile’ or perhaps more literally and directly as ‘harm-flier, hateful.’ This ‘abominable projectile’ is ‘nam skjota’ by Hoth, with those Old Norse words meaning something like ‘began to shoot.’ So Hoth is shooting a projectile. There is still some ambiguity here though because one is said to ‘shoot’ a spear in Old Norse. However, when we consider that the mistilteinn (“misteletoe”) is suffixed by ‘teinn’ which means a twig or sprout, and it is described as being “slender,” and Snorri adds a description for the mistletoe as a “wand,” then the understanding that this is an arrow becomes more legible. Furthermore, whereas the Saxo account of Baldr involves a magic sword, the Beowulf account describes that a bow-and-arrow were used in a scene which is almost identical to the one in Voluspa:

“To the eldest unjustly by acts of a kinsman

Was murder-bed strewn, since him Haethcyn from horn-bow

His sheltering chieftain shot with an arrow,

Erred in his aim and injured his kinsman”

In Hoensa-Thoris saga as well, there is an episode which seems to be alluding to the death of Baldr. Helgi (like Baldr) is a young, morally marked figure whose sudden death by a bow-and-arrow becomes the hinge of a wider disaster. Hoensa-Thorir (similar to Loki) manipulates the corpse and the victim’s supposed last words to turn the killing into an even greater act of social-destruction. That the saga is attempting to draw poetic parallels with the Baldr myth and it uses a bow-and-arrow yet further indicates that this was likely the weapon associated with the Anglo-Scandanavian tradition. It is also possible that traditions diverged within the Norse context and some areas or times understood the weapon as a spear and others understood it as an arrow. Regardless, the evidence suggests the most stable reading is that Hoth is shooting an arrow at Baldr.

So thirdly, then, although the Bible does record that there was a Roman soldier who pierced Christ’s side with a spear, there is no Biblical account of arrows being associated with the Passion. However, there does seem to be Medieval traditions associating arrows with Christ’s death. The Dream of the Rood has the Cross itself narrate that “I was entirely wounded with arrows.” This same line is quoted on the Ruthwell Cross, (c. 700’s AD) which also bears a panel carved into it of an archer. Likewise, there were Biblical passages about bows-and-arrows which were read liturgically and came to be associated with the Passion. Psalm 64:2-4, which was read on Good Friday, asks God to:

“Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from the plots of evildoers.

They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim cruel words like deadly arrows.

They shoot from ambush at the innocent; they shoot suddenly, without fear.”

Augustine comments on this psalm that “Behold from a secret place there comes an arrow, which strikes One unspotted” - language that is well-within the terminology that could describe the Baldr scene. Similarly, Ephesians 6:16 says that Christians should “take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” And Cassiodorus notes in Expositio Psalmorum how, by the Sixth Century, Psalm 38 was being treated as part of the ‘Seven Penitential Psalms,’ which includes v.1-2: “Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Your arrows have pierced me, and your hand has come down on me.” Therefore, we can see how the idea of a ‘pierced and bleeding innocent deity’ (whether by spear or arrow) is entirely intelligible within a Latin-Christian frame.

Fifthly, then we have that the mother of the figure lamented over the death. Outside of the Crucifixian itself, perhaps no other image was more widely known to Medieval Christendom than that of Mary’s lamentations. Luke 2:34-35 relates how Simeon told Mary that “a sword will pierce your own soul too,” and John 19:25-27 mentions that Mary is there at the foot of the Cross when Jesus is Crucified. One of Blathmac’s poems, Tair cucum, a Maire boid says:

“Come to me loving Mary that I may keen [‘publically mourn’] with you very dear one. Alas that your son should go to the cross, he who was a great emblem, a beautiful hero.”

The Old English poem The Descent Into Hell says that at the Crucifixion, “The weary women wished to bemoan in weeping the death of their lord.” Now, a Pagan could read Mary as a sort of ‘goddess’ whose primary role in the Christian mythos is her motherhood and her mourning. Frigg serves a similar role in Voluspa where she is only mentioned in relation to her sorrow at the death of her son, Baldr, and the death of her husband, Odin during Raganarok. It should also be mentioned how, although it is not directly stated in Voluspa, Snorri mentions in Glyfaginning (ch. 49) how Hel will release Baldr if “all things in the world” weep for him. Then Snorri records that “all men did this, and quick things, and the earth, and stones, and trees, and all metals” except for Loki. The Dream of the Rood similarly says that “all creation wept, mourned the King’s fall: Christ on the cross.” And Blathmac says that “It was fitting for God’s elements, beautiful sea, blue sky, this earth, that they should change their aspect when keening their hero.”

Sixthly, we have that the figure was ‘avenged by his brother’. This element seems to be wholly, indigenously Pagan in origin, with the “shall not wash nor comb” stock phrase reappearing in Baldrs draumar (st. 11). However, there is a way to read the ‘kin slaying’ element through a Medieval Christian understanding. Again, Blathmac (Ainbli gnuis, st. 103) says:

“Of dishonourable faces and dog-like were

the men [Jews] who carried out that kin-slaying.

Since his mother [Mary] was of them it was

treachery towards a true kinsman.”

Similarly, one could read Hodr as a sort-of ‘Judas figure’ who betrays ‘from the inside’ (of the family). Matthew 24:7 has Judas confess that “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” and John 13:27 says that “Satan entered” Judas. As we shall see more in the next few stanzas, and can provisionally assert for the time being, Loki seems to be a stand-in for Satan in Voluspa, and therefore it is possible to read Hodr as a stand-in for Judas especially because Hodr will be killed (avenged) and Judas too will die (suicide).

Seventh and lastly, we have that this figure will ‘return later after the apocalypse.’ Later in Volupsa, after the apocalypse of Ragnarok, Baldr will return to Ithavoll. This image very closely mirrors how Matthew 24:29-31 says that “Immediately after the tribulation of those days,” the Son of Man appears. It is well known in the Latin-Christian eschatology how ‘Christ will come again’ and rule over ‘the new Heaven and the new Earth.’ Interestingly, there is only one other poem that alludes to the possibility of Baldr ‘coming back.’ Eiriksmal is an anonymous skaldic poem dated to 954 AD (contemporaneous with our Voluspa dating) which commemorates the death of Eric Bloodaxe who had ruled Northumbria and York in the Danelaw and died in England. This shows that, in a Danelaw context at least, Baldr’s return could function as an intelligible mythic possibility.

And again, although it is not explicitly stated in Voluspa, Snorri records how Baldr went to the underworld of Hel. Now, this is paralleled in the Latin-Christian tradition of Christ’s ‘Harrowing of Hell,’ which was a common motif originating from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (c. 400 AD). This gospel was known to Bede and even translated into Old English prose by the late-900’s AD. The work dramatizes Christ’s entry into Hell, debate with its ruler, and the liberation of the righteous. The Blickling Homily VII narrates the Harrowing of Hell as Christ’s storming of the underworld with a dialogue involving Adam and Eve. Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies repeat the same doctrine and even give English the term for “harrowing” (hergian). The Book of Cerne (Mercia, c. 820–840) preserves a short Latin Harrowing play based on pseudo-Augustine Sermo 160 - evidence that the Harrowing was performed and recited in church contexts. The Junius 11 manuscript includes the Old English poem Christ and Satan, whose middle section includes the Harrowing, with the manuscript including drawn depictions of underworld scenes - visual theology of the descent in an English book contemporary with the Danelaw. There is also an Old English poem literally called The Descent into Hell, which narrates the event in the same way. These were exactly the kinds of sermons and common cultural knowledge that Viking settlers and visitors would have heard in England.

Taken together, we can see how Baldr’s traits as narrated in Voluspa and beyond are incredibly easy to map onto (or from) Christ’s traits. The only significant narrative differences between Baldr and Christ is that with Baldr, an avenger comes to slay his killer, and with Christ, all creation mourns for Him, whereas almost all does for Baldr. We know that Baldr was a beloved son of the most-high god, that it was foretold that he would die, that he was killed in a bloody way, that he descended into Hel but was unable to ‘resurrect,’ yet he will return after the apocalypse. At the very least these parallels suggest that there was an association between language referring to Christ and Baldr before the composition of Voluspa.

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34. Then did Vali slaughter bonds twist:

made fairly grim were those fetters of guts.

35. One did I see | in the wet woods bound,

A lover of ill, | and to Loki like;

By his side does Sigyn | sit, nor is glad

To see her mate: | would you know yet more?

• “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.” (Revelations 20:1-3)

In this passage, Vali (a deity born specifically to avenge Baldr) captures Loki and binds him with entrails, leaving Loki’s wife, Sigyn, to tend to him. As we noted in the prior article, the Gosforth Cross is the earliest visual attestation of this scene, and Voluspa is the earliest written attestation of it. We know from the prior article’s meditation on the Gosforth Cross that Loki’s binding could be placed inside a strongly Christian monumental program and read as an admonitory counter-image to salvation through the Cross. Indeed, on that monument, there are thematic parallels between Loki and Satan. The widely-known Christian mythology of ‘Satan being bound’ was also enumerated in the prior article, and the fact that this binding occurs immediately after the Death of Baldr gives more credence to the theory that Baldr is an analog to Christ in Voluspa, and - by extension - that Loki is an analog to Satan. Vercilli Homily I says that “our Lord Christ bound there with grievous bonds, set him in eternal torment,” showing how similar language was used in Anglo-Saxon England contemporaneously with the composition of Voluspa.

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38. A hall I saw, | far from the sun,

On Nastrond it stands, | and the doors face north,

Venom drops | through the smoke-vent down,

For around the walls | do serpents wind.

39. I saw there wading | through rivers wild

Treacherous men | and murderers too,

And workers of ill | with the wives of men;

There Nithhogg sucked | the blood of the slain,

And the wolf tore men; | would you know yet more?

• “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” (Revelations 21:8)

These stanzas narrate a dark, serpentine space where evil people wind up to be tortured by snakes, and other monsters. Poetically, we should be making associations between this space and Loki considering that he was mentioned in the prior stanzas and that he embodies all the wicked traits of those in Nastrond. The Old Norse word Nastrondu which is given the English place-name of ‘Nastrond’ is something which should be translated as meaning ‘Corpse-Shore’ or ‘The Shore of Dead Bodies’ implying that this is an afterlife location which awaits those who embody nidh - ‘the dishonorable and shameful’ - which is why Nidhoggr (literally “the striker of nidh”) is present and hungry. Nastrond is only mentioned here in Voluspa and in Snorri’s later, prose systematization of information from information in Volupsa. Whereas Nastrond seemed to be poetically associated with Loki in Voluspa, (since he is guilty of the crimes of those trapped there) Snorri instead puts his description of Nastrond next to that of Gimle, the ‘post-Raganarok abode of the righteous.’ Snorri seems to be implying a ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’ eschatological dichotomy in this association. Regardless, this scene very closely matches apocryphal and homiletic tours of hell from medieval times, which were often organized by catalogues of sinners and vivid punishments.

The idea that there was an underground afterlife filled with serpents who tormented sinners has significant Medieval Christian-Latin attestation prior to Voluspa. The Apocalypse of Peter (c. 2nd Century) mentions murderers cast into a place full of “evil snakes” and “worms” who afflict the wrongdoers. A widely-circulated work named the Visio Sancti Pauli, which was originally written around the early-Fourth Century, but which was translated into Old English by 1050 AD, (‘Junius manuscript’) also contains a description of Hell eerily similar to Voluspa’s depiction of Nastrond:

“And Paul saw another place with every type of punishment in it. And there there were black maidens with pitch­black cloaks around them, and fiery dragons and serpents and poisonous snakes coiled up around their necks.”

This work must have been known contemporaneously because Blickling Homily XVI ends with a description of Hell derived from and paraphrasing the Visio Sancti Pauli. The Old English poem Christ and Satan describes Hell’s interior as effectively a prison for the demons consigned to it:

“Nor had Satan any hope except for chill and fire, woe and torment, and a mass of serpents, dragons and adders - and that darksome abode. [...] The bottom of hell boiled with venom, hot under the captives. The devils howled widely throughout their windy hall”

And the Old English poem Judith also describes Hell as a place “wound with worms [...] enveloped in shadows,” and - mirroring the ‘hall’ from Voluspa st. 38 - as a “hall of serpents”. Likewise, Vercelli Homily IV describes Hell as “the pit of serpents” and Blickling Homily IV describes it as “the pitchy river.” From all of these examples, we can see how all the imagery of Nastrond can be found in the Christian-Latin corpus which predates it.

Similarly, the immoral taxonomy of reprobates being punished has striking parallels with Chrsitian soteriology. As we noted above, Nastrond is unique to Voluspa and there is suspiciously no other pre-Christian Norse-Germanic understanding of the immoral receiving a ‘bad afterlife.’ Voluspa’s ‘treacherous, murderers, and adulterers’ finds an almost one-to-one parallel with Revelation 21’s ‘cowardly, murderers, and sexually immoral.’ In Matthew 15:14-19, Christ notes how if the blind lead the blind then “both will fall into a pit” before listing out how “out of the heart come evil thoughts - murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” Wulfstan gives a very similar list of contemporaneous moral evils in England through his homily Sermo Lupi ad Anglos:

“Here are murderers, and kinslayers, and masspriest-killers and monastery-haters; and here are perjurers and murder-plotters and here are prostitutes, child-murderers, and many foul, adulterous fornicators; and here are witches and valkyries; and here are robbers, plunderers, and world-pillagers, and it is quickest to say, sins and misdeeds beyond all reckoning.”

By moving beyond a generic ‘realm of the dead’ and presenting a morally-discriminated place of torment for specific classes of offenders, described with a vivid serpent-filled hall and punitive scenery, Voluspa again presents an image which is unusually compatible with Christian concepts of Hell.

We should take a moment to recap the last seven stanzas as they all relate to a sort of ‘Baldr-vengence sequence.’ What makes this sequence so striking for our purposes is not that it merely presents ‘the death of a god,’ and depictions of ‘Medieval Hell’ but it does so in a pattern and with imagery that a medieval Christian audience could hear through the grammar of the Passion. Baldr is the beloved son of the highest god, his death is foreknown rather than accidental, and the poem dwells on the moment of his being struck by a baneful missile and on the grief of his mother. That combination is what makes the parallels strong. In the New Testament, Christ is handed over according to God’s “deliberate plan and foreknowledge,” his mother stands at the scene of his death, and the Passion is marked by the piercing of his side with the outflow of blood and water. Luke had already prepared Christians to read Mary under the sign of maternal sorrow when Simeon tells her that a sword will pierce her own soul. Yet the comparisons expand. Baldr is not simply ‘lost forever,’ because in the eschatological future of Voluspa, he returns after the final catastrophe, just as Mark’s Little Apocalypse places the Son of Man coming after cosmic distress and darkened heavens. The force of the parallel, then, is not that ‘Baldr equals Christ,’ but that Voluspa depicts Baldr and the aftermath in a form unusually compatible with Christian patterns.

The ‘binding of Loki’ and the ‘vision of Nastrond’ then complete the Christian shape of the sequence by moving from the death of the beloved figure to the punishment of the power behind evil and then to the moral condemnation of the wicked. Voluspa presents Loki being bound and imprisoned but he will come back during Ragnarok. In Revelation 20, “that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan,” is bound and shut up in the abyss before the final judgment. Volupsa shows the ‘Nastond hall’ wound with serpents - the place where treacherous men, murderers, and sexual transgressors undergo torment. This sort of moralized afterlife makes the Christian comparison hard to evade, because Revelation 21 likewise enumerates the damned by moral class, naming almost the same litany of: murderers, the sexually immoral, liars, and others consigned to fiery punishment. Add to this medieval depictions of Hell which were inherently serpentine and ‘beneath the Earth’ and the comparisons are staggeringly similar. So the sequence proceeds in an entirely Christian-legible order: the innocent beloved figure is struck down, the adversarial power is bound, and the morally corrupt are shown receiving retributive punishment.

_____

40. The giantess old | in Ironwood sat,

In the east, and bore | the brood of Fenrir;

Among these one | in monster’s guise

Was soon to steal | the sun from the sky.

41. There feeds he full | on the flesh of the dead,

And the home of the gods | he reddens with gore;

Dark grows the sun, | and in summer soon

Come mighty storms: | would you know yet more?

• “Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast [...] The name written on her forehead was a mystery: babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes, and of the abominations of the earth. I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.” (Revelations 17:3,5-6)

Here we begin to see the movement toward Ragnarok take on a more definite shape - the forces which threaten the gods are preparing their own offspring (similar to how Vali had been conceived by Odin). We should immediately note the similarities between this scene and Revelations 17:3-6, where we also have a ‘woman’ in the ‘wilderness’ who is said to be the ‘mother of abominations.’ Not only this, but the narrative context of the nameless “giantess” from Volupsa and the Whore of Babylon from Revelations is that they precede the ‘final battle.’ Similarly, 2 Edras 5:8 says: “Wild beasts will roam beyond their territory, and women will give birth to monsters.” We must also mention how Hauksbok included this scene much earlier during the Gullvieg section. Whereas Regius uses the scene here as the first unveiling of the eschatological adversaries, Hauksbok includes the scene into the earlier crisis-complex, making them function as evidence that the created order is already poisoned from within before the final struggle begins. Both are important to showing a hidden sinisterness waiting to strike but both occur at different times in the narrative.

_____

42. On a hill there sat, | and smote on his harp,

Eggther the joyous, | the giants’ warder;

Above him the cock | in the bird-wood crowed,

Fair and red | did Fjalar stand.

43. Then to the gods | crowed Gollinkambi,

He wakes the heroes | in Othin’s hall;

And beneath the earth | does another crow,

The rust-red bird | at the bars of Hel.

• “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back - whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.” (Mark 13:35-36)

Three roosters announce the advent of Ragnarok: one to the jotunn (“giants”) from atop a roof, one to the gods, and one to those in Hel. Of interest here is how the rooster of the giants and the rooster of Hel are both described as “red” whereas the rooster who “wakes the heroes in Odin’s hall” is not. ‘Gollinkambi’- the rooster of the gods - literally translates to “golden-comb” (gullinn ‘golden’ and kambi ‘comb/crest’). It is possible that this rooster was also known as Salgofnir (“hall-dwelling rooster”) because Helgakvida Hundingsbana II (st. 49) says that Salgofnir “wakes the einherjar,” with the ‘einherjar’ being ‘the warriors that Odin has collected in Valhalla who prepare for Ragnarok.’ In this way, we can see how this particular rooster-figure was intimately associated with Valhalla. The Eddic poem Fjolsvinnsmal (st. 23-24) says that the rooster Vithofnir is at the top of Yggdrasil and “glitters all with gold” and who “shines like lightning.” However, Grimnismal (st. 32) says that there is an unnamed eagle atop Yggdrasil. Glyfaginning (ch. 16) says “An eagle sits at the top of the ash, and it has knowledge of many things. Between its eyes sits the hawk called Vedrfolnir.” This seems to be Snorri’s attempt at harmonizing the two birds atop Yggdrasil but it involves him misremembering or misunderstanding the rooster Vithofnir as a hawk. Regardless it seems like there are slightly different traditions about which bird is at the top of Yggdrasil: some seem to have a Gollunkambi-like, rooster figure there, others a bird of prey. The ‘Overhogdal tapestry’ from the Eleventh Century features a bird atop a central tree that is presumably Yggdrasil, but it could be interpreted as either a rooster or an eagle as its form is fairly non-specific. However, because Grimnismal (st. 25) relates how animals atop Valhalla could gnaw at Yggdrasil’s foliage, whether we attempt to systemize all of these images together or determine to keep them as instantiations of a multivariate tradition, we can imagine that there is a golden rooster atop Valhalla or near it atop Yggdrasil that is announcing the eschaton. There are elements of height, sacred locale, awakening, vigilance, and eschatological readiness encapsulated in this rooster.

This has a profound Christian parallel with weathercocks atop churches. The city of Brescia had the first recorded gilded-copper rooster (Gallo di Ramperto) atop its church belltower c. 820-830 AD. The weathercock was designed to catch the sunlight and make it shine. Pope Leo IV also placed a metal-rooster atop the Constantinian Basilica during the Ninth Century. The Tenth Century ‘Benedictional of St Aethelwold’ (f. 118v) has an image of a rooster on top of a church being dedicated. The ‘Bayeux Tapestry’ (c. late-Eleventh Century) includes the image of a workman fixing a weathercock on Westminster Abbey in London. And the ‘Skog Tapestry’ from the Thirteenth Century depicts a church with a belltower and a golden bird atop it. In Honorius Augustodunensis’ Gemma Animae (c. 1125 AD), a widely-read liturgical allegory, the author explains exactly why a rooster sits on the church:

“And not without good reason is a rooster placed on the belfry. For the rooster rouses those who are sleeping, and by this the priest, God’s rooster, is admonished to rouse us from our sleep by the bell.”

This shows how the motif of a rooster was made analogous to the bell which wakes up sleepers. Therefore, we can see how the image of ‘an aureate rooster atop a sacred building who rouses sleepers’ already had a physical presence in the Latin-Christian world prior to and in the immediate milieu surrounding the composition of Voluspa. As noted in the prior article, many tribute exchanges, negotiations, and baptisms of defeated Vikings occurred at English churches, and we saw accounts of Scandinavians travelling throughout the Frankish world to receive baptism (regardless of actual conversion).

Because the rooster can organically function as a symbol for ‘the liminality between night and day,’ this symbol could easily be expanded on to symbolize ‘the beginning of the apocalypse.’ That expansion would not require Chrsitian influence to explain. However, the specific imagery of a golden rooster announcing to the elect that the apocalypse was imminent does seem to have been influenced by weathercocks on churches and the theology about their overall meaning. Note that Christianity did not need to ‘invent’ Gullinkambi for this theory to hold - it only needed to provide the visual and symbolic form in which a Norse poet or audience could picture him. Even something as mundane as the image of a bird atop a building shows the influence that the Latin-Chrsitian world had on the Norse.

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44. Now Garm howls loud | before Gnipahellir,

The fetters will burst, | and the wolf run free;

Much do I know, | and more can see

Of the fate of the gods, | the mighty in fight.

No note for this stanza other than that Gnipahellir is only mentioned here and in Snorri.

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45. Brothers shall fight | and fell each other,

And sisters’ sons | shall kinship stain;

Hard is it on earth, | with mighty whoredom;

Axe-time, sword-time, | shields are sundered,

Wind-time, wolf-time, | ere the world falls;

Nor ever shall men | each other spare.

• “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.” (Mark 13:12)

• “People will be lovers of self [...] lovers of pleasure” (2 Timothy 3:1‑5)

• “They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” (Revelations 6:8)

The signs that will precede Ragnarok are ones of total, seemingly irreversible social degeneration. It should be noted that Vafthrudnismal’s (st. 44-45) description of Fimbulwinter and Voluspa’s (st. 45) description of the ‘hard times’ are often read together through a later, systematized Ragnarok framework, even though they do not describe the same thing. In Vafthrudnismal, the emphasis is on surviving through environmental catastrophe, not on a scene of social and moral collapse. Voluspa, by contrast, is precisely such a scene with the human world falling into disorder immediately before Ragnarok. The common habit of reading these as parts of one seamless sequence owes much to Snorri, (the usual suspect) who systematizes the three-winters motif together with Voluspa’s tableau of social anarchy into a single, coherent prelude to Ragnarok. But the texts must ultimately be artificially stitched together to draw a systemic whole.

The degenerative signs listed in this stanza are similarly mentioned in the New Testament and throughout Tenth Century homiletics. Some scholars have noted that the ‘Little Apocalypse’ of Mark 13:12-37 mirrors the movement of Voluspa’s narrative from this point through the end. There is a ‘sudden announcement of the end,’ (analogized to a rooster crow) ‘brother fighting brother’, the ‘Sun turning black and stars falling,’ along with ‘the return of heavenly powers’.

“That sequence is too precise to be accidental. What we have here is a Christian apocalypse recast in Norse idiom. The poet has clothed the biblical signs in the language of giants, wolves, and the doom of the Aesir, but he has not altered their order or their ultimate meaning.”

As we noted above in Volupsa st. 39, when describing the end-times in his Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, Wulfstan notes that:

“manslayers and murderers of their kinsmen [...] and people greatly corrupted through incest and through various fornications, and here there are harlots and infanticides and many foul adulterous fornicators [...] and, in short, a countless number of all crimes and misdeeds.”

Robert North has argued that:

“The poet’s immediate source may be a sermon performed in a literal translation from Old English: his phrase menn meinvardar ok mordvargar (‘men perjured and wolfish murderers’) appears to be modelled on the OE expression mansworan and morthwyrhtan, which survives not only in Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi, but also, in variant forms, in his De fide catholica, Sermo de baptisma, De regula canonicorum and Sermo ad populum”

We also see a parallel from the Sybalenne Oracles (bk. 1):

“Kinsmen they knew not, and they formed intrigues

Against their brothers. And they were impure,

Having defiled themselves with human gore,

And they made wars. And then upon them came

The last calamity sent forth from heaven”

Blickling Homily X, repeats a classic litany of ills which will befall the world near its end, saying:

“Now there is lamentation and weeping on all sides; now is mourning everywhere, and breach of peace; now is everywhere evil, and slaughter;”

And Blickling Homily XV says that:

“Then the brother shall betray the brother to the heathen unto death, and the son shall betray his father, and the youngers shall rise against the elders, and shall torture them to death; and they shall all be at enmity”

Therefore, these images and ‘signs of the end times’ already preexisted the composition of Voluspa by over seven-hundred-fifty years and were well in vernacular use in an Anglo-Scandanavian milieu.

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46. Fast move the sons | of Mim, and fate

Is heard in the note | of the Gjallarhorn;

Loud blows Heimdall, | the horn is aloft,

In fear quake all | who on Hel-roads are.

47. Yggdrasil shakes, | and shiver on high

The ancient limbs, | and the giant is loose;

To the head of Mim | does Othin give heed,

But the kinsman of Surt | shall slay him soon.

• “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16)

• “The trumpet shall sound aloud, and when all hear it they shall suddenly be terrified. 24 At that time friends shall make war on friends like enemies, the earth and those who inhabit it shall be terrified, and the springs of the fountains shall stand still, so that for three hours they shall not flow.” (2 Edras 6:23-24)

In these stanzas, the watchman of the gods, Heimdall, blows his horn and announces the onset of Ragnarok, causing the world to shudder. A few interesting points to note here. First, despite numerous attempts at providing one, the identity of the ‘Sons of Mim’ is totally unknown and speculative, and without new evidence, it would seem to be an enigma. Second, the Biblical parallels of a trumpet or horn announcing the ‘end days’ are numerous. Ezekiel 33:3-4 says:

“[When] he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head.”

Then there are the ‘seven trumpets’ of Revelations 8-11 which inaugurate new threats to the created order. These ‘apocalyptic-watchman-with-trumpet’ topos were standard exegesis and were copied and preached widely through works by Gregory the Great (Homiliae in Hiezechielem prophetam) and Bede (Explanatio Apocalypsis or Expositio Apocalypseos).

Third, there are numerous other parallels through poetry and homilies. In the poem Muspilli, the Heavenly Horn sounds and angels raise the dead, leading them to judgment. The poem Judgement Day I says that:

“Never so loudly does one sound the horn, nor blow upon the trumpet, so that the bright voice may not be louder to men across all of middle-earth, the words of the Wielder - the fields will shake for the message that he turns to us for all.”

Christ III says:

“Middle-earth shall tremble, the ground below men [...] The children of the multitude of men shall be awakened from death, all of mankind terrified from the olden earth, into their measured fate - by this they will order them to stand up at once from their fixed sleep.”

Note how this also accounts for the Volupsa line about “in fear quake all who on Hel-roads are,” meaning ‘those who are dead.’ And the Blickling Homily for Easter Day says that “there shall be heard in the heavens a great sound of the arraying of armies; and earth shall be moved out of her place.” It is clear then how these images and eschatological movements (trumpet-blast, warning, fear among the dead, and movement toward judgment) offer crisp, culturally available analogues for Heimdallr’s horn-blast and its effect in Voluspa.

This sequence is especially important because the two manuscripts do not preserve the same apocalyptic order. Hauksbok places the social collapse first: brothers fight, kinship fails, and afterward the horn sound and the cosmos enters into a panic. Regius however reverses the order: the horn and the mysterious sons of Mim come first, Yggdrasil shakes, Odin seeks counsel, and only after that do we see the wider collapse unfold. This is important because the eschatological theology is not transmitted as a single, fixed sequence. A modern Heathen attempting to reconstruct ‘the Norse doctrine of the end-times’ (even just internal to Voluspa alone) has to choose between the two witnesses and therefore select which ‘event logic’ they prefer. In Hauksbok, moral breakdown triggers or precedes the cosmic alarm. In Regius, the apocalyptic summons itself seems to initiate the cosmic crisis. Which will it actually be when Ragnarok happens? …

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48. How fare the gods? | how fare the elves?

All Jotunheim groans, | the gods are at council;

Loud roar the dwarfs | by the doors of stone,

The masters of the rocks: | would you know yet more?

• “Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!’” (Revelations 6:15-16)

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49. Now Garm howls loud | before Gnipahellir,

The fetters will burst, | and the wolf run free

Much do I know, | and more can see

Of the fate of the gods, | the mighty in fight.

This is a refrain of stanza 44 and heightens the apocalyptic tension.

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50. From the east comes Hrym | with shield held high;

In giant-wrath | does the serpent writhe;

O’er the waves he twists, | and the tawny eagle

Gnaws corpses screaming; | Naglfar is loose.

51. O’er the sea from the east | there sails a ship

With the people of Muspell, | at the helm stands Loki;

After the wolf | do wild men follow,

And with them the brother | of Byleist goes.

52. Surt fares from the south | with the scourge of branches,

The sun of the battle-gods | shone from his sword;

The crags are sundered, | the giant-women sink,

The dead throng Hel-way, | and heaven is cloven.

• “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” (Revelations 20:7-9)

• “Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army.” (Revelations 6:14)

The monstrous hordes have assembled and go out to battle against the gods. This is a vivid and phenomenally-composed series of stanzas which shows the breadth of the onslaught and the prowess of the enemy. An eschatological unbinding and multi-directional assault by a monstrous, world-ending host is something also well-known to the Medieval Latin-Christian world. First, we should look at the ‘people of Muspell’ from stanza 51. Now, the word ‘Muspell’ has cognates from other Germanic languages. The Old High German poem Muspelli takes its name from the mutspelli at its core. And the Old Saxon poem the Heliand uses the word mutspelles. Both of these sources seem to equate ‘Muspell’ with ‘Doomsday’ or some sort of ‘fiery end to the world.’ Snorri at one point uses it as a placename for the fiery region south of Ginnungagap (Gylfaginning chs. 3-4), and at another point as the name of the giant owner of the ship, Naglfar (Gylfaginning ch. 42). There seems to be some confusion as to what exactly this term denoted. However, it does seem that, as Simek points out, by the time Norse mythology was recorded, the concept had gone from describing ‘an event’ to describing ‘a person.’

There are numerous parallels between the imagery and concepts used for the ‘people of Muspel’ here from Volupsa and the Latin-Christian understanding of ‘Gog and Magog,’ who would be gathered during the procession to the apocalypse. The early-Eighth Century work, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, amplified Syriac lore that Alexander the Great had enclosed “unclean nations” in the ‘mountains of the north.’ Adso’s Libellus de Antichristo (c. 954) equated Gog and Magog with the barbarous peoples enclosed by Alexander, portraying the hordes as the “devil’s limbs” who will assist the Antichrist. Adso’s tract circulated in England, with Wulfstan being especially fond of Adso’s work. A Twelfth-Century addition to Wulfstan’s De Antichristo (from the Bodley 343 manuscript) states that:

“Gog and Magog, which is the race of men that Alexander enclosed within a mountain confine, who represent all the devil’s limbs, that is all those who work the devil’s work and love injustice and become aids of Antichrist everywhere in the world.”

And if we hold to our theory that in Voluspa, Loki is effectively ‘standing-in’ for Satan, then we can see how Loki (now ‘unbound,’ just as how Satan is “loosed” to gather his forces together for the final battle) leading the ‘people of Muspell’ would be analogous to the hordes of Gog and Magog gravitating to Satan and his Antichrist. Note that Wulfstan gave a homily (Secundum Marcum) in which he quotes Revelations 20:7 and states that this time of Satan being released will likely occur soon. Regardless, we can see then how these ideas were circulating in the Latin-Christian world, specifically in an Anglo-Scandanavian context, which was especially prone to apocalypticism during the Tenth Century.

Indeed, Snorri’s account of the ‘Muspell host’ exemplifies how Medieval imagery and legends could influence the interpretation of this indigenous Pagan myth. In Voluspa, the force arrives by sea, and only after that does Surtr come “from the south” with flame. But in Gylfaginning (ch. 51), Snorri recasts the same enemy as a ‘mounted invasion.’ “The Sons of Muspell ride thence,” Surtr riding first, with the host crossing Bifrost to besiege Asgard. This mirrors Revelations 20:7-9 which says that Gog and Magog surround “the camp of the holy ones and the beloved city.” That shift from a ship-borne approach to a horse-borne, assault points to Snorri being influenced by the medieval Christian complex of ‘Gog and Magog,’ ‘Alexander’s enclosed nations,’ and the ‘Red Jews’ - as influenced themselves by Biblical passages like Revelations 6:14. There was an Old Norse version of the Elucidarium (1200 AD) available to Snorri which includes this legend as well along with much other information in an authoritative way. The way Snorri imagines and narrates the ‘people of Muspell’ looks filtered through a Thirteenth Century Christian apocalyptic imagination about hostile enclosed peoples who break out at the end of time and assault the faithful.

Second, the scholar Kees Samplonius has theorized that the figure of Surt might have had a Chrisitan origin through fascinatingly-oblique means. The crux of the argument is philological in that a term from Vafthrudnismal 51 (surtalogi) likely did not originally mean “Surt’s flame” but instead “black / dark flame.” This term closely matches how Bede (De die iudicii II) describes Hell as “ignibus nigris [...] gehennae” (“the black fires [...] of Gehenna”) with later homilists like Aelfric (see: Third Sunday after Epiphany) similarly describing “swearte fyr” (“black fire”) which gives no light. From that abstract doomsday fire, the personal agent, ‘Surtr,’ was synthesized, much in the same way that ‘Muspell’ evolved from an event into a person or region. Samplonius also argues that Surt’s “luminous,” world-rending sword in Voluspa (st. 52) seems to match Blickling Homily X’s description of how God will “draw out his fiery byrnsweord,” (“burning-sword”) smite the world, pierce bodies, and cleave the earth such that the dead shall stand up.

“At some presumably early stage, the black fire concept of Hell and of Judgement Day must have found its way to Norway and Iceland, where it came to be called surtalogi as a designation of the destruction through fire which would befall the world. Detached from its original context and unchecked by doctrinal Christian orthodoxy, the motif adapted itself to its new, ultimately Icelandic environment and in time the fiery catastrophe came to be envisaged as being brought about by a personified agent of destruction, whose name was extracted from the compound”

In other words, the Norse may have - unconsciously or not - morphed an abstracted Christian idea of a ‘dark hellfire’ into a literal fire-giant leading the advance at Ragnarok. This again underscores how a half-millennium of often indirect cultural contact gave Norse mythology time to incorporate and repurpose Biblical apocalypse motifs both before and beyond the direct contact encountered through the Danelaw period.

There are also some other minor parallel-images which should be noted. The “tawny eagle” of st. 50 which “gnaws corpses screaming” murkily mirrors the imagery from Revelation 19:17-21, where an angel calls out to the birds to “gorge” on the fallen corpses who sided with the Beast during the apocalypse. ‘Naglfar’ is only ever mentioned here in Voluspa, which is expanded upon by Snorri, (Gylfaginning ch. 43, 51) who divulges that it was a ship made of toenails from the deceased (hence the Norse Pagan custom of trimming the nails of the dead - so as to render the ship less sea-worthy).

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53. Now comes to Hlin | yet another hurt,

When Othin fares | to fight with the wolf,

And Beli’s fair slayer | seeks out Surt,

For there must fall | the joy of Frigg.

54. Then comes Sigfather’s | mighty son,

Vithar, to fight | with the foaming wolf;

In the giant’s son | does he thrust his sword

Full to the heart: | his father is avenged.

55. Hither there comes | the son of Hlothyn,

The bright snake gapes | to heaven above;

. . . . . . . . . .

Against the serpent | goes Othin’s son.

56. In anger smites | the warder of earth,--

Forth from their homes | must all men flee;-

Nine paces fares | the son of Fjorgyn,

And, slain by the serpent, | fearless he sinks.

These stanzas narrate how the heroes of Ragnarok fight against the monsters: Freyr battles Surt. Odin is swallowed by Fenrir but is avenged by Vithar. Thor fights against Jordmungander but succumbs to its venom. All the while, as Frigg receives the wounded, her joy “falls.” These stanzas are the combat and climax of Ragnarok, expressed in duels between heroes and monsters. But before commenting on these stanzas directly, we must flag the emendation. The ‘Thor-and-serpent sequence’ of stanza 55 is one of the more damaged portions of Voluspa. In Regius, only lines 1 and 4 survive, and they are joined with stanza 56 as a single stanza. In Hauksbok, line 1 is missing entirely and Bellows states how it is “practically illegible.” Snorri quotes the material in a different arrangement. Modern printed editions therefore make the combat sequence look smoother than the manuscript evidence really is. This does not erase the basic mythic content but continues to show how certain decisions are made about the presentation of the content which forms the foundation of the mythology which ultimately allows for theology to build atop it.

The Latin-Christian system was not unfamiliar with there being ‘final duels during the last battle of the world.’ in Revelations 19:11-21, Christ, as a rider on a white horse, appears for the final conflict against the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies. The beast and false prophet are defeated and cast into the fiery pool. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8 has Paul narrating how the “lawless one” will be revealed and that the Lord Jesus will destroy him at His coming. But other figures play roles as well. In Revelations 12:7-9, it is the archangel Michael who fights “the great dragon [...] that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil.” Michael was a Christian mythological figure who was very well-received by the Norse world (as we noted in the prior article). Carved in the late-Eleventh Century as a memorial for a man named Svienn, the Nylarsker stone 2 concludes with the line: “May Lord God and Saint Michael help his spirit.” In Njal’s Saga (ch. 100), a man asks a missionary sent to Iceland about Saint Michael, who, after the explanation, asks to be placed in Michael’s protection. Arnorr Jarlaskald alludes in a stanza to the role of the angel Michael at the last judgement. And in the Easter Day Blickling Homily, we read that:

“So then on that day shall come Saint Michael with a heavenly host of holy spirits, and shall then slay all those accursed folk, and drive them into hell’s abyss for their disobeying of God’s behests and for their wickednesses. Then shall all creatures see our Lord’s power.”

The English ‘Tiberius Psalter’ (c. 1050 AD) contains imagery of the ‘Crucifixion,’ the ‘Harrowing of Hell’ and of ‘Michael battling the Serpent,’ which we have noted as having Christian parallels as depicted in Voluspa. So we know that in the North Sea world, there was interest in Michael, as there was throughout the Latin-Chrsitian system. The implications are that St. Michael was not some ‘warrior archetype’ or vague angelic power, but a figure intimately tied to the apocalypse who could pique Pagan curiosity. As Richard North notes:

“Three of Michael’s four instances in the Bible concern his generalship in Armageddon (the exception is Jude 9): in Dan 10:13 and 12:1, Michael fights against the Antichrist from whom he protects man at the end of history; in Rev 12:7, when the war breaks out in heaven, Michael duels with Satan the dragon and throws him into the pit.”

There are other general ‘duel parallels’ too. The early Muspilli II fragment culminates in the prophet Elijah battling and defeating the Antichrist, after which the world is consumed in fire. And Odin’s fatal struggle against the wolf Fenrir resonates with the ‘Good Shepherd archetype’ fighting the ‘Devouring Wolf of evil.’ Aelfric, (Catholic Homily XVII) outright states that “The wolf is the devil, who lies in ambush about God’s church, and watches how he may destroy the souls of Christian men with sins.” Likewise, Wulfstan of York, draws on the New Testament’s warnings about predatory “wolves” among the flock (Acts 20:29; Matt 7:15) as figures for the Devil and false teachers. As we noted in the prior article, the defeat of Odin by Fenrir can be contrasted against the victory of Christ (such as was depicted on Thorwald’s Cross) and the vengeance of Vidar can be compared to the victory of Christ (such as with the Gosforth Cross). Here also, we should note the narrative from Blathmac’s poetry:

“Before your eminent unblemished son

the angel will sound a good trumpet. [Vol. st. 46]

There will arise at the sounding

every dead one who has been in human shape. [Vol. st. 47]

It is by your son – enduring deed –

that many thousands will be struck in the great fire [Vol. st. 57]

before the overking judges

on the deeds of every single person.

Although a battle of overthrowing strongholds will be fought,

to every war it will be an end.

The ignoble host of demons will be defeated

along with their black perverse lord. [Vol. st. 50-52]

The impious ones ‒ the occasion will be pitiful ‒

who have submitted to Leviathan,

will suffer burning and slaying.

It will be woe to the followers of the Devil.

[...]

It is Michael, your son’s soldier, [Vol. st.55-56]

who will attack with sword of striking

the body of Antichrist who is not pure,

who shall be born of a great sin.”

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57. The sun turns black, | earth sinks in the sea,

The hot stars down | from heaven are whirled;

Fierce grows the steam | and the life-feeding flame,

Till fire leaps high | about heaven itself.

The imagery in this stanza is perhaps best understood as participating in a widely-circulating apocalyptic image-complex. Indeed, the memetic economy of ‘doomsday imagery’ had at the turn of the millennium become effectively stock-phrases. The Bible itself had effectively said exactly what is narrated here in Voluspa. Matthew 24:29 says:

“But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Revelations 6:12-14 says:

“The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.”

Joel 2:10-11;30-31 says:

“Before them the earth shakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine. The Lord thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number, and mighty is the army that obeys his command. The day of the Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it? [...] I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, Blood, fire, and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.”

And 2 Peter 3:10 says that:

“The day of the Lord will come as a robber comes. The heavens will pass away with a loud noise. The sun and moon and stars will burn up. The earth and all that is in it will be burned up.”

Revelation 8:7 says that: (noting the mention of trees as comparable with Yggdrasil)

“The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.”

And 2 Edras 5:4-5 says:

“the sun shall suddenly begin to shine at night, and the moon during the day. Blood shall drip from wood, and the stone shall utter its voice, the peoples shall be troubled, and the skies shall be changed.”

But there are plenty of poetic, homiletic, and otherwise ‘non-Biblical’ material from the Latin-Christian world which was circulating parallel imagery. The earliest of these is from the poem Muspelli, which says:

“So when Elijah’s blood drips on the earth, the mountains catch fire and no single tree on earth remains standing; all waters dry up, the moor swallows itself, heaven perishes in flames, the moon falls, Middle Earth burns.”

The poem Christ III likewise says:

“The depths of creation shall resound, and before the Lord the greatest of whelming flame shall flare out across the broad earth. The heated fires shall crash, the heavens burst—brilliant and true, the stars will tumble down. Then the sun will be darkened, turned the color of blood, which once shone brightly over the world before for the benefit of the children of men. And so the moon itself, which lighted mankind before by night, will fall out of the sky and the stars just the same will be strewn from the skies by the strong breezes of a battering storm.”

Ælfric in his Catholic Homilies (Advent cycle) quotes from Matthew 24:29 and its Lucan parallel verses to show the signs that will come before the end. The Sybalene Oracle narrates almost exactly the same event:

“For a dark mist shall hide the boundless world / East, west, and south, and north. And then shall flow / A mighty stream of burning fire from heaven / And every place consume, earth, ocean vast / And gleaming sea, and lakes and rivers, springs / And cruel Hades and the heavenly sky / And heavenly lights shall break up into one / And into outward form all-desolate / For stars from heaven shall fall into all seas / And all the souls of men shall gnash their teeth / Burned both by sulphur stream and force of fire / In ravenous soil, and ashes hide all things.”

The poem Judgement-Day I says that “The stars will not sparkle forth here - their glory will be shaken [...] before that momentous day is announced by trumpets and a burning hot flame.” the Easter Day Blickling Homily says that, “On that day heaven, earth, and sea, and all things that are therein, shall pass away.” And Pseudo-Jerome, in his Commentary on Joel notes how “a huge dragon will devour the Sun” at the end of the world.

The key point here is that these images were already in wide circulation at least seven-hundred-fifty years before the composition of Voluspa. And just as we saw above with the Genesis parallels, the broader argument involves the density and sequencing of multiple motifs - it is not that the Christian influence on this stanza proves influence on other stanzas, but that the very flow of Voluspa’s narrative betrays Christian influence in its sequencing. Whereas the first section of the poem aligned with Christian cosmology, and the prior section aligned with the ‘Christ mythos’, the narrative flow of this section of the poem intimately aligns with Christian eschatology. That all three sections progress naturally from one to the other in a temporally-linear way also aligns with the Latin-Christian way of expressing this narrative arc, whether through the Bible itself, Patristic exegesis, poetic abridgement, or the vernacularized brevity of a homily.

By the time we reach this point in Voluspa, the poem has moved through an eschatological sequence that is unusually close to the Christian apocalypse in both order and function. First come the roosters of st. 42-43, heralding the onset of the end which parallels Mark 13:35-37, where Christ explicitly places “cockcrow” within the watch-sequence of the ‘final vigil.’ The imagery of these roosters also very closely mirrors the shining ‘weathercocks’ of the Medieval world. Then in st. 45, the poem turns to the degeneration of human society, with ‘brother against brother, kinship violated, lust, violence, and the collapse of ordinary mercy.’ Mark 13:12 gives precisely the same signs of the end, with Anglo-Saxon apocalyptic preaching (Sermo Lupi, Blickling Homilies) developing the same cadence. After that comes the celestial summons of st. 46-47 where Heimdal blows the Gjallarhorn, the world shudders, and even those on Hel-roads quake. Here, the closest comparison is not any isolated ‘horn motif,’ but the whole Christian apocalyptic scene of final warning and resurrection. 1 Thessalonians 4:16 joins the Lord’s descent to the voice and trumpet of God, while Ezekiel 33 gives the watchman who blows the trumpet before destruction, then Old English eschatological poetry such as Christ III and Judgment Day I has ‘angels blowing trumpets,’ ‘middle-earth trembling,’ and the ‘dead awakening.’ Only after this summons does Voluspa unveil the ‘monstrous horde of the enemy’ in st. 50-52 where the wolf is loosed, Loki has been unbound and leads the horde, and the world converges to one final confrontation. The strongest Christian analogue here is Revelation 20:7-9, where Satan is released, gathers Gog and Magog from the ends of the earth, and marches them into the final conflict. Medieval apocalyptic tradition, especially after Pseudo-Methodius, had already expanded this into the image of barbarous end-time nations enclosed until the last days. The ‘cosmic duels’ of st. 53-56 bring Ragnarok to its climactic combat, as the chief gods and the monstrous powers meet in a series of final matched encounters. The closest Latin-Christian parallels do not show a one-to-one ‘borrowing of characters,’ but a broader apocalyptic pattern in which heavenly champions confront demonic enemies at the end, the most emblematic of which is Michael’s war with the dragon from Revelation 12:7-9 - a scene that medieval preaching and eschatological tradition made central to the imagination of the last battle. Finally, st. 57 brings the sequence to its climax in cosmic darkening and conflagration: the sun blackens, the stars fall, heaven is shaken, and the world is consumed in fire. That is not merely a generic “end of the world” image, but a dense complex found in Matthew 24:29, Revelation 6:12–14, and 2 Peter 3:10, along with numerous extra-Biblical sources which were widely known in the Medieval world.

Therefore, again, we should ask ourselves: if we are imagining what a Christian audience would next expect, we would anticipate a ‘new heaven and earth’ ...

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58. Now Garm howls loud | before Gnipahellir,

The fetters will burst, | and the wolf run free;

Much do I know, | and more can see

Of the fate of the gods, | the mighty in fight.

This refrain is narratively unnecessary considering that Ragnarok has already occurred. It would seem to be a transposition.

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59. Now do I see | the earth anew

Rise all green | from the waves again;

The cataracts fall, | and the eagle flies,

And fish he catches | beneath the cliffs.

• “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea” (Revelations 21:1)

The rising of the green Earth from the waters “again” indicates that this event is supposed to mirror the original creation of st. 4. Whereas the earlier depictions of an eagle in st. 50 shows it involved in carrion and death on the battlefield, this eagle of st. 59 is a scene of ‘restored ecology’ and ‘creation at peace’ (presumably ‘as it was intended’). This stanza also has very close parallels with Latin-Christian understanding of the world that comes after the apocalypse. For instance, 2 Peter 3:13 says: “we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.” Bede, in his Commentary on Isaiah, says that “these very same [heaven and earth] will shine forth, having been renewed by fire and glorified by the power of the resurrection.” And Aelfric says in his homily for the Second Sunday in Advent how, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but they will be renewed, for they will be cleansed by fire from the form which they now have.”

However, when dismissing how this stanza shows signs of Christian influence due to its similarity with the “new heaven and new earth” of Revelations, one Folkish Heathen has said that any suggestion of influence is:

“blatantly absurd and must be seen to stem from an assumed Chrsitian worldview that places their faith as special or omni-relevant when, by contrast, the cyclical existence of birth and death and renewal is an attested structure across Indo-European Pagan faiths [...]”

Though this Folkish Heathen is correct that the ‘motif of renewal’ is not uniquely Christian, he is missing the broader argument that the way Voluspa narrates its renewal within the surrounding eschatological architecture and prior cosmological parallels makes comparisons to Christianity unusually difficult to avoid. The idea and lexical framing of a ‘new earth’ after a fiery cataclysm - especially as it is followed by st. 60-64, where it is shown that this ‘redeemed world’ will be inhabited by the ‘righteous’ in a ‘bejeweled hall’ - seems to be heavily indicative of Latin-Christian influence. After cosmic destruction, the earth rises again, green and restored, and the following stanzas move toward a just, ordered future.

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60. The gods in Ithavoll | meet together,

Of the terrible girdler | of earth they talk,

And the mighty past | they call to mind,

And the ancient runes | of the Ruler of Gods.

61. In wondrous beauty | once again

Shall the golden tables | stand mid the grass,

Which the gods had owned | in the days of old,

62. Then fields unsowed | bear ripened fruit,

All ills grow better, | and Baldr comes back;

Baldr and Hoth dwell | in Hropt’s battle-hall,

And the mighty gods: | would you know yet more?

• “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth [...] behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and there shall be heard in her no more the voice of weeping and the voice of crying. [...] And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. [...] They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for calamity; for they are the seed of the blessed of Jehovah, and their offspring with them. [...] The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith Jehovah.” (Isaiah 65:17-25)

These stanzas do not merely depict recovery after catastrophe but rather a restored order in which originary harmony returns, evils are healed, the slain righteous reappear, and peace replaces the ancient wound of murder. That pattern is more than generically ‘cyclical’ for a number of reasons. Firstly, the setting of Ithavoll returns from earlier in the poem before Gullveig had ‘corrupted the peace.’ As stated above, too, Idavollr is only mentioned in Voluspa here and in st. 7 - indicating that this condition is what the gods intended when they made reality. Likewise, the “golden tables” of idyllic play reappear in the grass here after the renewal. This is very similar to the structure of Latin-Christian ‘renewal,’ where the original, ‘pre-Fall’ state of Creation is expected to return in a glorified way after the apocalypse.

Taken as a unit, Voluspa 59-62 and Isaiah 65:17-25 share the same imagery: both move from cosmic ruin to restored Creation, then depict what life in that renewed order looks like. Isaiah 65 opens with God’s promise of “new heavens and a new earth,” where the former order of sorrow gives way to joy, weeping ceases, life is blessed rather than cursed, and the natural world itself is reconciled as “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together.” Voluspa follows the same pattern when the earth rises again from the sea, the gods reconvene at Ithavoll, the old golden gaming-pieces reappear, “all ills grow better,” the fields yield without sowing, and even the primal wound of the mythic past is healed as Baldr and Hoth dwell together in the restored world. Voluspa presents Isaiah’s sequence in Norse idiom, turning the post-Ragnarok world into a transfigured order in which injustice and chaos have been overcome. Likewise, throughout Medieval times, Amos 9:13-14 was presented as a miniature picture of paradise: fields yield without labour and death‑fastened Israel blooms again. The Tenth Century manuscript Durham A.IV.17 glosses Amos 9:13 with an Old English translation, meaning it could be read aloud in the vernacular. The same verses re‑surface in medieval funeral addresses, where they are read allegorically of the soul’s entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Secondly, as we mentioned above as well, only Voluspa explicitly states that Baldr returns after Ragnarok (with Snorri recapping it but leaving out how Hoth accompanies him) with the skaldic poem Eriksmal somewhat alluding to it. That Baldr returns to meet with ‘righteous survivors’ makes the scene easiest to read as a ‘restored fellowship of the blessed,’ with the wicked being conspicuously absent from the renewed world. This scene echoes Aelfric’s Easter Sunday Homily:

“[...] for our Saviour Christ brake the gates of hell, and delivered Adam, and Eve, and his chosen of their kin, and joyfully from death arose, and they with him, and ascended to heaven. The wicked he left behind to eternal torments. [...] Hell acknowledged Christ, when it let forth its captives, through the harrowing of Jesus.”

There is also a parallel from the Heliand poem of the Ninth Century, which states:

“by God’s power, the holy breath, going under the hard to stone to the corpse, broke the many bolts on the doors of Hel [...] and the road from this world up to heaven was built. Brilliantly radiating, God’s Peace-Child rose up!”

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63. Then Honir wins | the prophetic wand,

And the sons of the brothers | of Tveggi abide

In Vindheim now: | would you know yet more?

After the world’s renewal, Hoenir takes up divination, and Odin’s wider kin (‘Tveggi’ being a heiti for Odin) dwell in Vindheim, continuing the vignettes of restored order in the post-Ragnarok age. ‘Vindheim’ can be translated as ‘wind home,’ implying somewhere high or perhaps above the clouds - a sort of ‘heaven.’ Snorri even seems to directly equate Vindheim with Heaven in Glyfaginning (ch. 17) saying, through the mouth of Har, “There are many good and many bad abodes. Best it is to be in Gimle, in heaven.” The next stanza shows us Gimle, and by associating the two it would appear that this stanza is implying that this is related to a ‘new heaven.’ It should also be noted that Honir appears here with the power of prophesy, which calls-to-mind Acts 2:17:

“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”

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64. More fair than the sun, | a hall I see,

Roofed with gold, | on Gimle it stands;

There shall the righteous | rulers dwell,

And happiness ever | there shall they have.

• “And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” (Revelation 21:10-11)

This stanza shows the location of Gimle where the peace and happiness of this new world reaches its zenith. Etymologically, Gimle most probably means ‘fire-shelter’ or ‘place protected from the fire’ (gimr “fire” and hle “protected place”), indicating that it was somewhere which the conflagration did not ravage. Richard North proposes that Gimle could be an Old Norse vernacularization of English liturgical or homiletic expressions about the Last Days. Its morphological elements possibly derive from Old English gimm (“gem” or “jewel”) and leah (“clearing” or “meadow”), terms commonly found in English place names where settlements were once flourished. Indeed, Gimle’s golden roof finds parallel with the golden and bejewelled ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ of Revelations 21 which descends after the apocalypse. This imagery comes from the same chapter as the joyous ‘new heaven and new earth’ in which all pain and sorrow are past. Revelations 21 was a go-to chapter for funeral homilies. Aelfric and Bede’s homily collections both preserve sermons for church dedications and funeral masses that quote Rev 21:2‑7 to console mourners with the vision of the New Jerusalem. Bede, in his ‘Homily on the Heavenly Homeland’, even says that, “The Bride, the heavenly Jerusalem, is decked in gold.” The strong visual and thematic parallels suggest the North translation because Gimle seems to represent a Christian-influenced afterlife motif inserted into the Norse mythic frame. Regardless, the thematic and narrative parallels between Gimle and the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ are striking. In both, the ‘righteous dwell forever,’ in a ‘post-apocalyptic golden hall,’ which is ‘brighter than the Sun.’

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65. There comes on high, | all power to hold,

A mighty lord, | all lands he rules.

This provocative stanza only appears in the Hauksbok version of Voluspa. There are three candidates for who this figure could represent. Firstly, the “mighty lord” could be representative of Baldr. This is plausible in that Baldr could be imagined as ‘inheriting the mantle’ of his father, Odin as the ‘high god.’ But there are some issues with this understanding in that Baldr has already narratively returned in st. 62 and the description of this figure from st. 65 sounds much more transcendent and universal than the way Baldr was previously described (“He who rules all” versus “Baldr restored among the gods.”). Similarly, and secondly, the figure could be Heimdal. His dwelling is in Himinbjorg (“Heaven-Mount”) at the edge of the sky, where he sentinels as the ‘watchman of the gods.’ Given that context, it is easy to read this stanza as Heimdal ‘descending’ from his lofty home. From a thematic sense, too, it would be poetically-apt for the compositor to open the narrative by calling upon “Heimdall’s sons,” and ending with his arrival. After all, Voluspa never states that Heimdallr dies during Ragnarok, even though Snorri records that he and Loki vanquish one another. But again, the way this figure is described is much more universal and sovereign that Heimdall seems to be able to embody. Therefore, although Baldr and Heimdal are conceivable internal candidates, the diction of universal sovereignty and descent from above makes the Christian reading the hardest to dismiss.

Therefore, thirdly, the description in st. 65 seems best to match the description of Christ from the end of Mark 13’s ‘Little Apocalypse: (something we have already noted matches the second-half of Voluspa)

“At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.” (Mark 13:26-27)

Working from his ‘Easter homily hypothesis’ (which we explicated in the prior article) McKinnell has argued that this line might have been original to Voluspa if the compositor was truly influenced by homiletic material. Similar to how Landnamabok notes how a ‘thing-oath’ which mentions the vague “almighty god”, the possibility of multiple readings could be intentional in order to navigate multiple audiences. The stanza then could be read as deliberately or functionally double-coded. Steinsland says medieval audiences could recognize both Heimdallr and Christ in the future ruler.

So let us recap what we have from the st. 59-65 sequence. The earth rises anew from the waters. The old order is replaced by a restored and sanctified one. The wounds of the former age are healed as “all ills grow better” and Baldr returns. A radiant dwelling for the righteous then appears in Gimle. And the climax is the arrival of the supreme ruler from above, whose universal sovereignty closes the vision. In other words, st. 59–65 do not just look vaguely ‘hopeful’ after catastrophe but actually moves through the same eschatological pattern as the Christian Apocalypse: new creation, redeemed society, end of struggle and strife, a holy dwelling, and final lordship. Revelations 21:1-7 covers the same movements as this section of Voluspa:

“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’”

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66. From below the dragon | dark comes forth,

Nithhogg flying | from Nithafjoll;

The bodies of men on | his wings he bears,

The serpent bright: | but now must I sink.

There are major theological implications for how this passage is interpreted. Does it represent the survival of evil after renewal? Does it signal the beginning of Ragnarok in the time of the narrator’s telling (in other words: ‘Nithhogg is coming right now’)? Is it an interpolation which should have been included earlier in the poem (perhaps after st. 50, for example)? Does it represent the dichotomy of the everlasting Gimle heaven with that of Nastrond’s hell where Nithogg resides? Hermeneutics here is crucial, but any conclusion is - ultimately - just as speculative as it is theologically important.

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IV.

Let us summarize our findings of Christian-influence and examine some of the reasons why they might exist. As a whole, we saw how Voluspa moves through a Christian ‘salvation history’ paradigm: from ‘creation-and-fall,’ to ‘the death of the son-of-god,’ to ‘eschatology,’ and finally to ‘a redeemed world.’ First, as we saw in the opening creation material, Voluspa did not merely begin with ‘creation’ in a generic mythological sense. It began with creation arranged in a recognizably Christian sequence. Vol. 3 first described the world by privation: no earth, no heaven above, no grass. This stanza can be easily placed beside Genesis 1:1-2 and Genesis 2:5, where the world is first framed through what had not yet been formed or brought forth, but even moreso beside other Biblical and vernacular Christian material of the time. The Wessobrunn Prayer, 2 Esdras 6, and the Life of Adam and Eve traditions mirror the privative precreation state of Voluspa. The poem then moved from absence to ordered creation: land appeared, the earth grew green, and the heavenly bodies were assigned their stations and calendrical purpose. Again, the correspondence with Latin-Christian material is not only from Genesis logic (where land from waters, vegetation, luminaries, and the measurement of days and years) but also from vernacular material. When Voluspa then introduced Ask and Embla, Yggdrasil, life-bearing waters, and a paradise-like primordial order immediately preceding the introduction of a disordering character who precipitates a ‘fall’ of sorts, the opening arc’s advisement by Latin-Chrisitna cosmology became unmistakable and unavoidable.

Secondly, the ‘Baldr section’ formed an arc of innocent suffering, adversarial binding, and moral punishment. In Vol. 31–33, Baldr was not treated as one more casualty in a divine feud. He was presented as the beloved innocent whose death was foreknown, lamented, and placed at the center of what followed. Acts 2:23 proved useful as a comparator: not because it allowed for ‘Baldr to equal Christ,’ but because both narratives gave theological weight to foreknown innocent suffering. Other interesting connections about cosmic lamentations and maternal grief echoed between the sources. Vol. 34–35 moved from the death of the beloved innocent to Loki’s binding. That sequence made Revelation 20 relevant, since there too the adversarial power was seized, bound, and restrained under divine judgment. Vercelli Homily I spoke of Christ binding the enemy with grievous bonds, while Christ and Satan repeatedly imagined the defeated adversary enclosed, fettered, held in hell, and subjected to divine victory. Then Vol. 38–39 carried the same moral logic into Nastrond. This was not a neutral underworld. It was a punitive dwelling for oath-breakers, murderers, and seducers, filled with serpents, venom, and torment. The Apocalypse of Peter, the Visio Pauli, Christ and Satan, and related homiletic hell traditions showed that serpents, worms, venom, fire, catalogues of sinners, and punitive halls were standard Christian ways of imagining the fate of the wicked. The innocent beloved fell, the adversary was bound, and the wicked were assigned to a morally ordered place of punishment.

Thirdly, as the apocalyptic material demonstrated, the end of Voluspa worked by accumulation rather than by one isolated parallel. The poem did not simply imagine a dramatic mythic collapse. It moved through a recognizable order of last things. Vol. 45 presented kinship itself collapsing: brothers fought, family bonds ruptured, and social order disintegrated. As noted above, that belonged naturally beside Mark 13:12, where familial betrayal was not ordinary moral decline but one of the signs of the end. Vol. 46–47 then moved to the horn-summons and the trembling of the world. This stood in the same field as 1 Thessalonians 4:16, with its divine descent, angelic cry, and trumpet of God, and Ezekiel 33, where the trumpet functioned as a warning before judgment. The poem then escalated to cosmic convulsion: Yggdrasil shook, creation panicked, the sun darkened, heavenly order failed, and the world was consumed by fire. Vol. 57 therefore belonged naturally beside Mark 13:24-25 and 2 Peter 3:10-13, where the darkened sun, shaken heavens, dissolving elements, and purifying fire belonged to the grammar of final judgment. Again, however, the non-biblical Christian parallels made the case cumulative. Judgment Day II gathered the same eschatological atmosphere into Old English poetic form: trembling earth, falling stars, darkened sun, angelic hosts, revealed sins, fire, worms, and the division of the blessed from the damned. Judgment Day I likewise imagined the world burned up in the flame of the great day. These texts showed that Christian apocalypse had already entered the Germanic poetic register as a vivid chain of end-signs. The rooster-cries, kin-slaughter, horn, cosmic shaking, darkened heavens, world-fire, and final reckoning in Voluspa therefore should not be handled as detachable motifs. Separately, each could be rationalized away. Together, in this narrative position and with this function, they formed the same basic apocalyptic movement familiar from biblical and vernacular Christian eschatology.

Fourthly, the ending of Voluspa completed the poem’s total structure with a ‘restored blessed order.’ Vol. 59 described the renewed creation: the earth rose again from the waters and grew green. That detail deliberately echoed the opening creation arc, but now on the far side of fire and judgment, just as Revelation 21 describes. Vol. 60–62 then returned to Ithavoll and the golden tables, not as decorative nostalgia, but as restoration. The poem circled back to the first order in order to show it healed, clarified, and recovered. That was why Revelation 21 remained the controlling biblical parallel: after judgment came renewed creation, purified dwelling, and the gathering of the righteous into blessed life. Judgment Day II supplied the eschatological counterpart: judgment, separation, and then a radiant life beyond sorrow, hunger, age, storm, cold, plague, or mourning. Voluspa did not need to duplicate these texts line for line. What mattered was that it closed according to the same salvation-historical logic. The extant Voluspa did not merely contain scattered Christian-looking images. Its four major arcs - creation, innocent death and judgment, apocalypse, and renewed world - moved according to a Christian-shaped narrative logic. It is ‘Christian salvation history’ with Pagan elements, not vice-versa.

So with these deep, structural narrative parallels in both imagery and layout recognized, what are we to make of them? How did this come about where Chrisitan and indigenous material were so syncretically combined? To begin answering that, we must ask - as every other commentator has - whether the compositor of Voluspa was Christian or Pagan. Now, given that the Medieval Latin-Christian system could view the creation of the dwarves, the Aesir-Vanir War, and many other aspects of Voluspa as ‘fantastical’ or historical’ in some sense given the categorical model supplied by Isidore’s Etymologiae, (‘history’, ‘fantasy,’ ‘misunderstandings of Christianity’, and ‘contradictions with Christianity’) then there are actually only a handful of truly ‘contradictory’ passages in the entire poem.

As McKinnel observes, the vast majority of Voluspa is entirely theologically compatible with the Latin-Christian model except for five episodes: the ‘nine worlds’ below Hel, the usurpation of God’s role in ‘Borr’s sons making the world,’ ‘Night being named by the gods,’ the ‘humanization of Ask and Embla by three deities,’ and the ‘authority of the Norns in ordaining fate.’ Because these aspects contradict Chrisitan thought, we should be

“inclined to regard these details as genuinely pre-Christian, and the same must apply to any points where we conclude that the poet failed to understand or deliberately distorted Christian belief – which a Christian could not do without opening himself to a charge of heresy.”

This is a strikingly small set of passages. An astute reader will immediately notice that these are all isolated to the opening of the poem and Creation generally, where divine sovereignty is most displayed. But even with these five, we should note that the compositor of Voluspa has arranged them in a way that fits Latin-Christian cosmology such that even though they retain their ‘indigenous nature,’ it is only by subordinating them to the Christian narrative frame. They have been planed and trimmed down to slot into a different mythology’s architecture - ultimately forcing complex traditions into a static mold by subjecting them to ‘narrative domestication.’

Perhaps, then, a more fundamental question than asking whether the compositor was Christian or Pagan would be: are those binary categories really the best way of addressing the issue? Is this framing anachronistic or naive about the historical reality? We have already seen extensively in the prior article how there were many attitudes that could be taken by Pagan ‘converts’ to Christianity given the often absence of the Latin-Chrsitian ecclesial structure in engendering compliance. It would seem that there was a brief window - such as we expounded upon in regards to the Danelaw - for a poem like Voluspa to be composed, where Christian and Pagan motifs were freely mixing, before they were forcibly partitioned apart and between eras of intolerance. Indeed, Richard North has argued that:

“Given at least three centuries of trade with Christendom, the old papar and the relatively high number of Irish settlers in Iceland, it seems likely that some of these apocalyptic details entered Icelandic paganism long before the composition of Völuspá: the poet may not have seen them as new.”

Regardless, there were numerous approaches to the nyr sidr by skaldic poets. As we noted in the prior article: Sigvatr Thordarson embraced Christianity, Hallfredr Ottarsson nostalgically favored the forn sidr, and Eilifr Godrunarson seemed to navigate both milieus. Likewise, the Irish Ivar Dynasty navigated Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian settings which were themselves awash in various Pagan and Christian beliefs. Famously - and perhaps even humorously to our contemporary ears - Helge the Lean was considered Christian even though he would still pray to Thor at sea. The carver of the Gosforth Cross likewise saw the utility and even catechetical opportunity in keeping and repurposing images from the Pagan world. These were, after all, human beings, not abstract actors in a Hegelian dialectic. Therefore, rather than asking ‘was the compositor Christian or Pagan,’ we might better speculate on why the compositor would record such a syncretic - but ultimately Chrisitan-compatible - narrative. It seems that there are four main explanations to answer this.

Firstly, it might have been something that a Pagan could use to compete with Christian cosmology. Perhaps, as Kees Samplonius has put forth, the elite of the Norse world, who would be employing skalds, sought to ‘re-brand’ Christian eschatological power into their own mythic idiom. This could ‘legitimize’ Norse mythology by ‘aligning it’ with Christian mythology. It is possible that it was believed that by doing so, the Norse might preserve or maintain their customs by adapting Christian motifs - an indication of some sort of ‘compliance’ or ‘spiritual compatibility’ or ‘neutrality.’ Or perhaps Norse cosmology was oriented in such a way as Voluspa does in order to directly oppose the apologetics which would have occurred between missionaries and the aristocracy. In this way, the Pagan explained their mythology in a way that preempted combat with Christians.

We know of some of the arguments that Christian missionaries of the time would have employed because we have a letter from Daniel, the Bishop of Winchester, giving advice to Boniface c. 725 AD. Daniel instructs Boniface to socratically emphasize that the Pagan gods are created - often by intercourse - not eternal, and therefore contingent, fallible, and effectively only ‘super-human.’ He then instructs Boniface to press his interlocutor on the ‘cosmological dilemma’ by inquiring on if the cosmos had a beginning, and if so, where did the gods exist before that (implying a ruler of the cosmos before the gods). Lastly, Boniface is to ask whether the gods sire new gods or not - if ‘yes’, then there is endless multiplication, an unknowable hierarchy, and inevitable toppling of the ‘top god’ ; if ‘no’, then why did procreation stop or who set the limit?

“These questions, and many like them, which it would take too long to enumerate, thou shouldst propose to them in no irritating or offensive manner, but with the greatest calmness and moderation. And from time to time their superstitions should be compared with our, that is Christian, dogmas, and touched upon indirectly, so that the heathen more out of confusion than exasperation may blush for their absurd opinions, and recognize that their detestable rites and legends do not escape our notice.”

By ‘tweaking’ or ‘rebranding’ their mythology to redact aspects which routinely come ‘under fire’ from Christians, the Pagan may have believed that they could avoid being on the defence apologetically. Given the timeline of Daniel’s letter to Boniface (two-hundred years prior to the composition of Voluspa) it is entirely possible that this could have affected the character of the mythology even well-before the birth of the compositor.

In a similar way, secondly, Voluspa could have been a didactic or catechetical composition in order to aid understanding and conversion to Christianity. It is possible that the poem might have been commissioned by a Christian king or even promulgated by Christian clergy so as to create dialogue or to compare and contrast it with the Latin-Christian worldview. We saw extensive evidence (such as the Gosforth Cross) which preserves Pagan mythology as a means to the end of catechesis through comparison and contrast. In that same way, Voluspa could have functioned as a verbal equivalent: not a neutral preservation of indigenous, pre-Christian doctrine, but a transitional composition that made Norse cosmology intelligible, comparable, and ultimately subordinate to the Christian story of creation, fall, judgment, and renewal. The poem’s value would lie precisely in its ability to reveal Christian meaning. It could speak in the inherited mythic idiom of the North while arranging that idiom into a structure which a Christian audience could recognize as moving toward the Gospel. This could also be why the poem retained so much prestige into the post-Conversion world. After all, in only fifty years or less after Voluspa’s composition, Iceland would convert to Christianity.

Thirdly, and similarly, Voluspa’s syncretic nature could be a ‘demonstration’ of how the Norse mythology was actually ‘pre-Christian,’ waiting for the ‘fullness and fulfillment of Christianity.’ This was a hermeneutic used since the early-Church. Justin Martyr’s logos spermatikos (“seeds of the Word”) held that fragments of truth are sown among all peoples, and that therefore Pagan insights are real but partial. Clement of Alexandria echoes this as it relates to philosophy, rationalizing the value of pre-Christian lore. Eusebius’s praeparatio evangelica frames the world traditions as being relative to the Gospel - historicizing ‘preparation’ as an apologetic program. In a similar fashion, Medieval Latin-Christian culture widely practiced interpretatio Christiana, recasting non-Christian narratives as ‘types’ foreshadowing Gospel truths. In this way, our nameless compositor might have seen an opportunity to showcase Norse Paganism as ‘foreshadowing’ what would eclipse it. After all, we do know that Icelandic authors would record their own history in the Sagas as one of anticipating Chrisitanity (see: Appendix C). Samplonius again conjectures (presuming the Christianity and gender of the compositor):

“At the time of the composition of the poem, these indigenized syncretistic adaptations had gained currency to the degree that our Christian poet could, in retrospect, view them as being characteristic of the ‘pagan’ culture which had preceded Christian society. He then carefully arranged these figures and the myths around them within an overall Christian structure with the aim of demonstrating the self-destructive nature of paganism, simultaneously, by means of typology, bringing the native past into the teleological tradition of Christian world history.”

Fourthly, Voluspa may represent the deliberate mythopoetic experimentation of an artist working inside a Conversion-age culture, fusing inherited Norse material with Christian cosmological structure simply because the combination produced a more powerful poem. The compositor may have been less interested in defending or (re)defining Paganism, or preaching Christianity, or constructing a formal typology than in producing a poem from the heterogenous material which was available to them. In that sense, Voluspa would belong to the same Conversion-age world in which poets and artists could preserve old forms while bending them toward new subjects, or folding new subjects into preexisting ones. A poem of creation, ruin, monster-combat, divine grief, world-fire, and restored earth would naturally be intensified by Christian apocalyptic architecture, just as Christian eschatology would become more vivid when clothed in the older mythic idiom of wolves, giants, wells, halls, and prophetic women. The poem’s syncretism, then, need not be explained only by ideology. It may also be explained by artistry. Perhaps the compositor saw that the old Norse mythic vocabulary and the Christian salvation-history arcs could be made to resonate together, and so they forged them into one literary apocalypse.

Therefore, we can see how even the few ‘incompatibly pre-Christian’ elements of Voluspa are narratively domesticated by being fit into a Latin-Christian cosmology. This makes the Christian-Pagan author binary less helpful than a ‘Conversion-zone context’ in which there were plausible and not mutually-exclusive rationales for why the compositor would have crafted Voluspa in the syncretic way that they did. Voluspa may have reshaped pre-Christian Norse-Germanic myth into a more comprehensive creation-to-apocalypse system in order to compete with Christian cosmology on Christian terms. It may have functioned as a transitional teaching-poem, using familiar Norse mythic language to make Christian ideas of creation, fall, judgment, and renewal intelligible to a Norse audience. It may have presented the native past as a kind of pre-Christian preparation, where partial Pagan truths are absorbed into the teleological structure of Christian world history. Or it may have simply been the work of a Conversion-age poet fusing the strongest available Norse and Christian materials into one literary apocalypse. There is no reason to think the rationale behind Voluspa should be relegated to only one of these. Indeed, Voluspa’s prestige is partially due to how it speaks across boundaries. It was native enough to sound ancestral, Christian-compatible enough to survive in manuscript culture, and artistically powerful enough to become the ‘great Norse apocalypse.’ This is precisely what we should expect from a poem commonly placed around the Danelaw and Iceland’s Conversion period, when older mythic forms were still prestigious but Christian apocalyptic structures had become culturally available.

To conclude our analysis before enumerating some specific implications, Voluspa’s status as a ‘syncretic composition’ severely limits its utility as an indigenous, ‘emic perspective’ for pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology. The Latin-Christian elements are not extraneous bits that can be peeled away to reveal a pure Historic Pagan core. The influence is structural, woven into the fabric of the poem’s vision. Instead, the poem should be approached as evidence of cultural interaction and religious change – a testament to how Norse pagan ideas were being reinterpreted at the brink of Christendom, rather than a transparent window onto the archaic past. We will get into the implications of this moreso in the next article, (which will also close out Part II), but we can end this article with a few observations that will set up what is to come. Firstly, this article has shown that the overall structure of Volupsa mirrors Latin-Christian ‘salvation history.’ Secondly, there are certain aspects of Voluspa which bear especially significant resemblance to Medieval Latin-Christian motifs in their paralleled imagery, function, and narrative-arrangement. Thirdly, some of these aspects of Voluspa do not appear anywhere else in the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic corpus and only appear in Voluspa (or are only referenced and expanded upon by Snorri, later). They are: ‘Ginnungagap,’ the ‘lifting of the Earth,’ ‘Ask and Embla,’ ‘Nastrond,’ ‘pre-Ragnarok moral degeneration,’ the ‘litany of apocalyptic imagery (Sun darkened, conflagration, etc.),’ the ‘new world for the righteous,’ and ‘Gimle.’ Therefore, fourthly, given that these aspects show Latin-Christian influence, how should Reconstructionist Heathens treat their theological implications? …

Let us pray

“Gladden us with holy joys, almighty God, and make us rejoice with devout thanksgiving, for the Ascension of Christ your Son is our exaltation, and, where the Head has gone before in glory, the Body is called to follow in hope. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

Amen.

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Part II, Section I (Would You Know Yet More)

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Today, on the Memorial of Saint Patrick, we remember how the Gospel can travel with violence and exile to call those we once hoped to avoid to become a people of God through recognition of the Truth.

I.

Of all the works contained in the Poetic Edda, the poem Voluspa has received more attention than any other. The reasoning is likely four-fold. Firstly, because Voluspa opens the Poetic Edda, its depictions of creation, sacred history, and cosmic destruction have shaped first impressions of Norse mythology since the manuscript’s rediscovery in 1643 AD by Bishop Brynjolfur Sveinsson. Secondly, whereas most poems only have one surviving version, Volupsa is present in all three main witnesses to the Norse-Germanic mythological tradition: the Hauksbok and Codex Regius manuscripts, as well as Snorri Sturlson’s Prose Edda. This also, thirdly, means that it is anchoring later traditions, with the ‘digest version’ Voluspa hin skamma imitating it, and Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda heavily relying on Voluspa for the cosmic framework, moreso that other poetic source material like Grimnismal and Vafthrudnismal. Fourthly, unlike most other mythological works in the Norse corpus - which are either incomplete information disclosures structured as interlocation between characters or overall murky impressions of Norse cosmology - the comparative clarity of Voluspa as a narrative makes it as accessible as it is valuable. That value is exacerbated by the fact that although it is known that the Germanic peoples (which would include the Norse, of which the Edda’s Icelandic authors were a part of) had a sophisticated set of customs and mythology, only a scant portion of that corpus has survived to the present. Taking these points together, Voluspa is an essential foundation for any scholarly understanding or contemporary reconstruction of pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology.

To perhaps better understand this, we must further understand that mythology is never only such. One might be tempted to state that ‘these are just stories - no one can understand or reconstruct a religion from stories,’ but this would be to misunderstand any religion. Mythological comprehension is comprehension of the theology underpinning it. This is especially the case for cosmology and eschatology, because to understand the beginning and the eventual end of something (the world or humanity or even the gods) discloses the relationality of that thing and what its purpose is, if any. To understand something’s purpose is to know how to approach it - to order our own behavior. So when we see that Voluspa contains a narrative that stretches from a void, through the conflagration of the world that emerges from it, and into a world remade, the importance of this text should become clear.

But for the reader versed in Biblical mythology, the cycle of Voluspa can feel quite familiar . . . ‘Land is drawn up out of the water,’ (Gen. 1:9-10 ; Vol. 3-4) ‘the Sun, Moon, and stars are given their celestial places,’ (Gen. 1:14-18 ; Vol. 6) and ‘a pair of humans - male and female - are made from preexistent matter and divine breath’ (Adam and Eve in Gen. 2:7,21-22 ; Ask and Embla in Vol. 17-18). A central ‘tree of knowledge’ is narratively established (Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis ; Yggdrasil in Voluspa) before a veritable ‘fall’ out of the initially idyllic conditions (Gen. 3 ; Vol. 21-26) There is the ‘death of an innocent, beloved son’ (Christ’s Passion ; the Death of Baldr). And there is an apocalypse full of ‘fratricidal strife,’ (Mark 13:12 ; Vol. 45) the ‘darkening of the Sun,’ and the ‘world awash in flame’ (Joel 2:30-31 ; Vol. 57). Then, after everything: ‘renewal and peace’ (Rev. 21:1 ; Vol. 59). In short, the narrative of Voluspa and the narrative of the Bible are incredibly similar at least on a superficial level. But it must also be noted that there are integral motifs from other Eddic poems which are omitted from Voluspa. For instance, Vafthrudnismal (st. 21) and Grimnismal (st. 40-41) give essentially the same four-part formula (earth-sea-mountains/trees-sky) for the fashioning of the world from the body of the primordial-being, Ymir. This formulaic mirror implies the existence of a ‘stock stanza’ or ‘standardized account’ of how the world was made. But Voluspa does not include this standardized imagery at all in its account of creation, where land is simply drawn up before greenery grows from it. This is not to say that every poem must contain all the mythos, but instead that in some ways, Voluspa stands distinct from other works in the Medieval Norse literary corpus. As one scholar notes, when comparing Voluspa to those other poems from the Norse corpus, “[...] the question automatically arises whether this reflects the inner growth of paganism, or the result of external influences.” So what are we to make of these similarities? …

There are at least three primary explanations available. Firstly, the ‘hypothesis of polygenesis,’ where human societies independently form similar myths because they observe recurring natural and political cycles. Secondly, there is the ‘hypothesis of Indo-European (IE) inheritance,’ where Voluspa shares motifs with other IE mythologies because Norse tradition descends from a broader Proto-Indo-European background. Thirdly, there is the ‘hypothesis of Latin-Christian influence,’ where the structure and imagery of Voluspa were shaped, to some degree, by contact with Latin-Christianity within a conversion-contact horizon. To adjudicate between these hypotheses and determine which best explains the data, we need a clear decision rule. We can say that the best explanation will be the one that accounts for clusters of motifs, their sequence and narrative placement, and the theological function they perform within the poem, not merely speculation, coincidence, or the existence of comparable themes within a broad corpus. Let us go through these hypotheses with this in mind.

First, it is possible to affirm that ‘people everywhere observe natural and political cycles of setting and falling, and rising and returning, so these similar experiences can crystallize into similar narrative arcs without needing to invoke influence or syncretism.’ This explanation of polygenesis holds that similarities can simply be ‘coincidental’ or ‘archetypical’ and ultimately accessible to any group at any time. Similar myths and images originating in similar or veritably universal experiences read into a particular cultural frame. Something that complicates the utility and veracity of this explanation is the understanding that not every society contemplates the same narrative events nor with such an overlap of imagery and theological significance to the events being described, let alone in the same sequence. As Kees Samplonius puts it, citing Van Beek: “[...] myths about the creation of the world are common, whereas narratives of an impending world disaster are rare.” Were there only one similarity, we might hand-wave away speculation about connections. However, due to the extent of the similarities, we are much more positioned to investigate whether these similarities exist only between Voluspa and the Bible or other texts as well.

Which leads us into a second possible explanation, which affirms that ‘there is equal similarity between other IE mythologies and Voluspa as there might be between the Bible and Voluspa.’ This is surely true for at least some of the poem, as Norse mythology uncontestedly ‘derived’ from the Proto-Indo-European inception point of the IE family (Vedic, Iranian, Hittite, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Germanic, etc.). Indeed, it would be foolish or purely ideologically-driven to affirm that everything in Voluspa was borne of ‘Christian influence.’ However, the opposite is just as true in that we must be rigorous enough to therefore avoid treating all the content of the poem as de facto indigenous. For instance, the Folkish Heathen substacker Gildhelm has argued that the description of Ask and Embla being “created from trees, not clay” establishes it as “firmly Indo-European.” His supporting evidence is from Hesiod’s mention of how men from the Bronze Age were “born from ash trees,” how Arcadians considered themselves “offspring of the oak,” there being an ‘oak-origin trope’ in the Odyssey, and how the Bundahisn relates that the first human pair originated from a plant or tree. However, Hesiod does not relate the anthropogeny of the first human couple but rather a ‘third race,’ which ultimately destroys itself. It furthermore does not relate the important details that do find parallel in Genesis, (breath of life, original human pair, and the ‘gifts’ that are given by the gods) nor the poem’s placement of the scene inside a creation-ordering sequence. Likewise, the Bundahisn is a late Zoroastrian text whose earliest sections are generally dated to 700-800 AD, (after the advent of Islam) which makes it an ineffective witness for a Proto-Indo-European mythological horizon. Regardless, even if ‘wood-born humans’ is an accurate representation of IE mythological grammar - and we determine that this aspect should be explained as ‘purely indigenous’ - this still does not better explain the actual cluster of Voluspa’s creation account matching Genesis’ where there is ‘land from water,’ ‘luminaries set,’ then the ‘anthropogony,’ before mention of a ‘tree of knowledge.’ The tightness of similarities in those parallel sequences is therefore better explained by there being a connection between Voluspa and Genesis rather than other myriad ‘IE texts’ mined and amalgamated to match Voluspa.

Of course we could ‘show Indo-European origins’ for anything knowing what the object is we are attempting to find parallels for if we take disparate bits-and-pieces from the entire catalog of IE myths. In the same way, one could rewrite Hamlet’s soliloquy by cutting lines out of prior theatrical works and stitching them together like a ransom letter collaged from magazine-snippets. The Folkish Heathen acts as though we are supposed to hyper-focus on any similarities and ignore the divergences as ‘accidents of history.’ Ultimately, scattered whispers of resemblances from IE myths are a weaker explanation than the hypothesis that explains how the linear narrative arc mirrors the known template of Latin-Chrisitan cosmology. Therefore, a more important question for those who hold the ‘hypothesis of IE inheritance’ would be: ‘which IE source gives the same clustered sequence, in the same narrative position, doing the same theological job, with a plausible transmission path in a Tenth Century Norse poetic milieu?’

However, a Folkish Heathen could say that ‘because Voluspa has aspects that contradict Latin-Christian theology (e.g., the absence of a single omnipotent Creator in the poem’s surface narrative) or that twist Christian materials into distinctly Norse forms, (dwarves, Nidhogg at the poem’s close, and the wider ‘mythic machinery’ of giants and monsters) this assures that the poem accurately records a pre-Christian mythology, as no Christian would have recorded those heresies.’ This position is only relevant if one assumes that the poem’s compositor was Christian. It is quite possible that the compositor was a Pagan or an otherwise ‘culturally bilingual artist’ who consciously or unconsciously absorbed ‘prestigiously interesting’ Latin-Christian religious grammar into a native mythic matrix through selective, adaptive influence. The Folkish Heathen prefers to de-nuance the situation and offer a simple dichotomy that favors their position because it serves their need for Voluspa to be representative of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythos. To them, either there is ‘total Latin-Christian invention’ (which as we stated above is certainly not borne out by the data) or ‘total Historic Pagan indigeneity’ (which as we have shown is at this point at least highly suspect). A more apt framing would suggest the possibility of ‘Conversion-era shaping of Historic Pagan concepts as the Norse world interacted with the Latin Christian world.’ Therefore, given the inability of the ‘hypothesis of IE inheritance’ to better explain the clusters of motifs, shared imagery, and overall narrative arc, it seems that we are looking less at a ‘generic IE inheritance’ and moreso at a ‘Norse re-composition shaped by Conversion-era discourse,’ or a sort of ‘interpretatio Norenna of Christianity.’ Note that I am not arguing that Voluspa is ‘wholly derivative of Christianity,’ but that its preserved narrative structure as well as some of the scenes and images being used, are best explained as a ‘poetic composition shaped by Latin-Christian mythology.’

This leads to the third explanation, which the remainder of this article will be concerned with: the viability of asserting ‘Latin-Christian influence’ on Voluspa, and to what extent. However, although this hypothesis can explain why Voluspa has certain images and a certain structure, it still must demonstrate two things. Firstly, that this hypothesis is compatible with the ‘when’ dating of Voluspa’s composition, and secondly that it can provide some account of ‘how’ Biblical data was transmitted in a way that could influence the compositor. The first point is much simpler to establish. In terms of compositional influence like what we are investigating, either both works must emerge relatively contemporaneous with each other or one must be significantly prior to the other. As it relates to Voluspa and the Bible, it is certain that the recognition of the modern, Catholic canon of the Bible predates the writing of the Poetic Edda’s earliest manuscript, the Icelandic Codex Regius (c. 1270’s AD) by almost nine-hundred years. Furthermore, Iceland, as a socio-political entity, became Christian after a vote c. 1000 AD. This means that the Codex Regius, as the earliest known literary attestation of Voluspa, emerges well over two centuries after the conversion of Iceland. We can, however, push the composition date of specific poems (including Voluspa) back some by noting that Snorri Sturlson quotes very extensively from the poem in his 1220 AD work, the Prose Edda. Because Snorri puts authoritative emphasis on Voluspa, (as we noted in the introduction, above) it seems unlikely that it would have materialized during his lifetime or even that of his parents or grandparents, as its recent composition would reduce its value as a source to the pre-Christian worldview which he was himself ultimately attempting to reconstruct for romantic-antiquarian and political reasons. More will be said on this in Part II, Section III.

But there is more data and evidence we can use in our dating of Voluspa, both from contemporary skaldic poetry and from modern statistical analysis. Arnorr jarlaskald’s Thorfinnsdrapa, st. 24 (c. 1062 AD) uses the same wording as Voluspa st. 57: “The Sun turns black; Earth sinks into the sea,” and mirrors Voluspa st. 41: “The bright Sun will turn black.” Because multiple stanzas seem to be stitched together from Voluspa in Thorfinnsdrama, it heavily implies that Voluspa was part of skaldic oral repertoire by its time, and thus pushes our composition date back more. It is here that we begin to reach a temporal bound, however. Voluspa st. 30 lists a series of assembling valkyries, naming Skogul and Geirskogul among them. It would seem like the author of Voluspa misread or misunderstood the compound “geir-Skogul” [“spear-(carrying)-Skogul”] from the poem Hakonarmal st. 12 (c. 962-965 AD) and formed that designation for Skogul into the distinct, separate valkyrie personage of Geirskogul. Furthermore, in Voluspa st. 33, ‘Valhalla’ is used as a specific, proper name denoting Odin’s Hall, whereas an early poem uses the term generically to mean ‘a distant/southern hall’ (see: Atlakvida st. 2, 14 - c. 900-930 AD). The first attestation of the term being used for Odin’s hall is in Eiriksmal 1.3 (c. 954 AD). Therefore, we can see how these elements help situate the poem after or around c. 950-1000 AD. This dating is also corroborated by the ‘Naive Bayes Classifier’ statistical analysis on linguistic markers, which shows an 86.5% probability that Voluspa was composed during the 10th Century (900’s AD). From this same analysis, it is likely that the vast majority of the Poetic Edda was composed c. 900-1100 AD, with only Thrymskvida falling earlier. From all of this, we can fairly confidently date Voluspa’s terminus ante quemis to the century of c. 950‑1050 (that is: just before or during, or just after Iceland’s conversion).

However, with the knowledge that either a written but lost or still oral version of Voluspa most likely predates the beginning of the systematic Christianization of Iceland, we should reassess a few things. Let us take a conservative date for the composition of Voluspa: 950 AD, in the middle of the Tenth Century. This allows us to be specific in our historic estimations and generous to those who prefer an early date. But this early composition date does not insulate the poem from Christian influence - it merely fixes a terminus within a historic landscape already shaped by centuries of exchange. We must therefore note the opportunities for Latin-Christian influence on Norse-Germanic thought long before our proposed composition window for Voluspa. This can be clearly seen when we look at the evidence of contact and influence in five main ‘eras:’ the Roman, the early-Christian, the post-Roman, and the Viking Age. It should be noted that the following piece of this section is not attempting to provide arguments against the Folkish Heathen position that ‘our ancestors were tricked or conquered into accepting Christianity’ or ‘Germanic Paganism also influenced Chrisitanity’ - both of those points will be addressed in Part III of this series. In this present article, I am merely attempting to lay out the historical case for the possibility and mechanics of Latin-Christian influence on Voluspa.

First, early in the First Century anno domini, the northern frontier of the Roman Empire created a dense contact-zone between Latin speakers and Germanic tribes which left tangible material and linguistic traces. Tacitus (Germania, bk. 5) already distinguishes between ‘frontier peoples’ who valued Roman coinage for commerce and more ‘inland tribes’ who preferred barter. This suggests that Roman monetary practice was shaping exchange on the empire’s northern edge by the late-First Century. In southern Scandinavia, archaeology corroborates this. Roman glass and bronze vessels first entered Denmark as elite luxuries concentrated in regions such as Lolland-Falster. But by the Second and Third Centuries, Roman metal and glass goods were appearing more broadly in high-status graves. The ‘Hoby burial’ is one of the clearest early examples, containing a full Roman table service together with two silver cups decorated with scenes from the Iliad. The princely graves at Himlingoje reveal especially close ties to the Empire through Roman glass, bronzes, silver vessels, and other luxury imports. Nor was this influence only indirect. In Res Gestae 26, Augustus boasts that a Roman fleet sailed from the mouth of the Rhine as far north as the lands of the Cimbri, and that the Cimbri, Charydes, Semnones, and other nearby peoples sent envoys to seek Roman friendship. At a minimum, this places the southern Scandinavian fringe within Rome’s diplomatic horizon. Even literacy left traces: Roman imports carried Greek and Latin inscriptions into Scandinavia in significant numbers, and scholars note that such contact formed part of the wider intellectual environment in which Germanic writing first emerged. The cumulative point is that long before formal Christian missions, Scandinavia was already being drawn into a Latin system of exchange, prestige, diplomacy, and symbolic power, so that later Christianization entered a world that had been absorbing Roman forms for centuries.

Therefore, we can see how, with these goods, came the words and concepts needed to understand them. The Latin vinum (“wine”) is reflected in Proto-Germanic winam and then Gothic wein, Old Norse vin, and Old English win. Likewise, the Latin caupo (“merchant, innkeeper”) underlies Proto-Germanic kaupaz and the Old Norse verb kaupa as well as the Old English ceap (“to trade, buy”). The Latin pondo/pondus (“by weight, weight”) yields Proto-Germanic punda and Old Norse / Old English pund (“pound”). And the Latin strata (“paved road”) lies behind Old English straet and Old Norse straeti (“street”). These Germanic words having a Latin origin show how the concepts were introduced through contact. Furthermore, with regard to language, it is quite likely that the Runic alphabet itself was heavily influenced by Latin contact. The rapid-emergence of the Elder Futhark alphabet in the archeological record, along with its emergence in the Alpine-Rhine ‘frontier contact zone,’ and its deep similarities with preexisting Northern Italian scripts (the general appearance of the script itself and in a number of particular runes themselves) all attest to the runic script being formed by influence with the Latin world. This is shown also in how, by 375 AD, there are only about fifty known runic inscriptions, whereas there are more than one hundred Latin inscriptions and imprints which have been found in Scandinavia. Indeed, near two of the oldest runic finds in Norway (the ‘Ovre Stabu lancehead’ and the ‘Einang stone’) archaeologists have discovered Roman swords bearing Latin inscriptions. These finds suggest that the milieus in which some of the earliest Norwegian runic inscriptions appeared were also in direct or indirect contact with Roman script culture.

But this Roman influence on the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic world did not stop at trade or material culture - instead, it extended directly into the sphere of religion. Archaeology shows a clear interpretatio Romana in which Germanic cults are rendered through Roman categories and forms. There is a Third Century dedication to “Mars Thingsus” on Hadrian’s Wall (possibly the Roman Mars standing in for the Germanic Tyr) and over one thousand inscriptions and altars to the “Matronae,” (understood as Celtic or Germanic mother-goddesses presented in a Romanized cultic idiom) which show how the Germanic representation of the divine was being influenced by Latin representations. These borrowings are significant because they are early and basic, suggesting that Germanic social, economic, and religious life was already being mediated through Roman categories well before the Viking Age. The tribe of the Ubii shows that this also extended to politics as well. Strabo (Geography 4.3.4) says that Agrippa moved them (with their consent) from across the far-side of the Rhine to the Roman side. Tacitus (Germania 28) says that by his day they preferred the Roman civic name “Agrippinenses.” Tacitus (Histories 4.28) goes further, saying they were attacked by other German tribes because they had “forsworn their native land” and taken a Roman name. Therefore, we can see how Rome was not only exporting goods to Germanic peoples. It was drawing some of them into Roman cities, Roman cult, and Roman public identity. Merchants, soldiers, auxiliaries, captives, and clients carried more than “wine,” “weights,” and “roads.” They also carried habits of naming, framing, and expressing sacred power. The point is not that Rome simply dictated Germanic religion, but that Roman prestige and Roman forms of representation were already furnishing the language through which Germanic peoples articulated their spiritual world. Roman military service, frontier trade, and Rhine alliances thus created sustained channels through which such cultic and social forms could move northward.

Second, by the Mid-Third and Fourth Centuries, we can document definite Christian communities within Germanic groups themselves, particularly among the Goths. According to Philostorgius, (Ecclesiastical History 2.5) Third Century Gothic raids into Cappadocia and Galatia carried off Christian captives - including clergy - whose presence among the Goths helped produce the earliest Gothic Christian communities. These communities would have possessed a fully-articulated Biblical cosmology and eschatology in a Germanic vernacular. In 325 AD, a Gothic bishop, Theophilus, attended the Council of Nicaea and signed the Nicene Creed, demonstrating that there was a structured, theologically-orthodox Gothic church with episcopal leadership. Only a few decades later, the Arian missionary-bishop Wulfila - descended from Christian captives according to Philostorgius - created the Gothic alphabet and translated most of the Bible into Gothic, producing the earliest known text in any Germanic language. This explosion of contact with linguistic, logistic, and religious technology from an imperial power functioned as a ‘cultural bridge’ that inculcated a framing of conversion as a ‘civilizational ascent’ from German polytheism to Roman monotheism. By the 370’s AD, Pagan Gothic authorities were persecuting Gothic Christians within their own society, not merely foreign Christians, as both Socrates Scolasticus (Ecclesiastical History 4.33) and Sozomen (Ecclesiastical History 6.37) report in their accounts of Athanaric’s repression. Through this example, we can see how a complete Christian account of creation, fall, redemption, and final judgment is circulating inside the Germanic world through structure and imagery in its own idioms.

It must be observed that this is occurring five-hundred years before Voluspa was composed. Indeed, this is all occurring before there being an indigenous record of any Norse-Germanic deity. The god Odin, for instance, has his earliest known direct, written attestation from a gold bracteate discovered in Vindelev, Denmark, dated to the Fifth Century AD. So by the time that Odin appears in the epigraphic record, Germanic-speaking Christians already had an organized eclesial structure and a vernacular Biblical translation. This is not to suggest that Odin did not exist as a god to the Germans before this attestation or that he was somehow a product of foreign contact, but only to show the antiquity of Christianity being among the Germanic peoples. However, we must note that the very item on which the earliest attestation of Odin was made shows a degree of influence. A bracteate was a coin-like gold pendant derived from Roman imperial medallions, showing how Rome (and increasingly its veritably synonymous association with Christianity) could affect cultic form through its ‘prestige culture.’ This is especially true of the evidence for Scandinavians having direct contact with the Latin-Christian system. The Fourth Century ‘Fullero warrior burial’ in Uppland contains a Roman gold-ring which was likely a piece of dona militaria, which would indicate that this buried figure had a background of service in the Roman military. Most recently, a 2025 Nature study identified a Roman-period man from York with roughly 25% Early Iron Age Scandinavian Peninsula-related ancestry, concluding that people with Scandinavian-related ancestry were already present in Britain before the Fifth Century. Given the timeline, the evidence of contact, and the observation that Christ was viewed as a god by Historic Pagans, we can see how Christian mythology could have influenced pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology even before the Council of Nicea.

Thirdly, in the formation of the post-Roman Germanic kingdoms, Christianity ceased to be merely one influence among others and became the primary grammar by which Germanic rulers negotiated legitimacy, alliances, and definitions of civilization itself. Although much of the Continental German world had originally adopted the heresy of Arianism, this historical observation only confirms how deeply Christian theology (even if unorthodox) had already penetrated Germanic political life, because even where Germanic rulers did not yet embrace Catholic belief, they were still defining their kingship and communal religion through disputes internal to Christianity. Undoubtedly, the most consequential movement away from Arianism and to Catholicism was the conversion of the Frankish king Clovis along with 3,000 of his army, who were all baptized around 496 AD. Other Germanic kingdoms would follow. Because the Burgundian Catholic princess Clotilda had married Clovis and spurred him to conversion, the Burgundian people soon followed the Franks. The Suebi were converted by St. Marin of Braga around 550 AD. In 589 AD, at the Third Council of Toledo, King Reccared of the Visigoths publicly renounced Arianism and professed the Catholic faith. The same pattern then crossed into the insular English world. A mission sent to England in 597 AD and spearheaded by Augustine (who would later become known as ‘Augustine of Canterbury’ for his efforts) would convert King Aethelberht of Kent. Aethelberht was no doubt convinced also by the prospect of marrying the Christian Frankish princess, Bertha, and securing an alliance with the Franks. Subsequent English rulers such as Edwin, Cynegils, and Peada entered Christianity through the same nexus of royal alliance and clerical mission. This sequence of examples demonstrates how the post-Roman Germanic world was being steadily incorporated into a Christian order of kingship, law, and sacred prestige long before the Viking Age. But Scandinavia itself was not wholly outside this orbit. In Wars (6.15), Procopius relates that after the collapse of Herul power, (with the Herul’s being a Germanic tribe in northern Denmark / southern Sweden) part of their population passed through the lands of the Dani, crossed to Thule, and later sent a king with followers back into the wider post-Roman world. This passage is one of the most important Sixth Century witnesses to the fact that Scandinavia was already intelligible within the geographic and political horizon of the early-Medieval world. Therefore, we can see how the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs were in an almost inescapable ‘contact zone’ of ever-advancing boundaries and prestigious pressures rather than some ‘indigenous vacuum.’

Under the Carolingians, that contact-zone ceased to be merely a diffuse frontier of sporadic conversions and instead transformed into an organized civilizational system of imperial, episcopal, missionary, literary, and legal power. In this phase, Latin Christendom consciously re-ordered the Germanic world, pushed northward through Saxony to the Danish threshold, and proved capable of translating Christian doctrine into Germanic idioms (without ceasing to be Christian). By the time Bede completed the Historia ecclesiastica in 731 AD, the Danes were already sufficiently known within Anglo-Latin Christian circles and listed among the still-Pagan peoples whom missionaries intended to reach by sea. Likewise, the Royal Frankish Annals note that Widukind fled to Sigifrid, king of the Danes, and, a generation later, that King Godfred confronted the Carolingian world directly through campaigns, frontier fortification, negotiation, and the devastating raid on Frisia in 810 AD. Denmark was therefore not beyond the horizon of Latin Christendom, but already entangled in its missionary, military, and diplomatic calculations.

The earlier missionary work associated with Saint Boniface had already shown how conversion east and north of the Rhine could be stabilized by Frankish protection. Under the Carolingians, this logic was systematized. For Continental Europe, the Saxons posed the ‘final frontier’ for Latin Christendom. Whereas Pepin the Short’s hallmark was logistical and financial backing for Anglo-Saxon evangelists rather than ‘forced mass-baptisms,’ Charlemagne fused conquest with conversion. Charlamagne’s veritable genocide of the Saxons and subsequent legislation of baptism and tithing into provincial law-codes cut against his own successor, Louis the Pius’ approach of combining missionary work with foreign diplomacy. For the generation following the Saxon Wars, the Heliand was made to express the Gospel in an orthodox and authentic way to a people primarily concerned with warrior honor. Christ could be ‘translated’ and preached in Saxon verse as a lord among retainers without ceasing to be the Christ of the Gospels. Similarly, Alcuin of York and Liudger of Munster wrote missionary biographies as part of the Carolingian court sharing an Anglo‐Saxon intellectual network. These biographies were actually moreso ‘position papers’ on how to evangelise and convert Pagans. Their outlooks converge on five main points: persuasion over coercion, catechetical depth before tithes, the primacy of education, accommodation to local languages, and the ideal of the ‘scholar-saint’ as a missionary model.

But with this, there is also an increasing Scandinavian presence inside the Latin-Christian world, not only through embassies and visits, but through raids, winter-camps, tribute-exactions, and repeated encounters with monasteries, bishops, relics, and church property. It is not that the frontier is populated by non-Christians ‘out there’ but that those non-Christians are also being invited into courts and churches during diplomatic and religious visits. Bede (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, V.7) records that Caedwalla of Wessex gave up his crown, traveled to Rome, and sought baptism there. His successor, Ine later did the same by resigning his kingdom and going to Rome. Bede also says (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, V.19) that in 709 AD, Coenred of Mercia and Offa of the East Saxons went to Rome, received the tonsure, and ended their days in the monastic habit. Although these are not Scandinavian examples proper, they do show that Germanic aristocrats were not only hearing about the ‘glories of Catholic Rome’ but were visiting the city themselves. Even when unable to visit, there was still a sense of prestige, mystique, and deep historical knowledge about the Mediterranean world. Frankish silver cups found in Denmark, including examples from Fejo and Ribe, were originally liturgical vessels, and one’s decoration has been identified as the New Jerusalem from Revelation, showing that Christian ceremonial objects and imagery were circulating in Scandinavian contexts well before formal conversion had even truly begun. In southeastern Sweden, the Rok Runestone (c. 800 AD) stitches local genealogies back to Theodoric the Great (an Arian Ostrogothic ruler from the Sixth Century, who had ruled part of Italy three-hundred years prior) and incorporating northern lineages into much earlier Roman-influenced ones. Therefore, we can see how by the Carolingian age, the frontier had become porous enough that northern elites were entering Christian courts, Christian ritual, and Christian patronage networks themselves.

Fourth, during the Viking Age - and especially by the Tenth Century composition horizon for Voluspa - Scandinavia itself had experienced generations of Christian missions. The first Christian mission there c. 710 AD involved Willibrord traveling to Denmark, where he encountered the Pagan King Ongendus. Alcuin’s Life of Willibrord (ch. 9) says that Ongendus received him with honor but would remain Pagan. Willibrord would leave with thirty Danish boys, instructing them in the faith on the journey home, and baptizing them. According to Anskar’s letter in Epistolae variorum (no. 16), in the 820’s AD, Louis the Pious and Archbishop Ebbo of Reims deliberately promoted missionary work to the North. With Louis’s backing, Ebbo traveled to Rome and received license from the Pope to evangelize the northern regions. Rimbert (Vita Anskar, ch. 7) and Thegan (Vita Hludowici, ch. 33) report that in 826 AD the exiled Harald Klak came to Ingelheim with his wife and a large following, received baptism there, and was sent back north with Ansgar as priest and teacher. Klak was, no doubt, incentivized by the prospect of ‘joining’ the Latin-Christian system to leverage against those who had exiled him. Around 854-855 AD, the younger Danish king, Horik, permitted the missionary Ansgar to resume Christian worship at Hedeby and granted, at Ribe, (in western Denmark) a site for a church and permission for a priest to reside there. Since both towns were major commercial centers, and since excavations at the Ribe Cathedral site have revealed Viking-age graves likely associated with an early church, the evidence suggests that the mission had begun to establish a local Christian presence in situ. In Sweden, the famous ‘Birka crucifix’ (a Ninth Century cross-pendant found in a woman’s grave) is the earliest known crucifix in the country and likely the work of a Scandinavian smith, showing that Christian iconography was circulating within high-status Scandinavian milieus long before any ‘official Christianization.’ At the same time, Scandinavian war-leaders operating abroad were themselves pulled into Christian frameworks. After Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon Christian victory against the Great Heathen Army at Edington in 878 AD, the Danish king Guthrum accepted baptism with thirty of his chief men and lived for a time in Alfred’s court as his adoptive son. A few years later, Regino of Prum records that in 881 AD, two Northmen kings, Godefrid and Sigifrid, “settled” at Asselt on the Meuse with an “innumerable multitude of foot and horse.” These accounts show Scandinavian rulers establishing a large, organized armed presence inside the Christian world.

Harald Bluetooth’s large ‘Jelling stone,’ erected c. 965 AD, commemorates the King’s parents and proclaims that Harald “won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.” This is a royal claim better read as ‘ideological self-presentation’ than as a literal description of an ‘instantaneous mass-conversion.’ More strikingly, however, the monument bears an image of perhaps the earliest depiction of Christ in Scandinavia. However, because the figure is not rendered on a wooden cross but appears entwined within interlace or branch-like forms, some scholars have suggested that the image could have been legible in a Scandinavian symbolic register that recalled Odin’s hanging on Yggdrasill, even while remaining overtly Christian. If this is accurate, then the monument deliberately fused Christian proclamation with a visual idiom intelligible to a recently Pagan audience. This ‘line blurring’ of which deity is intended can also be seen in how the earliest Icelandic law codes, as recorded in the Landnamabok involve how one should make a legal oath to “Freyr, Njordr, and ‘hinn almattki ass’ (‘the almighty god’).” That this ‘almighty god’ can be read as Odin, Thor, Tyr, or the Christian God may not be due to the temporal distance between modern readers and the world of the text but rather something deliberately intended by the laws themselves so as to try accommodating both Pagans and Christians.

As we mentioned above, around the year 1000 AD, the Icelandic Althing voted to adopt Christianity as the island’s religion. In Sweden, Olof Skotkonung, baptized at Husaby c. 1008 AD, is remembered as the first king to remain Christian to his death. His coinage - bearing Christian motifs and Latin legends - ties Swedish kingship into the monetary and symbolic world of Latin Christendom. In 1027 AD, King Cnut, ruler of England and Denmark, wrote (in Cn 1027) to his English subjects from Rome that he had fulfilled a vow to visit the shrines of the Apostles “to pray for the forgiveness of my sins.” Cnut had furthermore negotiated with Pope John XIX and Emperor Conrad II for better treatment of his subjects and pilgrims, showing a Scandinavian ruler acting directly inside the highest ceremonial and legal structures of the Latin Christian world. Contemporaneously beyond Scandinavia, neighbouring polities on the Baltic and eastern frontiers were also entering the Latin-Christian and Byzantine-Christian spheres. In 966 AD, Mieszko I of Poland received baptism, bringing Poland into the community of Latin Christian Europe. In the 970s AD, the Hungarian ruler Geza accepted baptism and began to promote Latin Christianity. And in 988 AD, Vladimir of Kiev was baptized and ordered the mass baptism of his people in the Dnieper, inaugurating the Orthodox Christianization of the Rus. This timeline shows how, by the time of the First Crusade c. 1100 AD, most of Europe was Christian or under Christendom. Indeed, many Scandinavians would take part in the First Crusade including Sigurd who left Norway with sixty ships, met King Baldwin of Jerusalem, rode with him to the Jordan, bathed there, and then assisted Baldwin in besieging Sido.

When we place these events in a timeline with the composition date of Voluspa at the end, it becomes clear that in the hundred years before and after 950 AD, the Norse peoples were not standing outside Christian Europe. They were being evangelized by Latin churchmen, burying their dead with crosses, founding churches in trading towns, converting kings and rewriting law-codes, minting coins with Christian legends, and even sending their rulers to Rome itself. That is the wider world within which a poem like Voluspa must be situated. The initial settlement of Iceland by the Norse occurred from c. 870-930 AD, meaning that any claim that the island preserved an ‘uninfluenced Pagan mythos’ must argue not only for geographic distance or the timing of missionaries, but that the very settlers drawn from Norway and the wider Norse diaspora - many already shaped by prolonged contact with Christian regions of the British Isles (as we will get into more momentarily) - somehow carried a sealed, pre-Conversion tradition to Iceland, kept it insulated from further contact, and transmitted it intact into the Christian literary era. To say a different way: when a poet in Iceland or the wider Norse world composes a grand cosmological and eschatological vision like Voluspa in the Tenth Century, they are not working in a sealed ‘pre-Christian bubble’ but in a cultural landscape already saturated with Biblical narratives, apocalyptic preaching, and centuries of Latin-Christian contact. Therefore, we can rightly say that the historical conditions for Christian influence on Voluspa had been accumulating for over half-a-millennia. Any argument against the ‘hypothesis of Christian influence’ has to account for how the Norse, who already valued and integrated the prestige of Rome by the Second Century, somehow avoided the same phenomenon with Christian prestige.

Thus far, we have established that Voluspa - arguably the most consequential Eddic poem for reconstructing Norse cosmology and clarifying otherwise opaque Germanic material - contains certain clustered motifs and detailed images which are best explained as ‘Latin-Christian parallels.’ That Voluspa was recorded and transcribed in a thoroughly Christian era of Icelandic history, and that although the oral composition of Voluspa likely dates prior to that (but remember that the orality of the poem would not have been statically frozen in time from that point forward three-hundred years to its writing-down) there is still half-a-millinea (at minimum) of interaction with the Latin-Christian world at that time. Given these observations, the Heathen position that ‘Voluspa represents a de facto indigenous mythological horizon’ is at this point in the argument: significantly weakened, if not entirely untenable. It is moreso shown to be an ideologically-required stance rather than something drawn out of historical study.

II.

But because antiquity only has significance on influence if there is evidence of some specific historic mechanism for transmission, a modern Heathen could simply dismiss the ‘hypothesis of Latin-Chrsitian influence’ on Voluspa as ‘historic speculation.’ So, to move from plausibility to a demonstrable mechanism of influence, the next step is to locate a documented milieu from the Norse world c. 950 AD in which Latin-Christian discourse could have shaped composition or redaction in an identifiable way. What sort of evidential criteria should we even be looking for or expect from such an area? Ideally, we would be able to demonstrate:

• Christians and Pagans spaciotemporally ‘neighboring’

• Economic exchange

• Norse poets (skalds) being active in the area

• Linguistic borrowing

• Missionary activity

• Syncretism of symbols and images

• Availability of manuscripts that parallel Voluspa

So is there a historic milieu which meets these criteria? There is. In east and central England, c. 867-1066 AD, when and where initial Norse raids became the ‘Danelaw’ of an Anglo-Scandinavian, North Sea world …

Beginning with the shocking 793 AD Norse raid on Lindisfarne - an island hub of monastic learning - hostile Viking activity would only intensify along England’s east coast. In 865 AD, a ‘Great Heathen Army’ arrived and within a year, the city of York had fallen. What followed was not merely a shift from plunder to occupation, nor a singular record of conquest, but a reshaping of the political and cultural map of England and indeed, or the island’s destiny. The next decade saw back-and-forth combat between the native Anglo-Saxons and the Great Heathen Army. Then, in 878 AD, at Edington, after a campaign of guerilla warfare, Alfred of Wessex defeated one of the invading leaders, Guthrum. The two agreed to a treaty which arranged a fixed boundary. Across much of northern and eastern England, Danish law and Scandinavian settlement gained an acknowledged place which would become known as the Danelaw: a treaty-bounded sphere where Dena lagu (“Danish law”) held. Meanwhile, Wessex and its allied realms remained the center of English resistance. From this point forward, England was not cleanly divided between ‘English’ and ‘Viking’ spheres - it became a land in which rival peoples, rival customs, and rival loyalties had to exist beside one another.

Over the next century, that frontier proved incredibly porous and able to harden or soften as the situation demanded. The Danelaw became a lived Anglo-Scandinavian society of towns, farms, markets, intermarriage, and shifting political allegiances. Sihtric Caech of the Gaelic-Scandinavian ‘Ivar Dynasty’ ruled the city of York, married into the house of the English king Aethelstan, (who was Alfred’s grandson) and was baptized. When Sihtric died in 927 AD, Aethelstan moved swiftly to seize York and assert overlordship in the north. Members of the Ivar Dynasty continued to move between Dublin, York, and other centers of power, showing how one family could operate across the Irish Pagan and English Catholic worlds at once. Some accepted baptism. Some entered the Church for political advantage. Others relapsed into Pagan identities when power required it. Northumbria (England north of the Humber river) in particular became a stage for these reversals, as rulers were restored, expelled, or killed, and as Scandinavian and English interests repeatedly collided within the same ruling networks. Yet over time, those who would not comply with Anglo-Saxon rule were expelled or killed - as in the case of Eric Bloodaxe - to the extent that Northumbria was eventually folded back into Anglo-Saxon control.

Even within a reunified kingdom though, the Danelaw would continue as a separate legal boundary under the auspices of English rulers. Starting in 954 AD, figures with Scandinavian names would populate earldoms beholden to English rulers. However, during the 980’s AD, Norse raiding would return. The English were defeated at Maldon in 991 AD and began to pay Viking parties protection money danegeld (“Dane gold”) to avoid being pillaging. During this time, Olaf Tryggvason - who would later become King of Norway - attacked London, causing Aethelred II (Alfred’s great-grandson) to sign a treaty in which the English would pay 16,000 pounds of silver as danegeld and Olaf agreed to be baptized and serve as an ally to the king. But the situation only became more complicated at the dawn of the new millennium. On November 13, 1002 AD, King Aethelred II ordered a mass-killing of Scandinavians within his realm. This ‘St. Brice’s Day Massacre’ prompted Thorkell the Tall’s host of men to arrive on the shores of England for revenge. They would martyr the Archbishop of Canterbury after they seized the city. Ten years later, the King of Denmark, Svein Forkbeard, who was similarly spurred-on by the St. Brice’s Day Massacre, invaded and briefly seized the English crown. He would however die only weeks later, leaving the crown to his son, Cnut.

Cnut would earn the title ‘the Great’ by eventually securing England and then adding Denmark and Norway into his ‘North Sea Empire.’ This was a single royal sphere that linked England to Scandinavia and helped preserve the Anglo-Scandinavian character of the old Danelaw even under one Christian king. That empire, however, would not survive Cnut’s death, and the decades that followed were marked by family rivalry and contested succession. Edward the Confessor eventually consolidated power, but after his death in January 1066 AD, the English throne passed to Harold Godwinson, whose claim was challenged from several different factions in Scandinavia and continental Europe. Harold’s estranged brother Tostig joined forces with Harald Hardrada of Norway, who invaded in the hope of reviving Scandinavian rule in England. In September, Harold Godwinson and his army marched one-hundred-eighty-five miles in four days to meet the Norse invaders at Stamford Bridge. The Norse army, fleet, and leadership were destroyed and defeated. As history would have it, though, this period of victory would be short-lived. Only nineteen days later, a Norman force from continental Europe led by William the Conqueror met Godwinson’s exhausted forces at Hastings, crushed them, and incorporated the Danelaw into a Norman kingdom.

William’s new order displaced Danelaw magnates, redistributed land to Norman followers, and broke the old Anglo-Scandinavian patronage networks. Norman rule centralized justice and lordship, even if some Danelaw practices like ‘twelve-man juries’ and the ‘specific administrative divisions of courts’ persisted into the modern era. By the end of the Eleventh Century, the Danelaw had become a historical label rather than any living, legal order. Yet far from the hit-and-run Viking stereotype, the Danelaw had been a long-lived, legal-cultural zone where Scandinavian settlers and native Anglo-Saxons lived in mixed communities, sharing legal institutions and hybrid ways of life - conditions that fostered steady acculturation and even syncretism. As we will see, this milieu was the perfect ‘petri-dish’ for the Latin-Christian worldview to influence the composition of Voluspa, fully meeting the evidential criteria we listed above.

Firstly, we should look at how Christians and Pagans were ‘neighboring’ in the Anglo-Scandinavian milieu and how people moved between various cultures in the North Sea world. The Danelaw created ‘shared landscapes’ in which Pagan Scandinavians and Christian Anglo-Saxon institutions did not merely collide, but coexisted long enough to generate durable mixed communities. The site of Torksey is one of the clearest examples. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that the Great Army wintered there in 872-873 AD and that the Mercians “made peace with the army.” Archaeology has since identified a camp of roughly fifty-five hectares, large enough for several thousand people, including not only warriors but also craftworkers and merchants, with evidence of metal processing, trade, and careful organization. More importantly, Torksey did not simply vanish when the army moved on. Subsequent work indicates that the Great Army acted as a catalyst for the town’s later urban and industrial growth, so that Torksey developed into an important borough with a major wheel-thrown pottery industry, a mint, a court, and multiple churches and cemeteries. The site of Repton reveals the same process in a more overtly religious register. In the Winter of 873-874 AD, the Great Heathen Army established itself at a pre-existing ecclesiastical center around St Wystan’s church. Excavations there have uncovered a large defensive enclosure, Scandinavian-style furnished graves, and ossuaries linked to the Army. Nearby, at Heath Wood, archaeologists identified the only known Scandinavian cremation cemetery in the British Isles, linked to the same military presence. The result is a striking local juxtaposition of Scandinavian burial and memorial practices unfolding within and beside an established Christian sacred space. Together, Torksey and Repton show that the Great Heathen Army generated durable ‘mixed landscapes’ in which Norse settlers made peace, traded, buried their dead, and sought legitimacy amid churches, monasteries, and royal cult-sites. In other words, even in the early- or pre-Danelaw stage, Pagans were not simply near Christians but were habituated to living inside Christian social and sacred spaces.

This sort of contact-zone moved people between cultures and carried Christian knowledge north. The North Sea routes that linked England, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Iceland were active from the start of the Viking Age settlement world. Viking bases had been established in Christian Ireland since 841 AD, with Dublin being one of the main hinges between the Irish Sea and northern England. The Ivarr Dynasty ruled in that wider Irish Sea world and also held York, which means that one ruling family operated across both Norse and Christianized environments, ‘code-switching’ as was necessary. And from the start of Icelandic settlement, movement ran through England and Denmark. Landnamabok (ch. 1) relates how the would-be initial pioneers of Iceland came from the Norse-ruled parts of England. This is corroborated by genetic research. Approximately 62% of female settler lineages in Iceland trace to the British Isles, implying large numbers of women raised in Christian lifeways entered Norse households. Gene flow was asymmetrical and largely outbound: English DNA went north with Vikings whereas Scandinavian DNA left a faint trace in eastern England. As one scholar puts it: the predominantly women emigres “[...] had presumably been raised in Christian tradition, which meant that they were familiar with basic Church structures and doctrines, not just stray Christian motifs detached from their original contexts” As another scholar notes, citing characters from the Laxdaela saga:

“[...] Melkorka taught her son Olafr the Irish language, and spoke for a long time to no other person. It is likely that she would not least have told him about her childhood faith and of Christian customs. And is Gestr Oddleifsson not likely to have known something of Christianity, for instance through his dealings with Olafr the Peacock, before Thangbrandr came on the scene.”

Therefore, we can see how deep knowledge of Christianity was immensely prevalent throughout the North Sea and Iceland because of the Danelaw.

Movement across this world remained routine after settlement, so the Danelaw should be understood as part of a wider Anglo-Scandinavian circulation rather than as an isolated frontier. Saga tradition remembers Icelanders entering English royal service and moving through England, Norway, and Sweden, which at the very least shows that later Icelandic memory treated these routes as normal. Egils saga (ch. 50-55) places the titular character in the service of King Aethelstan, who, as we saw above, was deeply involved in the ‘liberation’ of York from the Ivarr Dynasty. Gunnlaugs saga (ch. 6) sends its own titular character from Scandinavia into Aethelred’s court. Both accounts show Icelanders in English royal service taking routine travel circuits from Iceland to Norway to York, and Northumbria as a stop en route to Sweden. Archaeological science supports the broader pattern of mobility that such narratives imply. A 2022 multi-isotope study of Viking Age burials in Norway found that some individuals buried in Trondelag had spent their childhoods in Britain or Ireland. Taken together, the sagas, the isotopic evidence, and the settlement record all point in the same direction. The Danelaw was not a sealed enclave of Pagan settlers. It was one region within a larger world in which people, loyalties, and cultural knowledge moved back and forth across the North Sea.

Secondly, we should look at the economic activity of the Danelaw and the Anglo-Scandinavian, North Sea world. We should begin by recalling how in Roman times, monetary exchange with Germans directly correlated with linguistic, cultural, and religious exchange. Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 29) relates how an Icelander sailed from Dublin and received a large portion of tribute silver. Egils saga (ch. 90) also refers to two chests “full of English silver” given to Egill by King Athelstan. These accounts are mirrored by the archaeological record. Starting in the Tenth Century, tens of thousands of Anglo-Saxon pennies would flow into Scandinavia. Numismatic work estimates that over 40,000 Anglo-Saxon coins (from Aethelred II’s ‘Crux’ to Cnut’s ‘Short-Cross’) found their way into Scandinavian hoards - more than are preserved from England itself - showing the sheer volume of English silver absorbed by Viking networks. In the Danelaw itself, the norse did not abolish Christian coinage but instead preferred to imitate and re-mint them Northumbrian ‘St. Peter pennies’ from Viking York name the apostle explicitly and bear crosses, swords and other Christian motifs, even while being struck under Pagan Scandinavian rulers. Some types combine a sword often read as St Peter’s sword with a hammer usually taken as Thor’s mjolnir - an image-pairing that only works if minters and users are already ‘bilingual’ in Christian and Pagan symbolism. In other words, when a Pagan warband in Northumbria paid troops, ransomed captives, or bought supplies, they did so with coins whose legends invoked Christian saints and whose types were intelligible to Christian moneyers, markets and mints.

The city of York is emblematic as a hub of manufacturing and exchange, specifically with regard to textiles. Of the 1,100 textile-related artefacts (loom weights, tools, dyeware, etc.) which have been discovered there, two-thirds are from the Anglo-Scandinavian period. Raw materials were imported in and finished goods were exported - at each step of the process, each time the good was touched and exchanged hands, there was a conversation and an exchange of values as well as currency. There are also Pagan hammer amulets along with Christian crosses in York’s archeology, evidencing the lived, on-the-ground coexistence of these different peoples. Furthermore, Insular ecclesiastical metalwork (brooches, reliquaries, chalices) circulated into Scandinavia as ‘prestige exotica,’ and were often repurposed such that Christian images were recontextualized within Norse semiotics rather than merely ‘imported.’ Notably, such Insular treasures appear in Viking graves by 800 AD - even before the main Danelaw era - showing that exposure to Christian symbolism predated large-scale settlement. The implication is that there were conceptual pathways for appropriation by Norse audiences who developed a kind of ‘symbolic bilingualism’ where Christian motifs could be recognized, valued, and reinterpreted without confessional commitment. We must also not forget the Historic Pagan economy of slaving, which we noted in Part I, Section II was both common and brutal. Viking slaving moved women, children, clerics, and other captives out of Christian Ireland and Britain into Scandinavian-controlled settlements. Because these captives were themselves bearers of Christian practice, their forced movement likely served as an important channel of religious contact. The slave economy was therefore not merely incidental to Christian–Norse contact, but one significant mechanism by which Christian people and elements of Christian culture entered Scandinavian social worlds (just as it had in the earlier, Continental Germanic milieu).

Thirdly, we should note how Norse poets (skalds) - the kind of ‘artistic craftsman’ who would have composed the material in the Poetic Edda - were active in the area during this time-period. The earliest, attested, named skald who was in the Danelaw was Egill Skall-Grimsson, (an ancestor of Snorri Sturlson on his mother’s side) who was actually stated to have been in England twice. The first was in service of King Aethelstan c. 927-937 AD, and the second was in York c. 946-948 AD, where he would compose a poem which aided his release from arrest. Note that this is almost exactly at our 950 AD composition dating … After Egill, there is a gap in attested skaldic activity until the time of Cnut the Great’s court, but we should understand this as an absence of evidence, not as evidence of absence for skaldic activity in this region during this time. This is because court skalds regularly accompanied kings, jarls, and other aristocrats on journeys and campaigns as a normal (though probably not ubiquitous) feature of their travels. Indeed, Snorri remarks in Heimskringla, Olafs saga helga (ch. 172) that the skald Thorarinn “took pride” in having been with Cnut on the Norwegian expedition, presenting firsthand participation as a source of poetic authority. Indeed, the court of Cnut the Great was a focal point of skaldic composition and patronage in the Norse-speaking world, with Skaldatal remembering no fewer than eight skalds attached to him. Their surviving poems tie skaldic production directly to English events and places, with Ottarr svarti’s Knutsdrapa including English place-names - such as Sherston, Brentford, London, Norwich, and Ashingdon - which makes the poem a witness to Scandinavian campaigning and courtly remembrance in England. Taken together, this shows that the Danelaw and wider Anglo-Scandinavian world were active stages for skaldic composition, recitation, and patronage, not peripheral backwaters outside the main current of Norse poetic culture.

There was also a diversity of skaldic poets in terms of their religious orientation. We know that before and around 1000 AD, there were Christian skalds who avoided allusion to Pagan themes (Sigvatr Thordarson under Olaf II and Cnut the Great; Hjalti Skeggjason, a chieftain who famously called the goddess Freya a “bitch”), Pagan skalds who ‘converted’ but lamented their new faith, (Hallfredr Ottarsson under Olafr Tryggvason) and those who wrote both Pagan and Chrsitian poems (Eilífr Godrunarson under Hakon). Similarly, we know of Eddic poems (Solarljod and Hugsvinnsmal) which were explicit vehicles of Christian theology, meaning that the medium itself is not evidence of a pristine ‘pre-Christian time-capsule.’ Therefore, taken together, the Norse skaldic activity in and around the Danelaw shows how the persons who would have composed Volupsa were in this milieu as the mixing of Pagans and Christians was taking place and how they would have been able to ‘digest’ and repurpose Chrisitan structures and images.

Fourthly, we must determine the degree of linguistic borrowing and how language changed due to sustained contact. Across the 10th-century Anglo-Scandinavian network, vocabulary flowed both ways but structural change is almost entirely unidirectional. Old Norse totally reshaped Old English grammar, in ways that are incredibly numerous and intricate. Old English influence on Old Norse, however, is very interesting for our present study. Old Norse absorbed a range of ecclesiastical and learned terms through contact with West Germanic Christian speech communities, often plausibly through Old English in Anglo-Scandinavian settings, even if in many individual cases an Old Saxon or broader West Germanic intermediary cannot be excluded. Words like kirkja (“church”), biskup (“bishop”), prest (“priest”), messa (“mass”), munkr (“monk”), and skrifa (“write”) signal that Norse speakers first met much of the Christian-Latin system through these English words. This bilingualism is written into the landscape with hybrid place-names like Grimston (ON Grimr + OE tun, “farm”) and Thornton (OE Thorn, “thorn” + ON thorp, “village”) exemplifying code-mixing. One study mapping 1,915 such names and their patterned phonological adaptations. The implication is broader than vocabulary, though. If speech communities mixed easily enough to fuse grammars and toponyms, they were also positioned to blend narrative and symbolic repertoires, making it historically plausible that Norse poets working in this milieu could absorb and refract Christian concepts without direct, one-to-one textual borrowing.

There is one word in Voluspa which may be of Old English origin, making it of particular importance to our study. ‘Mistletoe’ - that is: the object used to kill Baldr. As the scholar, Anatoly Liberman explains: mistletoe is common and native to England. In Iceland, however, where the Poetic Edda and Snorri Sturlson were from, it does not even grow. In Scandinavia, it is relegated to a limited area in the southeast. Notably, Scandinavian languages commonly used other names for mistletoe: ledved, (“limb-wood”) fogellim, (“bird-lime”) or flygron (“flight-green”), with the word mistelten being a comparatively rare term. The compound mistilteinn is the only Old Norse plant-name ending in -teinn (“-twig”) that is not a sword or weapon name, suggesting it was not a traditional plant term in Norse but rather a poetic import. With this evidence, despite Old English and Old Norse sharing a Proto-Germanic origin, the Old Norse mistilteinn seems to have been calqued from the Old English word misteltan. Furthermore, Liberman notes, the way that mistletoe is described in Voluspa adds weight to this theory of influence. In stanza 31–32, the seeress describes how “there stood, grown higher than the fields, slender and very beautiful, the mistletoe.” This language is telling. Mistletoe is, in reality, a parasitic shrub that grows on tree branches. It does not “stand” from the ground nor tower “higher than the fields.” The compositor of Voluspa seemingly imagined mistletoe as an independent tree or bush, betraying their unfamiliarity. Likewise, Snorri Sturlson only adds that Frigg comments on the mistletoes growing “west of Valholl”, implying the ‘foreign’ nature of the plant. Although there is undeniably a deep layer of some pan-Germanic kin-slaying narrative, (more will be said on this in the following article) the mythological detail of the mistletoe and the confused descriptions about it seem to originate from contact with England.

Fifthly, we should investigate what sort of missionary activity or conversion efforts were being performed in this Anglo-Scandinavian milieu. Diplomacy in England and throughout Europe during this period tended to braid treaties with sacraments. After the Battle of Edington - where the native Anglo-Saxons under King Alfred defeated the Great Heathen Army under Guthrum c. 878 AD - the Norse invaders surrendered and gave hostages. Guthrum was baptized three weeks later with King Alfred taking the role of his sponsor. After a battle with King Eric Bloodaxe, Haakon ‘The Good’ Haraldsson would go on to rule Norway from 934-961 AD. He had been born in Norway but sent by his father to England where he would be kept safe. There, Haakon was likely raised Christian, because upon his ascension to the throne, he would (unsuccessfully) attempt to coerce the Norwegian people into accepting Christianity. In 943 AD, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (s.a. 943) reports that King Edmund “received King Anlaf in baptism and gave him royal gifts,” sealing the agreement with a church rite. In 995 AD, after Olaf Tryggvason’s London attack, the soon-to-be-king was educated by bishops and confirmed at the Andover church with King Aethelred II. Olaf would return to Norway “with many missionaries from England,” notably a bishop who would serve as royal chaplain to King Olaf and was active with him during his campaigns. In this same orbit, Wulfstan’s reformist law codes for Aethelred and Cnut disseminated penitential cycles and Christian moral rhetoric precisely in the regions where Norse poets, traders, and elites operated.

Scandinavian conversion was not simply a matter of rulers importing a new custom (nyr sidr) into an otherwise ‘untouched Pagan world’ - it was a complex negotiation between deep, ancestral faiths and new theological and sociopolitical opportunities. We know that aristocratic figures like Olafr Tryggvason and Olafr Haraldsson had already spent their youthful, formative years abroad learning what Christian kingship looked like in practice. They witnessed how allying with the Church could strengthen rule, extend administrative reach, and embed a ruler within a wider European political and religious network. Many Scandinavian elites also spent long periods in firmly Christian lands during their voyages, with a number of them being baptized or ‘prime-signed’ abroad. This helped to create a ‘Christian Northman diaspora’ that still remained tied to kin back home. In this setting, conversion followed the logic of social attachment as much as belief, since people usually preserve the religion of their networks, but migration, youth loving novelty, marriages, and other disruptions loosened inherited ties and made religious change more likely.

With Anglo-Saxon rulers insisting upon baptism and conversion for treaties, and with there being immense sociopolitical capital in adopting Latin-Christian customs, “the Danelaw became the perfect setting for Christianization, but not conversion.” Rimbert (Vita Anskarii, ch. 24) notes how Scandinavians c. 870 AD were “willingly signed with the cross” so that they could become catechumens, enter the church, and be present at the sacred offices - while delaying being actually baptized until the end of their life. Likewise, the Monk of St Gall says Northmen came for baptism “not for the sake of Christ but for earthly advantage.” Notker the Stammerer (Gesta Karoli Magni, 2.19) recounts how Louis the Pious would give baptized Northmen a white robe from the emperor’s chamber and a full Frankish outfit. Notker then relates how an older Northman once complained that he had gone through the “washing business” about twenty times already but received an inferior garment after his most recent baptism. Indeed, one of the first Viking settlers of Iceland, Helge the Lean, is recorded in Landnamabok (ch. 218) as having converted to Christianity but was still prone to pray to Thor if travelling on especially rough seas. Archeology also corroborates this ‘religious bilingualism.’ The infamous Tenth Century ‘Trendgarden soapstone mold’ has cavities for two Christian crosses and one Thor’s hammer. There is also the ‘Fossi Wolf Cross pendant’ dated to the Conversion of Iceland which is a deliberately hybrid object, combining the visual grammar of the Cross with features that also recall the hammer-amulet tradition. This isn’t a picture of a people jealously guarding a pure ancestral cult against an alien intruder - it is a pragmatic syncretism of hedging bets, selling or wearing both symbols when it benefits, taking advantage of generosity, and of experimenting with overlapping signs of protection, prestige, and allegiance in a period when conversion was often politically useful before it was inwardly total. But most importantly, it communicates that many Scandinavians (including Icelanders) - and especially the elite who would have skaldic poets attached to their retinue - were intimately familiar with Christianity even if they were not Christian.

Sixthly, and perhaps most importantly, given all of the above, we must still be able to show how there was syncretism of symbols and images in this Anglo-Scandinavian milieu. Christian sacred spaces in the Anglo-Scandinavian world did not simply allow Norse stories to sit beside Christian symbols as if both were displayed on equal terms, but actively placed those stories inside Christian monuments, prayers, and burial programs that subordinated. The ‘Sigidr family runestone memorials’ (c. 1030 AD) in Sweden are a good introduction to this phenomenon. The ‘Ramsund carving’ (So101) has a complete carving of the ‘Sigurd heroic cycle’ (killing Fafnir, roasting the heart, tasting the blood, hearing birds, Regin’s death, Grani with treasure) with accompanying text that reads “Sigridr, Alrikr’s mother, Ormr’s daughter, made this bridge for the soul of Holmgeirr, father of Sigrodr, her husbandman.” The ‘bridge for the soul’ wording is a known Christian memorial formula and charitable work from the era that hopes for God to aid the deceased’s soul in Heaven. The ‘Bro runestone’ (U617) from the same family is near a church and reads “Ginnlaug, Holmgeirr’s daughter [...] had this bridge made and this stone raised in memory of Assur, her husbandman, son of Jarl Hakon [...] May God now help his spirit and soul.” These examples show how Norse practices and legends were being used by aristocratic Christians on-the-ground. Later Norwegian stave churches of the 1100-1200’s AD, (e.g., Hylestad, Vegusdal, Lardal, and Mael) place long Sigurd cycles on their main doorways. The surviving ‘Sigurd portals’ show the entire cycle-sequence. The framing is of a ‘tutelary spirit’ guarding the building, reinterpreting Sigurd as a symbolic protector at the entrance. This role was analogous to that played by the archangel Michael on dragon-slaying portals elsewhere throughout the Latin-Christian system. In England, the ‘Halton Cross-shaft’ in St Wilfrid’s churchyard, which were carved in the Tenth or Eleventh Century, contain detailed scenes from the Sigurd cycle on one face of the monument, whereas another face shows a seated figure, (probably an angel) above a Cross. The same pattern appears across the Irish Sea on the Isle of Man, where the late Tenth Century ‘Sigurd’s Cross’ from St. Andrew’s Church at Andreas shows scenes from the cycle on a cross.

In the same churchyard at St. Andrew’s also stands Thorwald’s Cross, a c. 950 AD cross-slab which has a depiction of a cross with the figure of Odin, spear in hand and with a raven on his shoulder, being attacked by the wolf Fenrir at Ragnarok. That this image sits within the context of a Christian funerary monument shows how the imagery is most likely a deliberate contrast between the doomed Pagan god and the victorious Christ. The so-called ‘Giant’s Grave’ in the churchyard of St Andrew’s, Penrith, is another Tenth-Century ensemble of two tall free-standing crosses and four ‘hogback graves,’ (a distinctively Viking-Age monument-type associated with Scandinavian settlers). Yet the decorative style on the crosses draws heavily on pre-Norse English and British models, and the hogbacks and crosses alike are now understood as part of a historic shift (briefly noted above) where Scandinavian warrior burials transitioned into churchyard interments. This process fused cultural forms from Scandinavian, Anglian, and Insular backgrounds into a new Christian burial culture for Norse elites. Taken altogether, we can already see how Christian patrons across this world were not passively ‘tolerating’ Pagan images but systematically appropriating or retooling the visual language of the old stories onto crosses, in churchyards, or framed with Christian prayers. Norse mythic capital is steadily spent in the service of Christian memory, Christian eschatology, and Christian space such that the two come into a dialogue of sorts.

But perhaps the most striking example of mythological or symbolic acculturation is from St. Mary’s Church in the town of Gosforth, on the northwest coast of England, across from the Isle of Man – an area already noted above as high in Norse traffic between Ireland, the Danelaw, and Iceland. The surrounding region had a high-density of Norse settlements, evidenced by place-names bearing Scandinavian suffixes (-thwaite, -dale, -scale, -beck). There was also a ‘thing mound’ at Little Langdale, approximately 15.5 miles east of Gosforth, where the Norse legal system would moot. Significantly, there are also two ‘hogback tombs’ (distinctive Viking-Age graves) in St. Mary’s churchyard - one with martial and zoomorphic decorations evocative of Ragnarok, another with Crucifixion imagery. Taken altogether, the context surrounding the Church already indicates the flow of cultural currency between the Christian Anglo-Saxons and the Pagan Norse. The imagery on St. Mary’s ‘Gosforth Cross’ and the ‘Fishing Stone,’ however, expands this into mythology.

The Gosforth Cross (dated c. 920-950 AD) is a tall, thin column topped with a stubby cross. Each of its sides is loaded with engraved imagery. On one side, there is a stag with a dog together above the figure of a serpent. Below that vignette is a figure bound to a stone. On another side, a figure with a horn and spear (likely Heimdall with Gjallarhorn) is placed above a woman tending to a bound figure [likely Sigyn (Loki’s wife) and Loki). Another side has at its top, a figure with a spear opening the mouth of a colossal beast (certainly Vidarr defeating Fenrir). Below that vignette, is a panel featuring a figure with outstretched arms, while two other figures stand below the figure on either side: one with a raised-up spear, and the other a woman with a horn. Due to the arrangement of the scene, this is most likely a depiction of the Crucifixion with Christ raised above Longinus and Mary Magdalene. Below the Crucifixion scene is a wreath of serpents. Across the faces of the Gosforth Cross are beasts in braided designs along with four horsemen with spears.

At face-value, this seems to depict pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology on a cross monument with an out-of-place Crucifixian scene slapped-on. However, when we dissect the intent of the artist, there is something truly remarkable going on with the Gosforth Cross. Firstly, what are we to make of the side that depicts a stag, dog, serpent, and bound figure? The association of the ‘dog and the stag’ was relatively common in the Anglo-Scandinavian context with the Dacre and Manx Crosses also bearing the imagery. Already by the Patristic Era, Church Fathers exegeting Scripture had understood the stag to represent Christ and the dog to represent the hostile human forces poised against Him. Origin and St. Ambrose of Milan both saw the stag of Song of Songs 2:8-9 as christological, and St. Augustine sees the water-seeking stag of Psalm 42:1-2 as an image of the Chrsitian seeking God. Similarly, the Christian ‘Legend of St. Eustace’ relates how a Roman general converted to Christianity after encountering a stag with a Cross between its antlers, with some versions of the Legend having Christ speak directly through the stag. Likewise, Eusebius, Augustine, Cassiodorus, and Bede all understand the villainous “dogs” mentioned in the Messianic prophecy of Psalm 22:16-20 to be the wicked crowd who had Christ executed. Furthermore, in Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies, (which was a veritably ubiquitous text during the Middle Ages) deer are said to be “antagonistic to snakes” such that when the deer feel weakened they draw serpents out of their holes with their breath, eat them, and are restored to health. Likewise, the Physiologus bestiary tradition explicitly glosses the stag’s killing of the serpent as an image of Christ destroying the devil. Therefore, the arrangement of the stag and the dog reads as Christ and His accusers, with the serpent/Devil below being the natural enemy of the stag/Christ.

Throughout the Pastristic Era and the Middle Ages, the image of Satan took many forms, but the most common and most Biblically-direct was that of the ‘serpent’ or the ‘bound figure.’ Irenaeus, Bede, and Gregory the Great, all had this understanding by simply reading Revelation 20:2-3, where:

“He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations any more”

This furthermore allowed Christians to read Satan into Genesis 3’s ‘serpent-tempter in the Garden of Eden’ and therefore uniformly make serpentine associations with Satan. Furthermore, Matthew 12:29 associates the “strong man” who is being “bound” with the “prince of demons” from the preceding verse 24. This whole understanding is articulated by Andrew of Caesarea in his Commentary on the Apocalypse (ch. 59, comm. 204-205) and by Augustine in his City of God (20.7). Similarly, Bede notes how Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 relate how God bound the rebellious angels with chains to be kept in the dark until Judgement Day. Therefore, we can see how placing the stag, the dog, and the serpent above a bound figure visually sequences the motif of Christ being killed and thereby conquering and binding Satan.

Secondly, what are we to make of the side that depicts Heimdall with Gjallarhorn above the vignette of Sigyn and Loki? Surely, this pairing is meant to recall the pre-Christian Norse myth of Heimdall and Loki slaying one another at Ragnarok. But there is more going on here that shows how these scenes are being registered through a Chrsitian framing. The Gjallarhorn which wakes the gods to prepare for Ragnarok naturally invites comparison with the ‘great trumpet’ that gathers God’s people in Isaiah 27:13,27, the ‘trumpet of God’ at Christ’s coming in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, and the ‘trumpet series’ of Revelation 8-9, which all likewise precede the Christian apocalypse. We could also theorize that the ‘mutual destruction’ of Heimdall and Loki could be meant to draw parallels with how Christ’s death ultimately defeats Death and that by being Crucified under the spiritual auspices of Satan, He has fated the destruction of Satan. That the scene of Sigyn tending to the bound Loki occurs horizontally-parallel to the bound figure under the serpent from the prior side we investigated should draw associations in our mind between the bound Satan and the bound Loki. We will have more to say about the aptness of this association in the following article. Regardless, Sigyn may also have been intended as a visual foil to Mary Magdalene beneath the Crucifixion. In medieval Western tradition, especially after Gregory the Great’s late-sixth-century conflation of Magdalene with the repentant sinner who anoints Christ, Mary Magdalene was regularly marked in art by long hair and an ointment jar or alabastron. If the Gosforth female figure is indeed shown attending a bound male with a vessel-like object, the juxtaposition would sharpen the contrast between the faithful female witness beneath the Cross and the female attendant of the bound trickster-god.

Thirdly, we arrive at the last facing with identifiable scenes. At the top, we have Vidarr defeating Fenrir and avenging his father, Odin. Beneath that, we have an almost iconographic scene of the Crucifixion with Christ suspended above Longinus, and Mary Magdalene. And below that scene is a wreath of serpents. This panel completes and perfects the parallels thus far examined. The beast is slain and the kin-slaying is avenged. The serpent is bound beneath the shadow of the Cross. That the two figures witnessing the Crucifixian - the great conquest - are engaged in a compunctionary stance toward Christ (note that when viewing the Gosforth Cross, this would induce the same ‘looking upward’ stance in the viewer) is significant for understanding how this framing might have been intended to trigger contemplation in the onlooker. Overall, the parallels in framing call the onlooker’s attention to certain associations between the Norse figures and Christian counterparts. Indeed, by how the entire monument seems to situate events from Ragnarok in Chrsitian eschatology and soteriology, we can catch glimpses of how the monument’s acculturation was unabashedly a means to the ends of Christian evangelism and explanation of the faith. An overlap of traditions was intended – the Anglo-Scandanavian viewers would relate Biblical stories and symbols with Norse Pagan mythology, deepening their understanding of the new religion through an interpretatio Christiana.

In a very similar way, the Fishing Stone, which is currently housed inside St. Mary’s Church, was originally in the same churchyard as the Gosforth Cross. The Fishing Stone’s lower register shows Thor and Hymir fishing for the Midgard Serpent, while the upper register depicts the now-familiar ‘stag-and-serpent image.’ Given the context of the stone being made in an explicitly Christian setting, we must reassess what is being communicated by the fishing scene, especially as it is placed below Christian bestiary symbols. To begin, let us understand that the image of Thor and Hymir fishing for the Midgardserpent is told in the Eddic poem Hymiskvida and is also known from other carved depictions, making it quite well-attested. The ‘Ardre VIII Stone,’ from Gotland (an island off the eastern coast of Sweden) is dated to roughly the Eighth or Ninth Century and was discovered beneath the floor of Ardre church. It seems to depict Thor’s fishing expedition in one of its boat scenes, but this identification is not universally accepted. By contrast, the ‘Hordum Stone’ from northern Denmark is dated sometime from 700-1000 AD and clearly depicts Thor and Hymir in a boat with the Midgard Serpent below and Thor’s foot protruding through the bottom of the hull (an important detail linking it to the Hymiskvida story). And the Altuna Runestone (U1161) from Uppland in eastern Sweden is dated to the Eleventh Century AD and stands immediately beside Altuna church, also providing the image Thor’s foot punching through the boat’s hull as he struggles to haul the Midgardserpent up the fishing line. Taken together, these monuments show Thor’s fishing expedition being carved repeatedly in or beside church sites from the Eighth to Eleventh Centuries, meaning that the story was known and being spread at least by 700 AD.

None of this, however, proves the inherent indigeneity of Thor’s fishing expedition in a pre-Christian Norse-Germanic mythology. For starters, there are no other ‘divine fishing expedition’ legends from Europe or the broadly Indo-European record. Now, as we noted near the beginning of this article, it is possible to hypothesize that this myth developed or originated within a purely Northern-European context without needing attestation elsewhere. However, just as we also noted above, we must not lean on that explanation when there are other similar narratives that predate the story in question and there is a demonstrable method of influence or transfer. In this case, we can cite the common Medieval Christian soteriological analogy of ‘Christ baiting Satan’ read through ‘Leviathan imagery.’ In Job 41:1-2, God rhetorically asks Job, “Can you drag out Leviathan with a hook / or tie down his tongue with a cord?” And in Isaiah 27:1, it is said that:

“On that day the LORD, with his hard, great, and strong sword,
will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
Leviathan the twisting serpent,
and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.”

Originating with Gregory of Nyssa, the ‘conquest of Christ over Satan’ was described as Christ’s humanity being ‘bait’ which concealed His divinity, which Satan bites into and is thereby caught. Ambrose and Augustine of Hippo repeat this understanding, with Gregory the Great interpreting the passage from Job through this lens. This analogy was so common among Patristics that it is named the ‘moustrap’ or ‘fish-hook’ model.

We also know that later Icelandic Christian preaching in the 1200’s AD homiletic tradition, explicitly associates the Biblical sea-monster Leviathan with the Norse Midgardserpent. Homiliubok contains a homily based on Gregory the Great’s own homily about Mary Magdalene where the word mithgarthsormr (“Midgardserpent”) is written in superscript above the word leviathan (“Leviathan”) directly associating the two monsters. Furthermore, the homily itself clearly lays out the same soteriological analogy of God putting ‘Christ on a hook’ to capture Satan. In the Nidrstigningar saga from the early-Thirteenth Century, Satan is portrayed as an enormous serpent trying to seize Christ’s soul during His ‘Harrowing of Hell,’ aligning a Midgardserpent/Leviathan-like figure with the Devil himself. Interestingly, there is an Irish bishop’s staff-head dating to the Eight Century which depicts a figure being swallowed by a sea-creature (Jonah and the Whale?). The item was discovered in a Viking-era workshop on an island off the coast of Sweden, meaning that this artifact depicting a scene similar to what we have been describing was captured as loot. Given this evidence, (the prevalence of Latin-Christian ‘divine fishing’ imagery, the dearth of pre-Christian ‘divine fishing’ narratives, and the direct association of terms after Conversion) it is highly unlikely that the Thor-fishing story, in any of its preserved forms, has an independent pre-Christian origin. The more economical explanation is that the story is an interpretatio Norrenna of Latin-Christian exegetical traditions. With this code in mind, the Fishing Stone’s stacked registers – ‘Thor vs. Midgardserpent’ under a ‘stag vs. serpent’ – become a culturally legible foil to be read through Latin-Christian lens as ‘Christ defeating Satan.’ This is all consistent with the deliberately didactic associations of Pagan sites and material with Christianity as explicated by Gregory the Great to edify and convert Pagans. It must be noted that these monuments do not prove direct textual borrowing into Voluspa, but they do demonstrate a milieu in which Norse mythic figures were being interpreted within Christian symbolic programs and where motifs could be blended by Scandinavians.

Thus far, our argument has moved beyond vague probabilistic claims of ‘possible-’ or ‘likely-influence’ and identified a concrete historical milieu through which Christian ideas could enter Norse poetic imagination. The Danelaw and the wider Anglo-Scandinavian North Sea world were sustained environments of coexistence in which Scandinavian and English populations shared law, trade, settlement, patronage networks, and sacred space. Within that milieu, Norse elites, merchants, poets, migrants, and slaves moved through Christian institutions. Old Norse absorbed Christian vocabulary and concepts. And Christian monuments repeatedly re-framed Norse mythic material inside explicitly Christian visual and devotional programs. We are dealing with a documented setting in which transmission, adaptation, and symbolic recoding were normal features of life. The burden of proof therefore shifts. The question is no longer whether Christianity could have influenced Voluspa, but how that influence would most likely have entered the poem. Therefore, we are ready to investigate the availability of manuscripts in this Danelaw milieu which might have influenced Voluspa.

III.

One initial issue with introducing candidates for textual influence would be explaining the mechanism of how the given Latin or Old English manuscript might have been ‘accessed’ by the nameless skald compositor. Each theory requires certain preconditions or presuppositions about how the compositor might have gained access to the texts, been literate enough to understand them, or some other form of deep speculation or special-pleading. Furthermore - short of some new discovery - it is unlikely if we will ever know anything meaningful about the compositor by which we might better assess the probability of each theory. However, this reasonable objection wrongly assumes direct private reading as the only route of transmission. It assumes that, for Christian material to shape Voluspa, the nameless skaldic compositor must have consulted a specific manuscript, possessed enough literacy in Latin or Old English to understand it, and then deliberately transferred its contents into Norse verse. That assumed narrative is not a historically realistic scenario by which Christian material could have reached the compositor. This is because, even for most laypeople in the early-Medieval world, Christianity was effectively an ‘oral tradition.’ Christians and non-Christians alike would have predominantly encountered Christianity through public images, repeated liturgical acts, spoken catechetical instruction, feast-day festivals, homilies, and the very ‘being-in-the-world’ of diosisan life generally. Books mattered, of course, but mainly only for the clerical reservoir behind what ordinary people heard and saw. This means that the real question should be ‘what Christian narratives, images, and doctrinal sequences were publicly available to a hearer in the Anglo-Scandinavian world?’ This is a much more modest and historically-viable argument, but it is also more historically-viable.

Now, a Heathen might still object that ‘because the language of the Church was Latin and most people in the Danelaw would have spoken Old English or Old Norse, an oral culture still does not make the hypothesis of Christian influence any more viable.’ Yet the historical evidence, specifically as it relates to the Anglo-Scandinavian world of this period, cuts against that objection. The canons of the Council of Clofesho in 747 (canons 10-11) required priests to learn how to explain in their own language the creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the sacred words used in the Mass and in baptism. They were also to instruct the faithful in the creed and in the renunciations and professions made at baptism. In 813 AD both the Council of Tours ordered that bishops should have homilies translated into rustic Romance or German so the people can understand and the Council of Reims similarly directed that sermons and homilies of the Fathers should be preached in the vernacular “so that all may understand.” Thirty years later in 847 AD, the Council of Mainz would repeat this directive. We also know this was actually carried-out, too. Bede himself told a counterpart those who know only their “proper tongue” are to be taught the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer in that tongue, with Bede saying that he had often given unlearned priests English translations of texts.

Nor was this merely a pastoral ideal that existed in ecclesial rhetoric. The manuscript record shows clergy repeatedly building vernacular access into Biblical and liturgical materials. The Vespasian Psalter preserves one of the earliest surviving Old English Biblical glossing practices, with an interlinear English gloss added to parts of the Psalter in the early Ninth Century. By the later Tenth Century in the Northumbrian orbit, Aldred had added his complete Old English interlinear gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels. The same general milieu also produced the glossed Durham Ritual, where Aldred supplied Old English for most of a Latin liturgical book. The Red Book of Darley, a portable liturgical book from about 1060 AD associated with Derbyshire in the Danelaw sphere, contains a wide range of practical rites for parish use, including baptismal material with instructions in Old English. Likewise, the Taunton Fragment preserves a rare bilingual homiletic witness in alternating Latin and Old English prose. And as one scholar notes about the Eleventh Century ‘Taunton Fragment,’ saying it is “a fragmentary bilingual witness in which each Latin clause alternates with its English translation,” which suggests that the ‘Homiliary of Angers’ “was available in Old English as well as Latin in England before the Conquest.” This proves that the clergy who handled scriptural and liturgical books were working in a bilingual mode and equipping Latin materials for vernacular use.

A still skeptical reader should not suspect that this bilingual habit was simply a ‘local improvisation.’ Historically, it was a systematic and concerted effort. After the near-collapse of ecclesiastical book-culture in the 860s AD - when Viking war and sociopolitical dislocations caused manuscript production in England to effectively halt - King Alfred orchestrated a deliberate renaissance of bilingual literacy. In the Preface to his Old English translation of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, he laments that “[...] very few [could] translate a single letter from Latin into English.” Alfred also recalls churches “filled with [...] books” that people could not read “because they were not written in their own language.” So he set policies to translate “the books most needful” and to ensure “that all the youth now in England [learn] until they can well read English; and afterwards [the advanced] be taught Latin.” He matched this with institutions. A court-school teaching in English and Latin, an ambitious vernacular translation program, and the distribution of books to every bishopric. Under later reformers, especially in the circles associated with Winchester, Aethelwold, Aelfric, and the York-Durham orbit, that pedagogical world only became more stable. Nor was England unique in this. The Heliand is itself a vernacular rewriting of the Gospel story for a Germanic-speaking audience, and modern scholarship describes it as a work meant to evangelize, edify catechumens, reinforce orthodoxy, and demonstrate that the Old Saxon vernacular was capable of carrying scriptural knowledge. Otfrid of Weissenburg self-consciously argues for vernacular Christian poetry when he asks, in effect, ‘why the Franks alone should fail to sing God’s praise in their own language.’ These are not random Continental curiosities. They show that, across the wider Carolingian and Germanic world, Christian authorities were perfectly willing to move biblical matter into the vernacular for teaching and poetic expression. England was not inventing a strange exception. It was participating in a broader Christian habit of translation, paraphrase, and vernacular instruction.

Given this, we no longer need to imagine that the compositor of Voluspa was a ‘private reader of Latin texts’ in order to explain Christian parallels in the poem. A Norse poet moving through the Anglo-Scandinavian and North Sea world could have encountered Christian cosmology, salvation-history, and eschatology simply through visiting a church or hearing a homily. With a similar understanding, John McKinnel has put forward a straightforward and historically viable thesis which accounts for most of the data we are attempting to explain. The thesis is that the compositor of Voluspa - whether they were Christian or Pagan - was someone who experienced the annual Saturday Easter Vigil liturgy and the Sunday Easter mass. That a significant portion of Voluspa’s imagery can be explained by a weekend experience (or even an experience over the course of about twelve hours) is both tantalizing, elegant, and parsimonious.

McKinnel uses a few liturgical texts from the Danelaw to build his argument, the most important being the Missal of Robert of Jumiegas (c. 1015 AD). An astute reader will immediately notice that this missal post-dates our speculated composition for Voluspa by more than fifty years. However, the Missal of Robert of Jumiegas is more of a ‘finished product’ from a period of harmonising Frankish-Roman readings with Anglo-Saxon customs, which was processed throughout the 900’s AD in the Winchester Books. Its readings are also broadly consistent with lectionaries being used in England since the 700’s. All of the lectionaries used during this period and long before it as well, list Genesis 1 for the first Easter Vigil reading and Mark 16:1-7 for the Easter Gospel reading. McKinnel uses the Missal of Robert Jumiegas in his argument because it’s the earliest, locally‐relevant, near-contemporary full witness to the Easter Vigil and Easter Day liturgy that preserves the complete sequence of readings, prayers, and chants that someone in the Danelaw would actually have experienced.

The first reading from the Easter Vigil service would have been Genesis 1:1-19 – the account of the first four days of Creation: separating light from darkness and land from water, the growth of vegetation, and the appointment of celestial bodies to govern day and night. As McKinnel notes:

“First, all the biblical parallels to the creation story in Voluspa occur in the same half-chapter of Genesis. Second, they appear in a similar though not identical order in both texts. Third, they contribute to a view of the creation in Voluspa which is significantly different from that shared by Vafthrudnismal and Grimnismal. Finally, it is possible to propose a simple and credible way in which Genesis 1 could have influenced the poet of Voluspa.”

The Missal of Robert of Jumiegas also notes that at the juncture when those who were still learning about the faith were instructed to leave so that only baptized Christians remained, there is a prayer in which Satan and his angels are vividly threatened with everlasting destruction and fire, mirroring Voluspa’s depictions of Surtr and the (veritably demonic) Sons of Muspell who are antagonists to the Aesir. McKinnel again notes:

“Interestingly, the features of the Easter Vigil service which are echoed in Voluspa all appear at the beginning and end of the service as it would have been experienced by a catechumen—just where we might expect images to remain most vividly in the memory of an illiterate poet”

By comparing the imagery in Voluspa with contemporary homilies such as Blickling Homily 7 and Vercilli Homily 2, McKinnel shows how the major themes and images from the second half of Voluspa could have metastasized from the Bible and Patristics to be delivered by a priest in vernacular within a single homily, including: falling stars, the blowing of a horn, a dragon bearing death, the new heaven and earth, and the wicked being punished among worms - all in a vivid, rapid-fire litany.

Although it seems likely that these catechetical paraphrases and the rampant apocalypticism of the era would be sufficient to explain the parallels, we must not exclude the possibility that - presuming they were Pagan - the compositor of Voluspa heard of these things second-hand, making their mystery or foreignness even more tantalizing. It is also possible that this liturgical experience was supplemented with interlocution with Christians after the fact or a prelude of explanations. Perhaps - and now we do risk speculation - a skald in the service of a nobleman accompanied his lord to the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday masses on a ‘diplomatic mission,’ after which the nobleman asked of his Christian counterparts about the mass, from which the skald became privy of other information.

Regardless, from this foundation, we can begin to compile a list of texts which might have been available to supplement Biblical readings. As we noted above, prior to King Alfred’s literacy reforms, monastic libraries like Wearmouth-Jarrow held “innumerable books of all descriptions.” This was due to bibliophiles such as Abbot Benedict Biscop who brought back volumes of works from Rome. The Venerable Bede’s works show direct use of these ‘imports.’ In his Commentary on Genesis, Bede explicitly cites Basil, Ambrose, and Augustine as his chief sources. He was also deeply familiar with Isidore of Seville, extensively using Isidore’s encyclopedic Etymologiae and related works (even while sometimes correcting Isidore). Etymologiae was also used as a standard reference at Canterbury’s archbishopric school by the late Seventh Century. Alcuin’s late-Eighth Century poem on the library of York lists the works of Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory the Great, Leo the Great, Basil of Caesarea, Cassiodorus, John Chrysostom, and Bede the Venerable among its treasures. This catalog of authorities demonstrates that by Alcuin’s time the major Latin Fathers and early Christian writers were collected in England’s ecclesiastical centers.

By the Tenth Century – even under Danelaw influence – English priests were actively adapting patristic material in their vernacular preaching. The anonymous Blickling Homilies (c. 970), likely compiled in Mercian territory, draw directly on Latin Patristic and apocryphal texts. For example, Blickling Homily II is largely an Old English translation of Pope Gregory the Great’s Second Gospel Homily, demonstrating how a Latin sermon by a Church Father could be rendered into the local tongue for edification during Mass. Another Blickling sermon (Homily I) is based on a spurious-Augustinian text on the creation of man (Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo de creatione hominis), indicating that even lesser-known patristic sermons were available to Anglo-Saxon preachers. Early-Medieval English homilists also incorporated apocryphal Christian lore that had circulated among the Fathers. A striking case is the ‘Fifteen Signs Before Doomsday’ list of apocalyptic images which originated in the Apocalypse of Thomas. The same material appears in Old English in both Blickling Homily X (on the end of the world) and Vercelli Homily IV. The presence of the same detailed eschatological legend in these two separate Tenth Century collections (Blickling from Mercia and Vercelli derived from the south) points to a common Latin source that English monks had obtained and translated. In other words, English ecclesiastical centres demonstrably held apocryphal materials and parallels in contemporaneous vernacular preaching show that those materials had entered pastoral circulation. We even see Patristic learning in poetic form with the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood, which exalts a theology of the Crucifixion through the perspective of the Cross itself. This poem was inscribed in runes on the Ruthwell Cross in Northumbria by the Eighth Century, which shows how learned Christian poetry (likely composed by monastic authors under patristic influence) had spread through the Church and was used for public devotion in the Danelaw region well before Norse presence there. Likewise, Biblical paraphrase poems such as Genesis A and Christ and Satan, composed between 600-800 AD (probably in Northumbria or Mercia), both also draw on stories about the ‘Fall of Satan’ and the ‘Harrowing of Hell’ from non-Biblical ‘folklore’ and material from apocryphal Gospels. This yet further attests to a robust Anglian monastic literary culture steeped in Patristics.

Aelfric of Eynsham, writing c. 990 AD, compiled his Catholic Homilies in Old English and explicitly drew on sources like Gregory, Bede, Augustine, and Jerome, so that “ordinary folk” could hear orthodox doctrine. Although Aelfric wrote in Wessex, his works spread to the Danelaw. At York, Archbishop Wulfstan adopted and adapted many of Aelfric’s homilies into his own collections. Writing in the early-Eleventh Century, Wulfstan peppered his Old English sermons with authoritative material from the Church Fathers while also using the local West Saxon literary dialect infused with Norse terms to reach his Anglo-Scandinavian audience. For instance, in his famous Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (c. 1014 AD), preaching to a people beleaguered by Danish attacks, Wulfstan invokes the approaching Apocalypse in tones reminiscent of Gregory and Bede, and uses the Norse-derived word lagu (“law”) to describe “God’s law.” This choice is not incidental: for much of his career Wulfstan was Archbishop of York, a see with a significant Scandinavian population, and modern scholarship notes that lagu is a characteristic feature of his vocabulary, which he regularly prefers over the native Old English ae. Nor was he only a preacher. Wulfstan was also deeply involved in royal governance, helping draft law codes for Aethelred II and later for Cnut, so that his works stand at the intersection of Christian exhortation, legal discourse, and the Anglo-Scandinavian world of the north. Meanwhile, English libraries continued acquiring new Patristic material from the Continent. By the early-Eleventh Century, we find evidence of Carolingian-era commentaries in England. Copies of Hrabanus Maurus’ Expositio in Apocalypsim (a Ninth Century commentary on Revelations) and specific excerpts from Augustine’s City of God – including the Sibylline Oracles about Christ and the apocalypse – were both present in England.

Thus, throughout the 800-1000 AD period and beyond, English priests and bishops had ready access to Patristic writings both old and new. They cited the Church Fathers directly in Latin, translated their wisdom into the vernacular, and wove quotes or themes from them into homilies. The presence of Patristic authorities in book lists, the copying of their texts in local scriptoria, and the echoes of their words in Anglo-Saxon sermons all provide direct evidence that the treasures of the Fathers – from Ambrose and Augustine to Gregory, Isidore, Bede, and others – wound up in the homilies of Anglo-Saxon England, profoundly shaping the religious culture even in the far reaches of the Danelaw. Each generation of preachers drew from that wellspring of early Christian wisdom to address their own times, ensuring a continuous Patristic presence in Medieval English preaching alongside the Bible itself.

IV.

Let us recap. Voluspa matters for modern Heathens because it is perhaps the clearest and most influential single witness to Medieval Norse mythology that has survived, and is therefore essential in order to reconstruct pre-Christian Norse-Germanic theology. My argument began by noting that Volupsa and the Bible present concentrated, parallel sequences of creation, anthropogony, catastrophe, and renewal. That pattern forced the issue of explaining ‘how’ or ‘why’ these parallels exist. After investigating the ‘hypothesis of polygenesis’ and the ‘hypothesis of Indo-European inheritance,’ neither could better explain why these motifs appear in clusters, in a similar order, in the same narrative positions, and doing comparable theological work. Therefore, the ‘hypothesis of Latin-Christian influence’ on Voluspa was investigated.

From there, the argument established that given the dating of Voluspa c. 950 AD, Christian influence is historically plausible even long before that date. The Norse world did not develop in a ‘sealed Pagan vacuum’ and then suddenly encounter Christianity at the edge of the Millennium. Rather, for centuries prior, Germanic-speaking peoples had already been exposed to Roman prestige, Latin vocabulary, Christian communities, missionary activity, royal conversion, and the wider political order of Christendom. By the time Voluspa was composed, Scandinavians had already experienced generations of contact with Christian institutions and symbolic forms. This does not mean that Christianity invented the Voluspa nor that every element in it is derivative. Rather, it means that the appeal to a ‘pristine and untouched indigenous horizon’ becomes difficult (if not impossible) to sustain.

The next move, however, was to go beyond a broad historical possibility and identify a concrete mechanism of transmission. Based on the evidence surveyed, I propose that the Danelaw is the best-documented pipeline that simultaneously satisfies the necessary criteria to determine the ‘site of influence’ (even if it was not the only possible milieu in the wider North Sea world). In the Anglo-Scandinavian zone of the Danelaw, Christians and Pagans lived beside one another in a way that inculcated ‘cultural bilingualism’ and directly allowed Scandinavians to experience Christendom for long periods of time. Goods and people circulated constantly as well, with skalds and rulers moving through English courts. Languages mixed. Missionary pressure remained active and many Pagan aristocrats were baptized for various reasons. Christian monuments repeatedly absorbed and re-signified Norse mythic material in ways that could be described as ‘evangelizing.’ In other words, the Danelaw functioned as a ‘translation zone’ where Christian discourse was not simply present in the abstract, but made available in forms that Scandinavians could absorb, repurpose, and carry northward.

Once that milieu is recognized, the transmission model becomes much more historically realistic. The argument proposed that transmission ran chiefly through liturgy and homily in the devotional life of the Church, where most Christians would have received their own understanding of the Latin-Christian mythology. In such a setting, Biblical images and Patristic exegesis could be heard, remembered, paraphrased, and then re-voiced inside a native mythic matrix without requiring ‘direct, scholastic textual research’ by the compositor of Voluspa. That is why the Danelaw matters so much for this question. It was not merely a frontier of conflict, but an incubator in which Christian-Latin imagery and theological grammar could be naturalized in Anglo-Scandinavian speech before being refracted back into Norse poetic tradition. Given the argument, Voluspa becomes far less secure as a ‘transparent window’ into an ‘untouched Pagan mythos,’ and the Heathen reconstruction becomes correspondingly compromised. The poem must be read as a text standing downstream from centuries of Latin-Christian contact and, very likely, from a specific Anglo-Scandinavian milieu in which Biblical imagery and Christian theological structures had already entered Norse speech and imagination. The result is that the modern Heathen appeal to Voluspa as straightforward evidence of an ancestral religion is not strengthened by the historical evidence, but destabilized by it.

The next step, then, is to demonstrate in the text itself how much of Voluspa has been colored by Latin-Christian discourse. Therefore, in the next article, I will be working through Voluspa stanza-by-stanza and providing a commentary on where and how specific Biblical and Christian-liturgical patterns were absorbed, adapted, and re-voiced within the poem’s native mythic framework. Let us close in prayer:

“O God, who chose the Bishop Saint Patrick to preach your glory to the peoples of Ireland, grant, through his merits and intercession, that those who glory in the name of Christ may never cease to proclaim your wondrous deeds to all. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

Amen.

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Some of the material I reference in this article can be found in these articles from my on-going series:

• https://substack.com/@enasmathetes/p-184233799 [Part I, Section I (Folkish Heathen Apologetics)]

• https://substack.com/@enasmathetes/p-185771288 [Part I, Section II (Folkish Heathen Morality)]

• https://substack.com/@enasmathetes/p-189370815 [Part I, Section III (Folkish Heathen Psychology)]

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The first Christian claim that Aodhan responds to is: ‘Pagans worship demons.’ His rebuttal to this claim is essentially threefold: ‘the etymology of the words being used,’ ‘Israelite religious evolution,’ and ‘the lack of awareness of pre-Christian ancestors.’ Firstly, the etymological work he articulates completely ignores the actual Christian argument. Etymology is about a word’s origin, not its actual meaning or use at any given point, nor the truth-value of the doctrine expressed through the words. So even though divinity and daimon once had a broad sense (“spirit being” or “divine being”), Christians are not making a historical, lexical claim. They are making a substantive theological judgment about the nature of Historic Pagan cults. So the etymology-talk of ‘your word used to mean X’ doesn’t really address that the Christian condemnation is oriented to what the practice is or spiritual beings are, not the definition of what terms meant before Christian use. The meaning of words changes and can be different depending on context. Therefore, Aodhan should have addressed what Christians are actually saying demons are and why that use applies to Historic Pagan gods. Once daimon is used in the New Testament to designate hostile or disordered spirits, then that is the definition which Aodhan must argue against.

Secondly, the theory of religious evolution in historic Israelite worship. In Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism?, Michael Heiser argues that modern labels (polytheism, monolatry, henotheism, monotheism) can be anachronistic and can force the false-choice of historic Israelite religion either being ‘full philosophical monotheism’ or ‘Israel was basically pagan.’ But the Old Testament never denies the existence of spiritual entities, plural. The Hebrew of Psalm 82 distinguishes Elohim (singular) presiding “in the council,” among other elohim (plural) as ‘the spiritual being’ and ‘spiritual beings.’ Similarly with Deuteronomy 32:8, the passage depicts ‘the nations’ being apportioned among subordinate divine beings while Yahweh claims his own self-allotted portion in Israel. Heiser’s specific critique is that the standard ‘religious evolution narrative’ can become circular where it assumes monotheism excludes a council of elohim, then uses the presence of council language as proof of Israelite religion being ‘non-monotheistic.’ That conclusion simply does not follow from the textual nor the archaeological data.

In the pre-Exilic Period, the Israelites were probably best considered monolatrous or something similar because there are constant mentions of their “infidelity” to Yahweh. The Old Testament is rife with examples of Israel worshipping other gods (depicted as being a moral ‘wrong’), so I have no issue with the archaeological evidence supporting that. Therefore, when inscriptions suggest syncretism among some Israelites, it does not follow that Biblical Yahwism is ‘just henotheism’ or that Yahweh ‘only became the one God very late.’ It more cleanly supports that there was contested practice on the ground concurrent with an ongoing Yahweh-alone polemic, which is supported by the texts. It is also true that the texts support a more ‘absolute monotheism’ in the post-Exilic Period, but this would still be consistent with the overall narrative if Israel genuinely did feel that God had punished them for their infidelity to ‘lesser spiritual beings.’ Regardless, I will be addressing this historic criticism more in Part III of my series - for the time being, however, I hope this quick refutation is sufficient to show how the idea that ‘the Bible and archeology acknowledge the existence of and worship other spiritual entities in historic Israelite religion’ does not actually evidence the Pagan position on this subject.

Thirdly, Aodhan makes a strange argument toward the end of this section on ‘demons.’ He says that:

“our ancestors had no conception of any Israeli religion until Christianity, so there is no way that our ancestors could’ve worshiped Satan and his fallen angels. They worshiped the All-Father, and that worship formed thousands of years before Israel even became a tribe.”

Christians are not claiming that their ancestors had to know the Israelite vocabulary of ‘Satan’ and ‘demon’ in order for idolatrous worship to be defined as such, nor to be spiritually real. What we are claiming is that idolatry is ‘objectively misdirected worship’ that gives divine honor to created things and so it can involve communion with hostile spirits. Paul makes the point explicit in Romans 1:25, when he says that Pagans worship the Creation or the creatures of Creation rather than the Creator. This is true even when the worshipers think they are honoring ancestral gods (Deuteronomy 32:17; 1 Corinthians 10:20), because the Christian charge being leveled is about the real spiritual recipient of idolatrous sacrifice, not about the worshiper’s vocabulary. But while Aodhan fails to argue if we can call Pagan gods ‘demons,’ he doesn’t address the real question of if we should call Pagan gods ‘demons.’ To a Christian, a demon that very ‘created spiritual intellect’ that has definitively turned away from God, seeks to draw rational creatures into false worship and moral disorder, and may present itself under the guise of gods, ancestors, or forces of nature. Therefore, to a Christian, any finite spiritual power (real or imagined) that receives cultic honor in place of the Creator and mediates a do-ut-des bargaining relationship with worshipers belongs under the category of ‘demonic,’ regardless of whatever name its devotees use. So the Christian claim is not that our ancestors consciously ‘served Satan in Israelite terms,’ but that whenever they gave divine honor to creatures rather than the Creator, they entered into the very pattern Scripture identifies as idolatry to demons.

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The second Christian claim that Aodhan responds to is that ‘Pagan sacrifices (animal and human) proves that Paganism is immoral.’ His rebuttal to this claim is again essentially threefold: ‘Jews did animal sacrifices too,’ ‘Jesus was a human sacrifice,’ and ‘not all Pagan human sacrifices were bad.’ Firstly, the historic reality of Israelite animal sacrifice is entirely uncontestable. However, in the Old Testament, sacrifice is never treated as a ‘magic lever’ that comprises one’s religious duties or substitutes for ethics. Animal sacrifices are treated as ‘preparatory’ and ultimately inadequate, setting up the claim that Christ’s self-offering is their fulfillment, with the Letter to the Hebrews explicitly saying that the Mosaic Law (including its sacrificial cult) is “only a shadow of the good things to come, not the realities themselves” (**). Galatians 3:19 even says that the Mosaic Law “was added because of transgressions” until the promised ‘seed’ came. Indeed, there are Scriptural reasons to believe that the Law was instituted to accommodate Israel’s weakness after their incident with the Golden Calf. Similarly, Aodhan’s ‘gotcha’ of the Kapparot ‘chicken ritual’ galls flat because it is a late custom in some Jewish communities - it isn’t ‘Temple sacrifice’ or Christian liturgy.

Now, Aodhan also states that there are “multiple references to human sacrifice and the burning pits of Sheol, or the valleys where jewish women would sacrifice their children to Moloch or Baal.” This is again a misunderstanding of the texts (which are not cited). Firstly, the “burning pits of Sheol” is a conflation of the Christian Gehenna/Hell with the the Jewish Sheol - these are different concepts. Whereas Hell is a place where God’s fiery nature burns (whereas in Purgatory it refines and Heaven it warms) and Deuteronomy 32:22 says that God’s wrath is a fire that “burns to the depths of Sheol,” Sheol itself is most often depicted as the abode of the dead or a quintessential ‘underworld.’ Over time, in later Jewish literature and then in Christ’s own preaching, the imagery of judgment sharpens around Gehenna - the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem associated with child sacrifice and burning - such that Gehenna becomes the image of final condemnation while Sheol remains the generic term for the ‘realm of the dead.’ Catholic theology records Sheol as the state of the dead prior to Christ’s Paschal victory whereas Genenna/Hell is the definitive state of self-excluded separation and punishment. The material that Aodhan is referencing about women sacrificing their children in a burning valley is precisely the Gehenna imagery that Christ evokes to warn that the same fate - fiery destruction - awaits those who turn to idolatry. Secondly, there are no records of ‘child sacrifice’ in the Bible which are depicted as positive or ‘according to God’s will.’ The near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 is paradigmatic because God explicitly interrupts Abraham and provides a ram in place of the boy, with the entire episode being a ‘test of obedience,’ (and a foreshadowing of Christ’s sacrifice) not an endorsement of killing one’s offspring. Leviticus 20:2-5 says that if someone gives a child to Molech, they “shall surely be put to death.” Deuteronomy 18:10 says that anyone who makes a child “pass through the fire [...] must never be found among you.” and Deuteronomy 12:31 lists child-burning among the “detestable” practices that God hates.

Secondly, Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is not a ‘human sacrifice’ at all. The statement that Aodhan makes about “the death of Jesus on the cross was a blood sacrifice of Yahweh himself to purchase the souls of mankind from Satan, who had us trapped in the sinful fall of man ever since Eden” is not only a misunderstanding but a total caricature of Christianity. Christian teaching does not say whatsoever that God pays Satan or that Satan has some legitimate claim God must satisfy. Scripture presents Christ as freely offering Himself to the Father “in love” (Ephesians 5:2) and “through the eternal Spirit” (Hebrews 9:14), not as a commodity transferred to the devil. When the New Testament uses “ransom” language (Mark 10:45 ; 1 Timothy 2:6), it is describing liberation from sin and death by effectively performing metaphysical judo against Satan to bring humanity back into a properly-ordered relationship with God. Christ’s death is the “unique and definitive sacrifice” (CCC 614-618) that accomplishes redemption and restores communion with God, not a human rite performed to feed or bargain with God or Satan. Likewise, Christ’s death on the Cross is not a ‘human sacrifice’ in the Heathen sense of ‘people killing another person’to appease a god,’ but is instead the unique self-offering of the one divine Person of the Son, who possesses a fully human nature (fully human and fully God, not a demi-god blend) and offers His life to the Father, so that the victim is genuinely human yet the subject who offers and is offered is God Himself. This places the cosmic event of the Crucifixian - which the Bible captures as: “the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelations 13:8) - in an entirely different category from ‘human sacrifice.’ Therefore, Aodhan completely misunderstands the most central piece of Christian doctrine: the atonement of the Crucifixian itself.

Thirdly, to respond to Aodhan’s point about ‘not all Pagan sacrifices were bad,’ I am going to dump my section from Part I, Article II (The Wolf Runs Free: Refuting Folkish Heathen Morality):

Even in ancient times, the Romans recorded the Germanic peoples performing human sacrifices. Tacitus (Annals 13.57) notes that the Hermunduri tribe “had devoted, in the event of victory, the enemy’s army to Mars and Mercury, a vow which consigns horses, men, everything indeed on the vanquished side to destruction,” which is the religiously-framed extermination of the defeated side. According to Sidonius Apollinaris, (Epistulae 8.6) when setting sail from Continental Europe, the Saxons would cast lots and “abandon every tenth captive to the slow agony of a watery end.” Later Christian chroniclers preserve similar reports. Thietmar of Merseburg (Chronicon 1.17) records human sacrifices at Lejre in Zealand where every nine years, ninety-nine people were sacrificed along with as many horses, dogs, and roosters. The Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae lawcode imposed on the Saxon by Charlemagne after their defeat prescribes the death penalty for anyone who sacrifices another person, treating the prohibition as a real deterrent against a real possibility. Perhaps the most widely-known account of Norse-Germanic human sacrifice though is from Adam of Bremen, (Gesta Hammaburgensis, bk. 4) who records that at nine year intervals, nine male victims of various species - including humans - were offered up at the Uppsala Temple, with bodies hung in the sacred grove adjacent to it.

A common Folkish Heathen response to these attestations of human sacrifice or other acts which we might now consider ‘heinous’ or ‘barbaric’ is to say that ‘these are propagandistic slanders from foreign sources.’ Yet in the Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 10) - an Icelandic record - there is a description of Thor’s stone in a cultic-legal setting where convicted criminals are sacrificed. Likewise, in Guta saga (ch. 1) there is discussion of how the island of Gotland was legally-politically divided and the manner of sacrifice offered at each division, with the ‘highest’ (the island as a whole) offering human sacrifices. Now, the Folkish Heathen is quick to accept these accounts because it allows them to say that ‘this is emblematic of how these sacrifices were perpetuated against criminals or for the good of the folk,’ yet there are many other native accounts of human sacrifices being performed without a legal context.

In Orkney saga (ch. 8), Haralds saga (ch. 13), and Reginsmal (st. 26) the infamous ‘blood eagle’ is performed - where the back is cut open and the lungs are pulled through to give the body ‘wings’ (like an eagle) - with the scene framed as an offering to Odin. There seems to be a depiction of the ‘blood eagle’ or some other form of human sacrifice on the Stora Hammars I stone, which shows a valknut symbol (often associated with Odin) above the scene of a man with a spear leaning over the back of another figure, who is laying on a table. In Styrbjarnar thattr Sviakappa, (ch. 2) Eirikr goes to an Odin temple on the night before a battle and “gives himself” to Odin for victory, bargaining for ten more years of life before Odin takes him. Soon after, a hooded figure tells him to shoot a reed over the enemy forces and say “Odin owns you all.” When Eirikr does this, his enemies are struck with blindness and a landslide destroys the force, granting victory in the story. Eirikr essentially sacrifices himself and all of his enemies to Odin in exchange for victory. In Sigurdarkvida in skamma (st. 65), the valkyrie Brynhildr instructs that “five slave women” and “eight male slaves” are to be killed to follow Sigurd in death as part of his funeral-pyre arrangements. There are also reports in Kristni saga (ch. 12) of men being sacrificed on the four corners of Iceland in the hope of invoking the gods’ favor to resist the spread of Christianity.

Now, a Folkish Heathen response to these accounts might be to say that ‘because the folk believed itself to be descended from the gods, it would not make sense to sacrifice one of their own kin and the sources are vague on who is being sacrificed here, so we can presume that this was all against the utangard, which is consistent with our morality.’ However, there are other accounts where the human sacrifice explicitly involves the jarl elite and named kin making human sacrifices to Norse deities. In Jomsvikinga saga (ch. 32) during a fierce battle, King Hakon first attempts offering ‘conventional sacrifices’ to the goddesses Thorgedr Holgabrudr and her sister, Irpa. After these sacrifices are rejected, Hakon ultimately sacrifices his own seven‑year‑old son, Erlingr, which is depicted as bringing about a sudden storm of hail and thunder that turns the tide against Hakon’s enemies, allowing him to be victorious. This sacrifice of the boy-prince by his father is therefore something which elicits the favor of the goddesses. In Ynglinga saga (ch. 18), King Domaldi’s reign is framed by “great famine and distress,” prompting the Swedes at Uppsala to escalate the ‘quality’ of the offerings until they offer up people. This still does not bring any improvement. The chiefs conclude the dire situation has been brought about on account of Domaldi himself, and so they kill the king and “sprinkle the stalle of the gods with his blood.” The saga immediately contrasts this with his successor’s reign having “good seasons and peace,” presenting the king’s death as a fertility-transaction under cultic logic. Another emblematic episode is found in Ynglinga saga (ch. 29) where King Aun performs “a great sacrifice” in which he offers up his son to Odin, receiving the stark reply that this purchase of favor will buy him sixty more years of life. The account then escalates the bargain into a grisly rhythm. Aun sacrifices son after son “every tenth year,” until he is prevented from sacrificing the final son. When the sacrifice is halted, King Aun dies. In all of these episodes, human sacrifices are performed on nobility, children, and kin which grants the gods’ favor in their obliging of the requests …

Now, the Folkish Heathen might say that ‘these texts have been corrupted or otherwise do not reflect the historic norm.’ Given the excess of prior evidence - especially when the Folkish Heathen will often use a single textual mention of something as a warrant for other more innocuous moral or liturgical acts - and the fact that these texts are how reconstruction can occur at all, this would be a very self-undermining position to take. But even granting it for the sake of argument, we can also look to archeological evidence. The historic phenomenon of ‘bog bodies’ dating from the Bronze Age to Medieval times was something which Northern European peoples performed by depositing animal and human remains in wetland areas. This phenomenon is often ‘memed’ about by Folkish Heathens in how they often presume the bodies were criminal executions, with any modern opposition to Folkish Heathens needing to be ‘bogged’. Now, due to the nature of archeological evidence, it is impossible to know if the bog body examples are criminal executions or human sacrifices in the sense of them being ‘religiously motivated liturgical killings’. However, there are numerous examples which do show indication of ritual killing immediately before deposition - and not all are adults.

One database records two-hundred sixty-six sites and over one-thousand remains stretching from Ireland to Sweden, to Germany and the Netherlands. In the Uppland region of eastern-Sweden, there is a site with fifty-two human deposits including one child. Five of these people had received cranial wounds immediately before their deposition, which led to their death. There is also evidence from bone cut-marks without any signs of healing that suggest the bodies were carved up and dismembered after death. Other individual examples like the Tollund Man, who was hanged before being carefully placed into a bog, do not give any definitive motive for why they were killed, only that it was done with great care as he was not being treated like a criminal. Those who executed him covered his eyes and closed his mouth before his deposition. The Grauballe Man is an interesting example however because it would appear that the identification of a motive is possible. His final meal “contained plants and grains from the entire agricultural year” indicating that there was some sort of association with the fertility of the land, though the true motivation is certainly lost to time. Shortly after the meal, he had his throat slit and was deposited into a bog.

The ritualism of hanging is attested to not only in its similarities with the textual record (Odin hanging himself on Yggdrasil, the Uppsala Temple’s hanged bodies, etc.) but also with the Elling Woman who was twenty-five years old when she was hanged, killed, and deposited a mere fifty-five yards away from where the Tollund Man was discovered (perhaps both were sacrificed to the same god). The Netherlands’ Yde Girl was not hanged but instead strangled and stabbed before being deposited in a bog. She was sixteen years old when she was killed. The Kayhausen Boy from Lower-Saxony is another example of a young person being executed. His arms and feet were bound and he was stabbed four times: three times in the neck and once in his left arm, with the arm wound possibly evidencing his resistance to the act. He was ten years old when he was killed. Obviously, these latter examples show the possibility that these killings were not just of people ‘hostile to the stability of the folk’ and therefore take on a much different moral character.

It is not that the data is confined to one particular site and then extrapolated across Northern Europe, but rather that these bog deposits reflect a consistent archeological grammar which is evidenced across the Germanic world, independently corroborating the textual record. Therefore, when we read accounts from eyewitnesses about the barbarity of this world, we should be hesitant to hand-wave them away. For example, at first glance, the description of a Frisian custom where lottery-selected human sacrifices - including children - were regularly hung and offered to local gods, as related in the Vita Vulframni (ch. 6-8) from the 8th Century seems to be nothing more than Christian slander against their enemies. But when we compare it with other sources and archeological evidence, the account becomes actually very likely. Therefore, we can see how Folkish Heathens must acknowledge that human sacrifice is an integral part of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs that they appeal to in their reconstructions. Nobody was exempt from the possibility of being sacrificed to a god, not even one’s own children.

Now, Aodhan has actually already responded to all of this information, telling me that:

“You wrote a long article with lots of information, most of the source material has been interpreted without a strong archaeological understanding, or a strong linguistic understanding, or a strong theological understanding. I cannot respond to this without writing a similarly long article. This is something I am uninterested in doing.”

Yet how this response is supposed to exonerate his position still remains to be articulated … Therefore, we will move on to his next critique.

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The third Christian claim that Aodhan responds to is: ‘Christianity created European Civilization.’ His rebuttal to this claim is essentially three-fold: ‘pre-Christian Europe was already civilized,’ ‘Christianity is spiritually Jewish,’ and ‘Jews are in Europe.’ First, I agree that Christianity did not civilize Europe or create Europeans ex nihilo. Christianity reordered existing material. There is total continuity genetically and linguistically between pre-Christian and post-Christian populations in Europe, meaning that what changed was the religion, laws, and institutions. But this is what most Christians would argue as well, with their emphasis being on defining ‘the West’ or ‘Western Civilization’ as Christian, not all of European history. But because Western Civilization has existed for the past 1500-1000 years throughout Europe, denying that Christianity is constitutive for European civilization is like saying ‘Roman law added nothing essential because Italians existed before the Twelve Tables.’

Secondly, it is absolutely the case that Christianity has spiritual roots in Judaism. This is undeniable, and to deny is to radically untether Christianity from all of its most meaningful content. However, the superficial jab of this observation being meant in a derisive way only has any effect if one assumes in advance that the God of the Bible is not real or not universally apt. This is because if Israel’s God is real and the narrative of the Bible is accurate, then worshipping Him in Christ is not ‘foreignizing European,’ but instead it sees Europeans turning from false gods to the real one. If it is all not true, then you don’t need ethnos-talk at all because Christianity can fail on truth-grounds. I have shown in Part I, Article I of my on-going series how the Heathen instinct to pivot to ancestry-talk rather than truth-talk fails here. But if the God of Israel is the actually really-real Creator, then any true worship of Him by any nation will be “spiritually Jewish” in the sense that it is grafted into Israel’s revelation (Paul’s olive-tree image in Romans 11) - a revelation that was always meant to be ‘for all nations’ from the start …

Thirdly, there being Jews in Europe is a demographic observation, not a theological argument. Jews have been a small minority inside a civilization whose core institutions - parishes, dioceses, canon law, monasteries, universities, hospitals - are European and Christian (‘Western’) in origin, not Jewish. And again: the fact that Christianity worships the God of Israel is only a problem if you’ve already decided that the God of Israel is false. If He is the true Creator, then Europeans don’t become ‘less European’ by turning from Woden or Zeus to the real God. They only become Europeans rightly ordered to the truth. Indeed, it was the pagan emperor Julian (“the Apostate”) who tried to curry Jewish favor by authorizing the rebuilding of their Temple precisely to spite the Christians. There were also many Jewish communities within the Roman Empire prior to the advent of Christianity - so I’m not sure what his argument is even getting at considering that Historic Paganism would not meet his expectations either. This shows that weaponizing Jewish presence against Christianity is a Historic Pagan political tactic and predates the conversion of Northern-Europe. I will have much more to say on this in Part III of my ongoing series.

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The fourth Christian claim that Aodhan responds to is: ‘Liberals love Paganism and use it against Christianity.’ I don’t really see this as an argument and I would rebuke Christians who make it because it does not address the content of Folkish Heathenry. Regardless, the three rebuttals that Aodhan makes which I want to address are: ‘Christians are forced to chastise their Historic Pagan ancestors,’ ‘Boniface got what was coming to him,’ and ‘Jews love Paul and gloat.’ Firstly, Christianity does not force me to despise my pagan ancestors. What it does is give me the insight to be able to be honest about them. The Folkish Heathen framing sets up a false dilemma of either ‘glorifying all ancestors’ or ‘rejecting Pagan ancestors.’ In reality though, one should instead distinguish between ‘loving their forebears’ and ‘endorsing everything they believed or did.’ I can be grateful for the life, courage, and sacrifices of my great-grandfather while rejecting and learning from some of his behavior or his failings. That is not hatred, it is moral honesty. There is another factor of this dilemma which Folksh Heathens gloss-over: how it applies to them. The attempt to weaponize ancestry against Christianity logically ends with the Heathen condemning their Christian ancestors as duped, weak, or traitorous, meaning that they themselves ‘chastise their ancestors’ when those ancestors embraced a faith they currently reject. Therefore, the real issue is no longer ‘who loves their ancestors,’ but ‘whose judgment about God and worship is true.’ And that is the point which Heathens attempt to avoid the most.

But Aodhan might respond that ‘how can you say you honor your pre-Christian ancestors when you believe they are in Hell?’ Lumen gentium 16 teaches that those who, through no fault of their own, did not know the Gospel but sincerely sought God and followed conscience (Whose law is etched onto our hearts and apparent through Creation) might attain salvation. Whatever truth, goodness, and beauty existed in the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs can even be a preparation for the Gospel. So I am not required to spit on my forebears or pretend they are all damned. I am required to love them, pray for them, thank God for whatever truth and virtue they lived, but also, I must refuse to call their idols ‘true gods.’ Simply put: Catholicism lets me honor my fathers without worshipping them.

Secondly, Aodhan makes an interesting claim about Saint Boniface:

“When St. Boniface cut down Donar’s Oak (Thor’s Oak) the Frisians responded by cutting him down; 2+2=4, right? Later, the Christian Kings forcibly converted the Frisians.”

This view is also shared by the Hearthfire Radio group, (Pagan Apologetics IV - Refuting More Christian Arguments) with hosts Tristan and Dave getting specifically content in their description of Boniface’s murder. But what does the historical record say? … Let us examine the timeline at play here. Boniface cut down Donnar’s Oak in present-day Central-Southwestern Germany c. 723 AD. Boniface was killed in present-day Northwest Netherlands c. 754 AD, which means that there is a difference of three decades between the cutting of the Oak and his murder, and it occurred in an entirely different tribal zone. The specific area in Frisia (Dokkum) where Boniface was martyred was near a busy river trading route which was notorious for piracy and radiating in the mid-700’s AD. Willibrord’s mission was repeatedly looted in 716-719. Boniface was traveling with over fifty other cleric persons who brought liturgical items and horses with packs. The earliest accounts of Boniface’s martyrdom were from the Letter of Archbishop Lull (c. 755 AD) and the Vita Bonifatti (c. 760 AD) which both describe how “pagan robbers” or “heathen brigands” robbed and then killed the party. There is no mention of a religious motivation whatsoever, which fits the context of Hessian Saxons venerating Donnar’s Oak but Frisian clans having no stake in the cultic site - indeed, it seems likely that those who killed Boniface likely had no idea who they were killing, only that Boniface had goods they wanted. Any ideological narratives about a ‘united pagan front’ which was ‘getting revenge’ are not borne out by the historic data. Likewise, it is only much later apocryphal accounts such as Otloh of St Emmeram’s Vita VI Bonifatii, (which was written three-hundred years after Boniface’s martyrdom) that add details of the cutting of the Oak occurring at night, in order to align it with a Christmas Eve narrative. So there is really no ‘unified resistance’ to the Latin Christian system. This is important because (as I have stated in my most recent article) Folkish Heathenry similarly has no way of ‘liberating Whites’ from these global systems which subvert us - all that they have is rhetoric.

Thirdly, the idea that Jews gloat over Christians by stating how Paul subverted the Gentiles into worshipping their God is an interesting hypothesis which I have seen more and more frequently, and deserves to be treated seriously. However, the way that Aodhan makes the argument is incredibly undermining to the argument. Firstly, the only source he cites to make this point is Marcus Eli Ravage’s essay A Real Case Against the Jews which was published in 1928 AD. The Jewish author is adopting an exaggerated ‘guilty Jew’ persona to mock ‘antisemetic reasoning’ by providing hyperbolized examples, such as the example that Paul was essentially ‘the most successful subversive Jew.’ Aodhan says that this account is coming straight “from the horse’s mouth,” but how is taking a single example which is itself a deliberate exaggeration for comedic effect, the evidence he needs to make his case? Indeed, this is not evidence but category error. Paul himself removed circumcision and the Mosaic yoke from non-Jews (the opposite of a ‘rabbinic conquest strategy’), and his career is marked not by Jewish celebration but by scandal and accusation. This even includes the charge that he taught Jews to “forsake Moses” (Acts 21:21). But even if I grant - purely for the sake of argument - that some Jews somewhere “gloated,” it still proves nothing about Christianity itself. Yet again, the Folkish Heathen is found making sociological or historic arguments because these are qualitative fields which are most conducive to ideological rhetoric and interesting but incorrect associations. And even when they do make philosophical or theological arguments against Christianity, it is against a caricature, not against its actual identity.

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Lastly, Aodhan makes an appeal to the legitimacy and “authentic praxis” of modern Folkish Heathen practice. This appeal, however, does not succeed simply by invoking ancestry, as I laid-out in Part I, Section I. For a religion to have authentic practice in any serious sense, at least three things are needed. The continuity of a living, unbroken transmission of rites, not just scattered references and archaeological remains. The authority to say which reconstructed material are normatively binding and which are not. And a coherent normative code that can adjudicate between better and worse understandings of ancestral morality. Because Folkish Heathenry reconstructs historically-extinct cults from fragmentary sources, its ritual life is necessarily modern, selective, and assembled, not simply ‘picked up’ intact from the pre-Christian past. When it presents liturgy and theology as ‘what the ancestors did,’ it conflates the reconstruction with that past. That does not mean contemporary Heathens are insincere or that it cannot generate communities. But it does mean that in its epistemic rupture, nothing can be described as “authentic”.

Likewise, the move from “our identities are tied to our ancestry” to “therefore our ancestral systems are easy to replicate and spiritually genuine” fails on its own premises. Aodhan would already (presumably) refuse to replicate many known ancestral practices (e.g., slavery of Whites, infanticide, blood-feuds, male-to-male sexual domination, etc.) precisely because we judge them morally false or destructive. That is, we implicitly acknowledge a standard higher than ancestry. But once you admit that some ancestors can be wrong about God and worship, then blood alone cannot guarantee “authenticity before the Divine.” At that point, the real question is no longer ‘whose rites feel most ancestral?’ but ‘which revelation about God is true, and which form of worship corresponds to that truth?’ On that question, the mere fact of being able to stage a reconstructed blot does not carry the weight Aodhan wants it to carry.

Overall, Aodhan MacMhaolain’s article functions less as a rebuttal to Christian objections than as an exhibit of the dynamic I named at the outset: Folkish Heathenry must misrecognize Christianity in order to reject it cleanly, because it cannot compete with the real thing - only with a caricature. And when the caricature is forced back into contact with the claims themselves, the arguments retreats to ‘ancestry as a substitute for authority’ (‘our fathers did this, therefore it is ours’), and the insinuation that ‘Christianity is 'disqualified because it is Jewish. As though genealogical or demographic associations could settle what is, in the end, a truth-question. Once those moves are stripped away, the conversation returns to the only question that matters and that ancestry cannot answer for Aodhan: which worship is true, which God is real, and whether a modern do ut des reconstruction can bear the weight of ‘authenticity’ it keeps invoking but cannot ground …

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Part I, Section III (Ottar, You Fool!)

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Today, on the Memorial of Saint Gregory of Narek, we are reminded that the answer to alienation is confession - to name our wounds plainly, to refuse consoling fictions, and to learn again how to speak truthfully before God …

To conclude Part I, we will be identifying who Folkish Heathenry appeals to and psychologizing why. In this article, we will briefly look at the political priors which underpin one’s acceptance of the faith, along with some imagined identity issues, before closing with insights into how religious experiences maintain the identity.

There is a crisis of identity in America that is drawing people into Heathenry. For many, the path into the practice is less a single moment of ‘conversion’ or the gradual acceptance of apologetic arguments as much as a ‘sequence of substitutions.’ A childhood formed outside or within lukewarm Christianity gives way, over time, to the sense that the faith no longer fits with the contemporary scientific or logical paradigm, one’s spiritual needs, or the culture of ordinary modern life. Belief and practice then loosen and lapse or persist in unbelief. A period of seeking follows. Gradually, a more immanent political awareness provides what the earlier religious framework no longer can - purpose to pursue and a learned moral vocabulary which contextualizes a sense of self. This is often intensified by modern politics which adds a heightened racial awareness and consciousness of America’s failings. Yet eventually, the pull of spirituality returns in a need for coherent metaphysics with an intuition that we cannot generate that ourselves. Tradition and community begin to look necessary again, even if Christianity still feels untenable. In that context, Heathen material comes into view and presents itself as compatible with the individual’s already-formed political, racial, and traditional intuitions. It is then ‘tested’ through experiences which profoundly transform the once lost seeker into a Heathen …

Most contemporary Heathens (Folkish and Inclusivist alike) are not starting from abstract theology so much as from the quite reasonable desire to close any gap between their faith and their identity. This involves grasping at something ‘authentic’ in a world where so much of life feels optional, flattened, bureaucratized, and fundamentally ‘disenchanted.’ This is how Heathenry is often adopted after (and through) an ‘ideologically prior’ formation. In their search for ‘reenchantment,’ adherents discover a pre-Christian aesthetic and ritual grammar that seem to fit those preexisting ‘ideological priors’ - or at least to dignify them with antiquity. This is why Heathenry can function less like a single doctrinal body and more like a container, because the same reconstructed symbols (gods, runes, lore, blot, ancestors, ‘tradition’) can be used to sacralize very different modern projects. And this helps explain the recurring entry-point not as one becoming a Heathen because the ancestral rites have been compellingly handed-on or compellingly argued for, but because atheism feels like a dead-end, Christianity feels untenable, and Heathenry presents itself as the only viable spiritual option.

“[...] white Americans are trying to find novel ways to reconnect with their European ancestors and ancestral pasts to help ground them in an increasingly frantic modern world, and American ethnic Neo-Pagans have found one way to do so in a profoundly meaningful way”

But is Folkish Heathenry truly aligned with the ideological priors which had oriented the adherent to it? Even granting those political values that precede acceptance of Folkish Heathenry, (e.g., race-salience, anti-liberal politics, a desire for ‘authentic tradition,’ suspicion of Christianity, etc.) the religion itself is a poor instrument for seeing those values brought into reality. When Folkish Heathens say things like:

“it is our duty to unify and solidify the roots of our people to ensure the future is one of strength and prosperity. We must pull together our tribes and unite as a single oak”

and “the survival and welfare of the Ethnic European Folk as a cultural and biological group is a religious imperative,” these statements go hand-in-hand with the ‘liberation politics’ of the Fourteen Words (“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”) - which is the premier slogan of ‘White Identity-Politics’ in America. But whereas the Fourteen Words do not insist upon any particular method yet do imply some degree of organized program for solving the persecution of Whites and establishing intergenerational thriving, Folkish Heathenry says that it is the only legitimate way to advocate for the interest of Whites and is therefore the ‘correct method’ of achieving self-determination. But a program aimed at durable group-level political security and solidarity will ideally contain: legibility of goals, coordination of resources, stability of leadership and the collective, and scale of participation. And these are exactly the points where Folkish Heathenry either contributes nothing or is actually weakest. Now, a Folkish Heathen might object here that I am treating their religion primarily as a ‘political instrument’ rather than the ‘spiritual system’ that they understand it to be. To this, I say that my following critique should be read as conditional - insofar as ‘folk-survival / thriving rhetoric’ is attached to real ‘liberationist goals,’ the religion as such must acknowledge collective-action requirements of: coordination, group-durability, and scale.

Folkish Heathenry does not supply a shared purpose that could coordinate adherents toward a political ‘win condition.’ It supplies affect (‘our people are holy’ or ‘our ancestors did X’) and a mood of ‘awakening,’ but it is remarkably thin on the kind of end-state definition that collective action requires. What, concretely, is ‘winning’ supposed to mean for a Folkish Heathen? A pan-White ‘Pagan revival’ that normatively binds all people of European descent - across nations, laws, and languages? A condition where each European ethnicity is able to embrace its historic, pre-Christian religion? A reconstructed Norse-Germanic cult becoming the spiritual default for ‘the West?’ … The problem is that the more ambitious the win-condition becomes, the more self-contradictory the ‘folkish premise’ becomes because the customs being invoked were not designed as racial religions. They are local, kin-bounded, and jurisdiction-tied. So the moment the project becomes a trans-national European program, ‘folk’ stops meaning actual people in an actual place and becomes a portable meta-ethnos - an abstraction that needs constant narration to stay coherent. But if the Folkish Heathen means that their ‘win condition’ is effectively just the fulfillment of the Fourteen Words, then we must ask again: how does adopting Folkish Heathenry plan to accomplish that fulfillment and why should any non-religious co-ethnic who has similar goals spend any time treating Folkish Heathenry like it is useful or true?

The Folkish Heathen might say that the reason one should take the religion seriously as a means to the end of accomplishing White liberation is because it is ‘White identity in the thickest sense’ and therefore the only method that is able to organically account for all facets of what ‘White liberation’ means: physically, psychologically, and spiritually. This usually expresses itself in the belief that ‘one cannot truly be devoted to one’s people unless one worships Freyr, Thor, and Odin.’ Europe is seen as a ‘holy land’ and those of European descent are a ‘holy people.’ But calling this a ‘thick identity’ only describes one’s intensity of belief in a ‘sacralized relabeling’ - it does not indicate the capacity to produce the desired outcomes. Strong ‘we-feeling’ is not identical to legible goals, coordinated resources, stable leadership, and institutions that outlive founders. Even on Folkish premises, ‘our folk is holy’ does not make every co-ethnic holy. In practice, Folkish communities routinely treat other Whites - and sometimes even other Folkish Heathens - as ‘outsiders’ when their conduct is somehow judged ‘disagreeable.’ Sacralizing the folk abstractly is not the same thing as sanctifying persons specifically. Therefore, we can see how declaring something ‘sacred’ adds nothing to the equation unless that definition produces new, binding duties and a real capability to solve collective-action problems which are not already present (or better executed) in the ideological priors that often precede adherence to the given reconstruction. If ‘the survival of our people is a religious imperative’ means nothing more than ‘the survival of our people is very important,’ then Folkish Heathen theology is not a lever to accomplish that - it is only ornamental.

The flimsiness of the rhetoric is exacerbated by the fact that the Folkish Heathen milieu is particularly fracture-prone. With no authoritative magisterium and no binding adjudicator of boundary disputes, the default mechanisms for resolving internal conflicts are either ‘exit’ or ‘schism.’ This is well-documented already in Folkish Heathenry’s short history. In the United Kingdom, the Odinic Rite (founded 1973) did not remain a stable central body but suffered a rift that generated a separate organization, the Odinist Fellowship, after a little over twenty years (officially formed 1996). One of the earliest American nodes, the Asatru Free Assembly, (1974-1986) itself developing out of McNallen’s Viking Brotherhood, would break apart under internal controversy surrounding disputes about racial boundaries and the inclusion of Neo-Nazis within the organization. The Assembly’s disbanding did not produce a single, stable heir but multiple ‘successors.’ Some attempted a broad, liberal umbrella (e.g., The Troth, founded 1987), others organized kindreds through an alternative, associational structure (the Asatru Alliance, founded 1988), and still others reconstituted a continuity-claiming body under different leadership (the Asatru Folk Assembly, founded 1995). Recently, the Asatru Folk Assembly itself has had a new organization splinter off from it. The Raven Folk United formed in the fallout from a convicted child-rapist being allowed into the Asatru Folk Assembly and attending events with families for a year-and-a-half. This would make Raven Folk United a breakaway from the Asatru Folk Assembly which was itself a rebranding of the now-defunct Asatru Free Assembly which emerged out of the Viking Brotherhood. All occurring in just over fifty years …

Yet even in the more self-consciously ‘tribal’ Theodish world - where one might expect its ‘hierarchical oath-structures’ to dampen centrifugal force - the same dynamic holds. The Winland Rice formed in 1989 attempting to cast off Wiccan ideas from Heathenry. But from it, some members split away to form a “more democratic alternative” which became the Angelseaxisce Ealdriht organization in 1996, which later dissolved in 2004, after which regional groupings continued on separate tracks and eventually reorganized again. Even when departures are amicable and framed as an ‘oath-release’ rather than a hostile rupture (as with the formation of Arfstoll Thjod out of New Normannii Reik), the functional outcome is the same: the multiplication of organizations and the reduction in unity. This is not a tangential-issue about organizational history. A milieu that prioritizes the liberation or healthy survival of Whites cannot treat fragmentation as a tolerable byproduct. Fragmentation is the death of coordination, and without coordination there can be no way to work for the future of the folk against opponents who are organized.

Furthermore, when we look at Historic Paganism, the Folkish Heathen pitch deteriorates more. Pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs did not produce a centralizing apparatus capable of unified resistance for the simple reason that an apparatus like that was inherently antithetical to the customs. Historic Paganism was converted or conquered by Latin-Christianity one tribe at a time - region by region, uprising by uprising - because there was no super-local structure with the authority to bind the whole into coordinated action. Any resistance originated from and was not bound beyond these local, tribal, war-band structures. By contrast, one of the defining features of Catholicism was and is its radical ecclesiology which was borne out of an originary orthodoxy to actually adjudicate and coordinate. So when Folkish Heathenry proposes an ‘ethnic crusade,’ it is proposing victory through religious architecture that Historic Paganism did not and Folkish Heathenry cannot possess. It is the special-pleading of ‘this time things will be different’ without any indication of how or why.

Lastly, Folkish Heathenry must confront its own sociological limits. The religion is unable to generate the breadth of participation that any durable ‘folk survival’ project would require, despite their rhetoric to the contrary as being “the fastest growing religion in the world.” This slogan is actually a “legitimation tactic” talking-point for all Pagan/Neopagan groups, whether Wiccan, Druid, or Inclusivist Heathen with it originating in an early-2000s academic amplification of a survey that noted a dramatic rise in ‘Pagan’ self-identification (as compared to a prior survey). The ‘growth’ being invoked is, by definition, an aggregate of heterogeneous and opposed spiritualities, not evidence of specifically Folkish ascendency. In other words: Folkish Heathens appropriate a now-dated growth-claim that is only ever true (if at all) of the Pagan/Neopagan umbrella, then speak as though it were evidence for their sub-movement’s rapid advance. This is exacerbated by the fact that Heathenry as a whole and Pagan/Neopaganism in general has effectively germinated from online places, its dispersed practitioners can falsely experience a sense of momentum that is actually a platform-driven mirage of growth without corresponding to on-the-ground scale.

But then what are the actual population-numbers of Folkish Heathenry? No answer here will be sufficient scientifically because one must piece data together from disparate sources in order to come to any conclusion. The Worldwide Heathen Census of 2013 gives the best starting-point though in its baseline record of about 8,000 Heathens in the United States. But this number only records self-reported responses with the survey only asked the ‘country of residence,’ not whether one considered themselves Inclusivist or Folkish. It is also over a decade old at this point. A 2017 survey of 3,000 Heathens determined that Inclusivists far outnumber Folkists, but that does not help in identifying actual Folkish numbers, and could very well be biased on who participated, as Inclusivists tend to be more outward-facing. A 2012 survey of only around 700 Heathens found that those who consider themselves ‘Liberal’ or ‘Moderate’ (softly correlating with Inclusivist Heathens) comprised 62.5% of the sample, while ‘Conservative’ respondents (softly correlating with Folkish Heathens) comprised 37.5%. To get a more accurate number, we should note that an AFA fundraising update from 2025 implied that the organization had around 730 members. In 2015, the Wolves of Vinland had around 100 members. And the Irminfolk Odinist Community has “a hundred or so regular working class people.” Although this is far from a ‘methodologically-sound survey,’ these are three of the larger Folkish Heathen organizations and should be seen as exemplary in population sizes. That said, we could generously give other Folkish Heathen organizations comparable numbers for the sake of conservative estimates. Given that there are perhaps 49 Folkish Heathen organizations in the United States, allowing 100 members to each organization, then adding the 730 from the AFA, we arrive at a rough-estimate of 5,600 Folkish Heathens in America. If we doubled the original Heathen population of 8,000 to 16,000, this very rough 5,600 estimate would make up 35% of that number, which matches both the ‘Conservative’ political identification and the ‘far outnumbered’ note above. This number is also loosely corroborated by a now deleted ‘Folkish Heathen population-estimate’ done by Starkadr (also known as Pagan Cyberpunk) in 2025. Again, it must be remembered that we are dealing with a sub-group of a sub-group of a fairly historically recent spiritual movement.

In other words, even when the numbers are padded in the religion’s favor, they still describe an incredibly small niche. The decisive point here is that even though about one-in-four White Americans place ancestry as a central part of their identity, the high ‘entry-costs’ of Folkish Heathenry rarely translate that ‘ancestry interest’ into ‘conversion.’ There is a steep learning-curve of strange theology and specialized jargon which leads to the religion being often misunderstood by most outsiders. Because it requires significant nuance to articulate - and in disagreements about nuance between different denominations or organizations - it becomes seen as more and more abstracted. And with that burden of internal friction that we saw above and the propensity for asocial behavior that we saw in the prior article, these factors all contribute to Folkish Heathenry being too abstract, volatile, and fringe to be considered an attractive ‘identity home’ for the overwhelming majority of White Americans. In this way, Heathenry is effectively a ‘foreign religion’ in the eyes of most Americans, totally disconnected from their lived experience. The result is that Folkish Heathenry remains structurally predisposed to be a niche of high-commitment personalities rather than a scalable front.

To better understand all of this, let us imagine an example. Suppose that there is a Virginian whose ancestors have been in Virginia for a quarter-of-a-millennea. They have an actual folk and an actual custom in their laws, symbols, churches, and historic memory. To tell them ‘no, your authentic identity should be founded on a pan-Germanic Paganism’ is to demote their lived community into a deviation from a theorized ancestral substrate. It would be social suicide and actually inauthentic for them to adopt Folkish Heathenry. At that point, ‘Folkish’ no longer means ‘loyalty to one’s folk’ as they actually exist, but instead means ‘obedience to a narrative about which ancestors and which centuries really count’ (as we saw in Part I, Article I). A project built on that kind of abstraction cannot scale well beyond the individual because it cannot even define, in stable terms, what it is asking ordinary people to do, together, for the long haul, let alone offer stable institutions that can effectively coordinate resources. So even if someone grants the usual ideological priors that often precede Folkish Heathen adoption, (or the parallel religious mandates of the faith taken by themselves) Folkish Heathenry is actually an ineffective instrument for achieving the political or social ends those priors usually aim at.

Now, there are some Folkish Heathens who consider the situation less on a national-level and more on a local-one, keeping with the scale of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs at the expense of contemporary political concerns. Yet concern for this level-of-observation too does not require nor is aided by adherence to Folkish Heathenry. It is one thing for the Folkish Heathen to argue that ‘the liberal order is brittle and in its inevitable collapse, the near future will demand tighter, more local forms of solidarity and preparedness among White communities,’ but it is quite another to treat that prudential judgment as somehow also mandating or being inherently tied to the revival of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs in worshipping its gods and performing its rites. That move has nothing to do with ‘getting serious’ about community - it is a qualitative shift from sociopolitical prudence to a sort of ‘fetishistic epistemic rupture’ from anything instantiated in this world (as we will delve into more momentarily). Likewise, it is one thing - and quite a beneficial one at that - to take genuine interest in how one’s ancestors lived by studying their laws, material culture, poetry, and even their ritual habits as historic phenomena. But it is another thing to attempt to practice the religion as ‘binding worship.’ Special responsibilities to co-ethnics does not entail a duty to adopt a particular religion. Historic and mythological heritage can be studied and cherished without adopting it as our worldview. In short, ‘prepare locally’ and ‘respect your ancestors by learning about them’ are intelligible projects, but adding that one should ‘resurrect an ancient cult’ (or somehow make it a necessary component of either) does not follow from those premises, and is similarly unwarranted and antithetical to accomplishing the ideological priors.

But even when the Folkish Heathen attempts to tie their Heathenry to America, the attempt fails. Now, Heathenry in general is usually not patriotic to the nation in which they reside. For Folkish Heathens specifically, however, instead of totally eschewing the virtue of patriotism, they reformat it to apply to race, preferring a nebulous loyalty to ‘the folk.’ In other words, the same way that they place authority temporally removed from the world of their actual experiences, they do the same with their own ethno-national identity. They are not concretely American or Virginian, they are ‘Germanic’ or ‘White,’ propositionally. But within this milieu, there are some Folkish Heathens who embrace their identity as Americans and earnestly seek what is best for the nation. This approach has much more purchase with their contemporaries and has a much better probability of engendering at least some sense of uniformity and appeal which could advance the ideologically priors of ‘White liberation politics,’ or at least the religious imperative of ‘preserving the folk.’ Usually, these Folkish Heathens attempt to draw connections between Historic Paganism and America so as to warrant the legitimacy of their involvement in a nation which was founded by Christians, conquered by Christians, and continues to be predominantly populated by Christians. Typically, these connections take two forms: evidence of Norse activity in the New World, and the adoption of Historic Pagan symbols by the Founding Fathers. We will refute these points presently.

There is only one proven Norse settlement to have been temporarily established in the New World - L’Anse aux Meadows on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland. The settlement was only active for a few decades. There was also a Norse coin that was discovered in Maine (the ‘Maine Penny’) which might show signs of the Norse having landed as far south as Maine or trade from L’Anse aux Meadows flowing down into the indigenous world. Although there is no evidence from the site or the coin about whether the people involved were Pagan or Christian, L’Anse aux Meadows was occupied in the early-11th Century by people sailing from a recently Christianized North Atlantic milieu, and the Maine Penny bears the image of Olaf III, a Christian king. Yet even if we accept that the settlement was Pagan or the bearer of the coin was as well, this is still not warrant for there being some sort of a tether with America due to the nine-hundred year historical gap between the site and the coin and their rediscovery. The New World was totally oblivious to this so-called ‘Norse-connection’ throughout American history.

Folkish Heathens will similarly cite Leif Erikson’s discovery of Vinland as an intrepid chronicle of Norse explorers ‘beating Columbus’ by almost 500 years. In the medieval saga tradition, however - the primary sources - Leif Erikson’s westward voyage is framed explicitly as a Christian mission, not as the continuation of pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs. Olafs saga Tryggvasonar (ch. 104) states that King Olaf Tryggvason sent Leif Erikson to Greenland “to proclaim Christianity there,” and adds that Leif arrived with “a priest and other teachers” on the same voyage in which he also found Vinland. Eiriks saga rauda (ch. 5) depicts Leif returning to Greenland to “preach Christianity and catholic truth throughout the land.” So, whatever one concludes about the historical details of Vinland, the texts that preserve its memory embed it within Christianization efforts (conversion, priests, baptism, church-building) rather than portraying it as a Historic Pagan undertaking. Indeed, it is quite likely that the extent of the voyage was initiated because of Christianity having the goal of ‘global evangelism,’ leading to an encouragement for exploration well beyond raiding routes. All of these episodes and evidence are, at best, testaments to the dauntless, pioneering, and adventurous nature of Europeans. But not to a connection between Historic Paganism and the New World.

But the Folkish Heathen will still cite the existence of runestones in the New World as evidence of contact or at least of a ‘Pagan memory.’ There are, however, no authentic runestones in the New World. The closest authentic runestone to America is the Kingittorsuaq Runestone on the north-western side of Greenland. It temporally locates its carving near Rogation Day, (a day of special fasting and prayer before the Feast of the Ascension) meaning that it was made in a Christian context by Christians. That said, the Kensington Runestone in Minnesota is often cited by Folkish Heathens as a candidate for evidence of Norse presence in the New World. The Asatru Folk Assembly accepts it as authentic, (couched in eye-winking, ‘maybe we’ll never know’ language) and a group of members took a field-trip to the stone in 2019. However, the use of strange letters unaccounted for in other authentic stones, some peculiar grammatical anachronisms that were not present in Scandinavian languages until the mid 1800’s, and the use of modern words and concepts indicate that the stone is a forgery. But even if the stone was authentic, it self-dates to 1362 AD (far outside the window of possible Pagan authorship) and the text includes the Christian invocation of “AVM” which equates to “Ave Virgo Maria” (“Hail, Virgin Mary”), followed by a plea to be saved from evil. Again then, at most, the Kensington Runestone and others in America point to Scandinavian immigrants performing an ‘old practice from back home’ of carving notes onto stones in a medieval language. This attests to its historic and aesthetic resonance but not any clear connection to a mindset of ‘runic power’ as it relates to Historic Paganism.

With these arguments noted, we move to purported connections between Historic Paganism and the Founding Fathers. In a letter written by John Adams to his wife in 1776 AD, he notes the following about initial design proposals for the Great Seal:

“Mr. Jefferson proposed. The Children of Israel in the Wilderness, led by a Cloud by day, and a Pillar of Fire by night, and on the other Side Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon Chiefs, from whom We claim the Honour of being descended and whose Political Principles and Form of Government We have assumed.”

So even though Thomas Jefferson floated Hengist and Horsa in his early concepts for the Great Seal, it was only on the reverse side of primarily Biblical imagery. Jefferson’s submitted proposal for the main, front design was entirely Biblical, framing the Israelites’ “rebellion to tyranny” as their “obedience to god.” Regardless, after multiple committees came and went over six years, the Seal design we know today (eagle on one side, pyramid on the other) was finalized with Jefferson ultimately not being involved in the matter. To treat a disregarded ‘reverse side’ early proposal as evidence of ‘pagan continuity’ is therefore fundamentally a category error.

The interesting clause of “whom We claim the honor of being descended” is framed as a claim of honorific descent meant to situate Americans within a contemporaneous dialogue about ‘Saxon liberty.’ The sentence itself closes by explicitly contextualizing the mention in terms of political principles and inherited constitutional models. This mention of ‘descent’ and ‘ancient political forms being assumed’ is actually partaking in early-American understandings of English constitutional historiography regarding the medieval past, with the Whig narrative asserting an ‘ancient constitution’ against the Royalist counter-narrative. In this space, Jefferson’s mention of ‘descent’ functions as a clever, legitimating constitutional idiom - a marker of loyalty to the Whig narrative and a ‘shorthand’ for a particular historic ideal of inherited liberties and republican self-understanding. It is using secularized mythology as political rhetoric, not assenting to Historic Pagan genealogies.

Even if Hengest and Horsa had made it onto the seal, it would have been done in the same vein and intent as other symbolic projects during the Early Republic. There are contemporaneous, plain-language explanations showing that classical figures were intended to function as ‘iconographic placeholders’ for political actors and events. In his published explanation of the Libertas Americana medal, Benjamin Franklin explicitly glosses the imagery in ‘X is represented by Y’ terms:

“[...] the United States of America are represented by an Infant Hercules, cradled in a Buckler to shew that they are nursed in War. A Leopard, representing England, comes with two serpents to destroy the Infant. France represented by a Minerva, comes armed to his succour, and under her protection he strangles the two serpents, while she guards him from the Leopard.”

Greco-Roman mythology functioned as ‘authoritative shorthand’ for the struggle of early-American Independence. That appropriative practice sits comfortably inside broader associative practices between the Classical world and the American Republic intended to provide a shared civic vocabulary to foster ‘republican virtues.’ The Founding Fathers and their successors were consciously echoing the Classical world to foster a ‘Nova Roma Americana’ identity and virtue that they believed was necessary to unite the colonies under the same goals and sense-of-self, even conjuring the figure of ‘Columbia’ as a personification of this identity. Edward Gibbons’ classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was a contemporaneous project to the Revolution and was widely read by the Founding Fathers, showing how these symbols and concepts are bound with the currents of their times. The cultural availability and prestige of (particularly) Roman exempla must be seen as a shared elite civic language rather than some sort of ‘bubbling up’ of or appeal to Historic Paganism.

Given the above evidence showing a lack of connection between Historic Paganism and America, the position that some Folkish Heathens take purporting a connection can be shown as being purely ideologically-generated. This is (again) why the Folkish Heathen must appeal to ‘the blood’ so that they can say ‘wherever we are, we have continuity with our ancestors because we are our ancestors.’ Yet as we saw in Part I, Section I, this appeal falls flat because a historically-ruptured tradition and its accompanying identity simply cannot be reconstituted sola prosapia (by “blood alone”) nor prima prosapia (by “blood first”). Once transmission is broken, and ‘insider’ cultural perspectives become inaccessible, then ancestry becomes merely a descriptive fact that cannot, by itself, generate a binding identity or religious obligations. Because the decisive questions of who counts as a ‘relevant ancestor’ and what they ‘actually practiced’ must be answered by tools of truth and reason in order to determine what a Heathen should do now, those tools of truth and reason become primary over ancestry. So the appeal to ‘blood-continuity’ is really just a rhetorical carapace that conflates descent with duty and costume with continuity. Once that shell is removed, Folkish Heathenry stands where every other worldview stands: in the public arena of justification through conformity to reality. Therefore, both the historic evidence and the apologetic arguments fail to offer a substitutive justification for why Heathenry has any connection to a fundamentally Christian nation.

To summarize thus far - Folkish Heathenry is best explained not as a ‘truth-driven recovery’ of an ancestral religion but as a ‘modern identity project’ that uses reconstructed symbols to sacralize ideological priors. Contemporary adoption of Heathenry commonly begins from a desire for ‘reenchantment’ and ‘authentic rootedness’ to ground one’s identity in the dislocations of Modernity, with the Folkish variety treating race as the most crucial strata of identity. The adoption of Folkish Heathenry, then, is more often than not advanced by its perceived alignment with anti-liberal and identitarian ideological priors. But due to the intertwining of those ideological priors with Folkish Heathenry in its own ‘mission-statements,’ the religion can be gauged by how well it serves to accomplish them, which in Folkish Heathenry’s case are ultimately ‘White liberation’ politics. Those politics require: clear win-conditions, durable organizations that can mobilize resources, and stable mechanisms for unity and adjudication at scale. Folkish Heathenry offers none of these. The religion has repeatedly exhibited centrifugal dynamics (organizational multiplication, rivalry, and splintering) rather than a unifying structure capable of sustained collective action and resistance to hostile entities which are themselves large-scale unifications. The Historic Pagan past, which is the reified template for Folkish Heathenry, was itself never architected as a centralized, super-local authority able to bind disparate regions into one coordinated program, which is why it ultimately succumbed to the Latin-Christian system. But even before contemporary coordination fails internally, Folkish Heathen recruitment fails externally because the demanded ‘thick, ethnoreligious identity’ is simply not attractive to most Americans because when it is not too abstracted, it is instantiated in broken organizations full of asocial people. Finally, the Folkish Heathen attempts to launder ‘American continuity’ through Norse contact, runestones, or Founding Father symbolism collapse into conflation or category errors. The conclusion is that Folkish Heathenry operates primarily as a sanctifying veneer for modern racial-politics while lacking both the historical precedent and the sociological capacity to achieve the unity, durability, and scale that its own ‘folk survival’ rhetoric presupposes. Folkish Heathenry then cannot ‘save the White race’ - it can only cause more division among White People and reduce the capacity for resistance to the hostile powers subverting them.

II.

Much of this mindset and much of these priorities can be described as originating in a perceived need for ‘a perfect system’ - a totalizing ideology that is ‘free from error.’ Now, this perceived need is not isolated to the Heathen sphere, although it (and ‘White Nationalism’ in general) seems especially prone to this mindset. There is a certain self-expectation to have everything figured out and to be totally informed in a way that is free from critique. ‘Being right’ is seen as an end-unto-itself where ‘not choosing from primary options’ or ‘choosing some uninstantiated option’ or ‘self-generating an option’ makes one immune to criticism. This is very analogous to the striking conclusions of the ‘Rat Utopia Experiment.’ In the 1950’s and 1960’s, experiments were performed on rats where they were given all the food and water they needed within a defined space. Every time the experiment was performed, the plentiful material conditions seemed to mentally degenerate successive generations, with some rats retreating into performative self-maintenance. Researchers called these ‘The Beautiful Ones’ for their hyper-obsessive concern for their own aesthetic quality, disregarding the ‘social decay’ around them. As a parable for ideological purity today, the experiment warns that polishing identity and doctrine to a flawless sheen can coincide with frayed communal ties and demographic sterility - a futile, vain symptomatic reaction to social decay rather than a useful occupation.

In the past, people used to isolate their peculiar interests or aesthetics into hobbies rather than make it a core part of their identity. This is because identity was predominantly a communal function, not an individual one. ‘Who am I’ can only really be answered in relation to others and to God. But now, after the endangerment of non-career communities in the wake of Modernity, peculiarities have effectively become synonymous with identity. The proliferation of this phenomenon has been exacerbated by the promulgation of ‘digital places’ which provisionally provide the function of communities and allow individuals to curate and ideate their identity apart from the body and its relation to other bodies. Even if the ‘self as ideology’ is a dead-end in its strictest sense, (if we are adhering to the social and theological understanding articulated above) it has nevertheless brought about an interesting side-effect in practice. If I am my peculiarities and beliefs, then I must have a ‘perfect system’ or I risk viewing myself as defective. Yet because people rarely have the time or inclination to understand let alone justify preexisting systems, they turn to strange alternatives or formulate their own, which are of course, internally perfect in their own closed way and can’t be argued against (e.g., the Libertarian ‘Non-Aggression Principle’ or Imperium Press’ ‘Ancestral Principle’). This is the ‘preening of the rats,’ so to speak, from the Beautiful Ones of the experiments.

Because of this, any disputes about the individual’s peculiarities or their belief system is taken as an invalidation of who they are. What would they be if not a Folkish Heathen? And what could a Folkish Heathen be if not its most distilled form, free of any nuance or room for misunderstanding? In this way, the Folkish Heathen is prone to ‘purity spiral’ from their adamantine ‘standards.’ Indeed, because the Folkish Heathen puts so much stock in their ideological selfhood, they are only able to view disagreements as an invalidation of their person or a sign of one’s ‘disloyalty to the race.’ In turn, though, their value-judgements about the perceived imperfection of other systems is synonymous to a dismissal of the intelligence of their adherents. To the Folkish Heathen, how could anyone fail to comprehend the apt veracity of their ideology unless they were either intellectually incapable or intellectually dishonest.

This is in many ways a side-effect of the ‘unqualified epistemic initiation’ which access to the internet engenders. Because of digital information proliferation, people are routinely being initiated into an ‘epistemic-tier’ that they are not intellectually prepared for. Across the globe, there is a lack of necessary preparation to understand ideas in a beneficially matriculating way. Instead, there is contextless, unorganized information assaulting the psyche at all times. Ideas that many people are not equipped to understand are constantly battering against their eyes, worming into their ears, and fixating themselves into the brain. This is exacerbated by an overwhelming distrust of Modernity to the extent that rejecting it is believed to require the ‘radical epistemic rupture’ one finds in Flat Earthers, Sovereign Citizens, and, indeed, even Folkish Heathens. This is not in any way to condone Modernity or attempt to convince the reader to accept it, but only to show how much of this mindset originates in what can be called a ‘fetishistic overreaction’ of denying Modernity.

The Folkish Heathen preoccupation with ‘authority’ is certainly intelligible as a reaction against the contemporary bureaucratic malaise, originating in an instinct that says ‘someone must be able to command, judge, and bind,’ as opposed to everything dissolving into process and preference. But when ‘authority is everything’ becomes the principle, it often functions less as a stable account of normativity and more as a badge of that ‘radical epistemic rupture.’ The Folkish Heathen might say ‘your adoption of Christianity is a testament to how you do not value the authority of your ancestors and therefore, because you devalue authority, you are effectively a Liberal.’ There is a disproportionate amount of energy devoted to being maximally discontinuous from mainstream ideological orthodoxy, even if the content of what replaces it or the implications of that content are unable to be actually lived-out. That is why the Folkish Heathen’s eschatology of the ‘inevitable return’ or ‘immanent revival’ of Historic Paganism sounds so much like a way of stepping outside the ‘real world,’ ignoring the fact that one cannot simply un-become what history has made one. As C. S. Lewis put it, “a post-Christian man is not a pagan,” because he is “cut off from the Christian past and therefore doubly from the pagan past.”

So, to fully accomplish their rupture from Modernity, the Folkish Heathen must appeal to ‘tradition,’ because ‘traditions’ are inherently against Modernity in their establishment of identity, worldview, and ethics in a source which cannot be commodified. So appealing to ‘the most ancient ancestors’ as the highest authority sounds like traditionalism par excellence, and therefore the ‘most anti-modern’ option. But again, in practice, it relocates authority to the modern Heathen themself because the ancient voice is inaccessible and must be reconstructed by contemporary selection and interpretation. ‘The Heathen’ becomes ‘the chooser’ of what their ancestors say, or at least ‘what they meant in this passage.’ This is a point I have brought up in the prior two articles as well, but it has especially sharp implications for the ‘perfect system’ impulse.

As we saw in Part I, Article I, the Folkish Heathen insists that it would be ‘arbitrary’ to treat any recent authority as weightier than the most ancient, since every father has a father of their own and every living claim is beholden to a prior one. This leads to the ‘most legitimate’ authority being placed beyond the horizon of anything which is presently instantiated. Yet once authority is pushed far enough away and there is nothing intelligible linking it to here-and-now, it becomes a malleable silhouette which is therefore uniquely useful. Because the ancestral command no longer has operative force in lived experience, the adherent must interpret which reconstructions are plausible and which commands are binding. This act of choosing is not ‘ancient authority’ at all but ‘modern, hermeneutic subjectivity’ projecting itself backward under the ‘prestigious guise of antiquity.’ The irony is that, while claiming maximal reverence for ‘the real,’ the Folkish Heathen elevates the propositionally theoretical over the actual by discounting the concrete sources of formation that do exist, such as parents, kin, and community. If human life is constitutively ‘being-in-the-world,’ then formation by actual people and practices is not incidental but basic, and at this point in history, any appeal to forefathers must pass through that already-operative reality or else it becomes free-floating. This is why the absence of Historic Paganism’s continuity is never seen as a drawback by the Folkish Heathen, because it offers them the possibility of being ‘ideologically unscathed’ by the last thousand years, or even the last sixty years of organizational fracturing (‘none of that would have happened if my system had been in place’) while also escaping the discipline and murkiness of a living tradition.

Furthermore, this exposes a deeper confusion about tradition itself. At a fundamental level, regardless of how one construes it, calling oneself a ‘traditionalist’ as such is already self-defeating, because traditions are not buffet-options or private ideological postures but instead communal inheritances, always taking a specific shape. Now, this sense of being a ‘traditionalist’ is something that the Folkish Heathen would deny calling themself, because they have already selected a specific tradition. However, they treat the tradition they have selected as an abstract object (‘the old’) whose mere age and supposed relation to them confers its primacy in ‘the buffet.’ This is the difference between ‘traditionalism,’ “the dead faith of the living,” and real ‘tradition,’ “the living faith of the dead.” What gives a tradition life (and how it can be defined as a ‘tradition’ at all) is not bare antiquity - it is its persistence as a transmitted, social inheritance full of human flaws it has accumulated through time. Tradition is a diachronic social practice, not an archive of aesthetic references. In that light, the Folkish Heathen’s ‘perfect system’ impulse reads less like submission to an actually-governing inheritance and more like an attempt to conjure authority from the ‘feeling of the medieval,’ because the living mechanisms that make tradition authoritative are the very things that Folkish Heathens cannot supply.

This emphasis on tradition and authority is similar to the Catholic Church’s understanding of their own magisterial role. It should come as no surprise then that a non-trivial number of Folkish Heathen leaders are themselves ex-Catholic. This matters because Catholic formation tends to habituate people to ritual mediation (sacramentals, set forms, embodied devotion), calendar time (fasting and feasting days, liturgical seasons), and emphasis on interpretive rigor, (a living hermeneutic continuity rather than ‘text alone’) which are the same aspects that Folkish Heathens use to show their seriousness. Survive the Jive was raised Catholic, and even wrote sympathetically for Catholic Exchange in 2013, after his conversion to Heathenry. Stephen McNallen, the ‘founding father’ of Heathenry in America was raised in a Roman Catholic family. The co-founder of the Odinic Rite had left Catholicism in his spiritual journey. The founder of the Norroena Society went to a Catholic school in his youth. The creator and host of The Bog show on Hearthfire Radio, and the ex-co-host of the ‘Gods, Folk and Destiny’ podcast put out by Stephen McNallen, (along with being a prominent Folkish Heathen all-around) notes how he was brought up as “half-assed Catholic” and still has Catholic family members. The presiding clergywoman of Baldrshof and a member of the Asatru Folk Assembly’s ‘national leadership council’ was raised Catholic. And in the Theodish sphere, the founding-personality himself, Garman Lord, was raised Catholic. So too was the disgraced politician and kindred-founder, Dan Halloran. Given all this, the instincts of the Folkish Heathen to be part of a religion with high ritual-seriousness, deep scholastic inquiry, and ‘authority’ could be described as originating in the ‘Catholic-shaped ideological priors’ of their upbringing.

This is even more pronounced when we compare it to Inclusivist Heathens, who are often much more fluid and experimental in their approach to Heathenry, and who seem to have been predominantly raised Protestant. A well-known duo, Ocean Keltoi and Wolf the Red, were both raised as Southern Baptist. Lauren Crow, who has led the largest Inclusivist Heathen organization, The Troth, since 2022, was raised “very fundamentalist evangelical Christian.” Diana Paxson, an author and integral leader of The Troth until her expulsion over issues surrounding child sexual abuse, was raised Christian and became Episcopalian before joining organized Heathenry. The Troth’s ‘Upstate New York Steward’ “was raised Lutheran” and “trained in a Maggid (Jewish storytelling) tradition.” Similarly, the ‘Maryland Steward’ of The Troth became Heathen “after leaving the Methodist Church over [his] support for gay rights.” In some sense, then, given this sampling, the Folkish-Inclusivist divide could be described as being influenced by whether or not the given Heathen was raised Catholic or Protestant.

Heathenry as a whole, however (both Folkists and Inclusivists), share four interesting aspects that facilitate their mindset of requiring a ‘perfect system.’ These are: their relationship to the Lore, their lack of stable communities, their self-framing as a ‘post-colonial identity,’ and the severity of their stance against Christianity. Firstly, the relationship of Heathens to the Lore. This can be best understood through three linked moves that together treat the Lore as self-authenticating in the same structural way that classical Protestant arguments for sola scriptura and ‘scriptural perspicuity’ behave. The initial move occurs when the Heathen begins to treat the Lore as scriptural. Now, this is something that the Heathen will deny because they see no ‘divine authorship’ of these texts and their goal is to honor their ancestors and the gods, not hermeneutically deduce doctrine. Yet because the Norse-Germanic corpus is the only window into the ‘ancestral mind’ which is the foundation of the worldview, the Heathen positioning to the Lore does effectively sacralize it. Beliefs or practices are given authority only because they can be cited in Eddic stanzas and saga episodes. By approaching the medieval works as ‘proof texts’ in a way where perceived ‘conformity to the Lore’ denotes de facto legitimacy, (because understanding the Lore is to understand the ancestors and the gods) theology can only ever be exegesis. Even in an acknowledged ‘broken tradition,’ the lack of an ‘emic’ or ‘insider’ perspective from which to ground an authoritative interpretation is overcome through a general (if unstated) stance that the content of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs is ‘apparent’ in a hermeneutically-simple manner from the Lore. Once this posture is in place, Heathenry can be presented to the self (and to outsiders) as ‘non-arbitrary’ because it feels anchored in an external, venerable corpus that supposedly constrains personal invention. This is exactly what a ‘perfect system’ does psychologically and rhetorically by converting or conflating one’s chosen reconstruction into something that looks like obedience to an already-finished order.

But the ‘perfect system’ effect depends on a secondary move that actually reverses the first move. Because there is no continuous interpretive authority that survived the rupture, every reader - Folkish and Inclusivist alike - must perform curatorial and hermeneutic choices the texts cannot perform themselves, such as: what is descriptive versus normative, what is the exact translation of certain terms, whether some passage contains influence from Christianity, and so on. The final move, then, is that the choosing is based on values supplied by ideological priors, which are then retroactively baptized as ‘what the ancestors did.’ The consequence is not that ‘the Lore is content-less,’ but that it can be made to generate mutually-incompatible ‘Heathenries’ that can only accuse the other of ‘not understanding the texts.’ Regardless of what adjudicating principle is deployed, it is ultimately the modern interpreter (or faction) exercising selection-biases and then hiding them behind the ‘aura of antiquity.’ This is the same structural vulnerability that faces ‘Biblical perspicuity.’ Interpretive divergences do not prove the inherent exclusion of an intended meaning but rather that the texts do not interpret themselves. When no living authority with continuity to the system’s foundation exists to settle contested readings, (for Christianity: Christ and the Apostles; for Heathenry: the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic ancestors) then the reader themselves becomes the magisterium. Therefore, the appeal to the Lore (even as a necessary intermediary to the ‘real authority’ of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic ancestors) functions less as submission to the past than as an identity-stabilizing mechanism in the present - one that preserves the self-image of a coherent, perfect, ancestrally-mandated system while the real governing power is exercised by contemporary judgment under the cover of ‘just reading the sources.’ Much more will be said on this in Part II.

Secondly, the lack of community. A very pragmatic difficulty for contemporary Heathenry (and Pagans/Neopagans in general) is its ‘social thinness’ or effective ‘nonexistence’ at the local level. In most places, there are simply no nearby communities, which leads practitioners to operate solitarily or in small, autonomous groups often called ‘kindreds.’ This matters because it means that Heathenry is behaving in either a Gnostic (‘private noetic ascent’) or a Christian (‘voluntary assembly’) way. As we saw above, the modern information-environment makes it possible to hold a creed, adopt ritual habits, and even develop a detailed orthopraxy largely as an individual project. Therefore, actual ‘religious social-life’ often translates to ‘once-a-year gatherings.’ The separation between ‘an ancestral tradition’ and ‘a personally-curated practice’ becomes difficult to perceive because one is merely believing, professing, and behaving in one’s own private world (even if ‘engaging’ with others online). Similarly, the ‘kindred model’ does not actually restore what is being claimed was lost - it is not a ‘coming home’ to something stripped of Modernity. A kindred is not the thick, inherited ‘kin’ of Historic Paganism. It is not an extended, intergenerational, locally-rooted cultic community practicing non-disenchanted rites transmitted by ancestral continuity. A kindred is, structurally, far closer to the Christian ‘church model’ where unrelated individuals voluntarily assemble around shared beliefs and practices. Now, a Folkish Heathen could argue that these kindreds are a necessary step toward the revival of the kin structure, but given the fractious history of Heathenry, this argument seems more optimistic than actually probable. Indeed, the embarrassment of so much splintering due to scandals and fallout (as we saw above) can turn-off those who might otherwise be curious and lead children away from the faith. Practically, then, in their search for something authentic, the Heathen path is predominantly walked alone, with periodic attempts to approximate communal life by forming voluntary congregations. For many would-be adherents, this is the decisive obstacle to their involvement in Heathenry - not ‘source discovery’ or ‘forming convictions,’ but simply finding real, decent people nearby with whom the religion can be really lived.

Thirdly, the anti-colonial stance. This is best understood as Heathenry’s attempt to legitimize the necessity of their reconstructions by framing them as the path to authenticity which lies in the opposite direction of the systems ‘imposed’ onto their ancestors. In its stronger form, the narrative of ‘de-colonizing’ is a claim about disruption imposed onto a coherent, organic, holistic indigenous world which can only be remedied by rejecting the external, antagonistic disruption in a totalizing way. For Heathenry this means that foreign, universalist, Christian categories are inauthentic to the native, particularist Historic Pagan categories. The pre-Christian ancestors were victims of a mental and physical ‘colonization’ by the Latin-Christian system.

As the Norroena Society states:

“Northern sailors traveled from one end of the globe to the other, without leaving any trace of imposition or disrespect towards those they encountered. Archaeological evidence shows them to have been peaceful traders among the nations they fared, though their fierce defense of their homelands was legendary.”

Whereas Christianity is portrayed as:

“[...] a foreign invader upon Northern soil. Christianity began its campaign of forced conversion that would take centuries to complete [...]”

Now, we know from the prior article that the first quote is historically inaccurate, and we will see in Part III how the second quote is as well. But this framing is a required aspect of the ‘de-colonial’ sentiment. Indeed, both Steven McNallen, founder of the AFA, and Mark Puryear, founder of the Norroena Society, use narratives about indigeneity to apologetically draw parallels between the treatment of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic peoples and Native Americans. Because of this, the modern Heathen is swift to identify with Arminius (a Germanic figure who defeated the advancing Romans) or Boudica (a Celtic queen who led a revolt against Roman rule in Britain) in their anti-colonialist or anti-imperialist sentiment.

But whereas other ‘de-colonial movements’ (such as those of Native Americans, Africans, South Americas, etc.) do have the ability to step from Modernity into a more-or-less uninterrupted, ancestral custom, contemporary Heathens do not because they must assemble a practice from evidence, inference, speculation, and ideological-priors. This is exactly the pattern described in the concept of ‘invented traditions’ where, in order to create a sense of continuity with the past to address a present rupture, deliberate rites and symbols are constructed. The point is not that the result is therefore unserious or insincere, but that its authority cannot be smuggled in as though it simply is the thing it is actually only appealing to.

“Heathenry’s cultural significance lies in its location at the point of intersection between the postmodern, ‘reindigenizing’ religious protest movements of contemporary Paganism and the anti-modernist conservatism of the white racialist movements.”

A clarifying comparison can be made using the African-diaspora ‘Black Separatist’ holiday of Kwanzaa. A man by the chosen, ‘pre-colonial-sounding’ name of Maulana Karenga (born Ronald Everett) created Kwanzaa in 1966 as a seven-day ‘Christmas replacement’ practice which appeals to the pre-Christian African ‘first fruits festivals,’ where each day is represented by one of seven modern virtues called the ‘Nguzo Saba’ (which mirror the intent of the Ten Commandments). This was done to address the historic rupture of inherited culture from the practices of slavery and segregation by forming a consciously-designed ritual response meant to spiritually-overcome the historic discontinuity. Now, the Heathen parallels. Two men by the adopted, ‘pre-Christian-sounding’ names of Hoskuld (born John Gibbs-Bailey) and Stubba (born John Yeowell) co-founded the Odinic Rite in 1973 and drafted a Yule-celebration that appeals to pre-Christian Germanic-Norse midwinter festivals. The organization’s ethical ideal is laid out in a modern, nine-point virtue code (the ‘Nine Noble Virtues’) which is also mirrored by The Troth. Similarly, Garman Lord (born Thomas Germain) founded Theodism in 1976 and instituted Yule as a ritual season within a reconstructed ritual year. Theodism likewise has a simplified modern system of numbered ethics called ‘The Twelve Atheling Thews.’ The Norroena Society celebrates Jol in their calendar (made by someone going by the name of Folcweard Largyfa), and also promotes the Nine Kostur (‘Nine Virtues’). Their organization is similarly based on the Sixteen Sedian Tenets or the Eighteen Tenets depending on what document you are looking at. These Heathen projects were designed to address Modernity and demographic change dissolving the coherence of White Americans, with the ritual response intending to ‘return’ one to the time before Northern Europeans were ‘colonized’ by the Latin-Christian system. Therefore, with both Black Separatists with Kwanzaa and Heathens with Yule, fundamentally modern ritual projects function as tools of identity-reconstitution meant to collapse the distance between present and past by making the individual feel ‘re-situated’ inside an de-colonized, ancestral world.

Once this is noticed, several upstream features become more comprehensible. The adoption of ‘pre-colonial sounding’ names (e.g., Valgard Murray, Freya Aswynn, Edred Thorrson, etcetera) accomplishes the divergent objectives of ‘onomastic self-ownership and self-expression,’ and ‘adoption into the custom.’ By donning an archaic-sounding name, the Heathen completes their self-invitation into what they view as ‘the life of their ancestors.’ This bleeds into the Heathen preference for transmuting ‘conversion language’ into stock-phrases like ‘acknowledging my birthright,’ ‘remembering my heritage,’ ‘I was always Heathen,’ or simply ‘coming home.’ This must be done in order to avoid the position that ‘I converted’ to Heathenry, because that would entail that the faith is only one option of many, whereas the Folkish Heathen especially needs their faith to be ‘the only apt one for me’ - that is: ‘the perfect one.’ The adoption of ‘pre-colonial sounding’ terms is similarly enacted. Singing hymns in German or Norse becomes galdr. The tarot-like practice of ‘casting runes’ becomes ‘the ancient form of divination.’ A trance-induced, guided meditation with a drum becomes seidr. Drinking and toasting as a group becomes symbel. Doing anything together as a kindred becomes a ‘moot.’ Pouring a horn of mead onto the ground after a scripted communal rite becomes the ancient sacrifice of blot. The modern Heathen will do something with a liturgical tinge and call it ‘what the ancestors did’ in order to gesture to their reconstruction as representative of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs. Even when done earnestly as a method of seeking meaning, its form is certainly shaped by ideologically-prior definitions of ‘piety,’ which as we saw above do likely originate in the given Heathen’s formative upbringing. This is because (and may come as a surprise to some readers) out of all of the Lore, there are no liturgical documents that have survived from the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs - nothing that describes or shows how Historic Pagans actually practiced or thought about their rituals. This means that associating some modern act with the ‘ancient practice’ is inherent to the enterprise.

Overall, there are significant parallels here with a broader ‘countercultural impulse’ to step outside the artificiality of Modernity in search of something ‘authentic.’ It is therefore unsurprising that Pagan/Neopaganism approaches flowered from the ‘Hippie’ phenomenon of self-fashioning alternatives with one’s identity and spirituality. In that context, the tendency to treat the pre-Christian past as a quarry of ‘real content’ to reclaim is actually a sort of ‘reification of the past’ where the use of symbols become certifications of one’s ‘reappropriation of authenticity.’ One has ‘slummed it’ with one’s ancestors, so to speak. In a very metaphysical and de-colonial sense, the Heathen will point to something done by Vikings and say ‘that is me,’ or they locate something from the past they find connection with and say ‘that is ours.’ When bearded, shirtless men in leather trousers grapple one another, that is Heathenry. When young women in white robes with wreaths of flowers in their hair dance around a fire, that is Heathenry. When there are runes, wolves, forests, axes, wooden idols, and singing - that is Heathenry. When someone dons a performative ‘Heathen accent’ grounded in a ‘wise and mysterious inflection’ replete with archaic words - that is Heathenry. When doing something that feels pre-Christian, one is being pre-Christian. By adopting the aesthetic, the Heathen claims that they are honoring their ancestors. But regardless, it is the aesthetic which is threading these concepts together into a single, systemic whole to facilitate the ‘sentiment of authenticity.’ Therefore, it is also the aesthetic which serves as the attractive vessel for the wide range of disparate modern ideologies falling under ‘Heathenry’ - from far-left eco-anarchism to far-right ethno-nationalism. This is another explanation for why Heathenry is so fractured and prone to internal conflict. It is because Heathenry is not a ‘unified religion’ but a collection of modern ideologies all wearing the same historical garments. The ‘faith’ is not found in a coherent belief system but rather it is discerned in the aesthetic itself - the idea of a de-colonial, indigenous existence being present in these symbols. It is the ideological priors which are the actual belief system.

Fourthly, the Heathen position against Christianity. This is of course related to their ‘anti-colonial stance,’ but there are some other interesting psychological reasons which prompt the Heathen’s severity. At a very basic level, because Christianity is the ‘default religious grammar’ of America, then any ‘rival identity-project’ will tend to define itself against Christianity in order to be distinguishable. And because ‘religious-switching’ is common and often happens by early adulthood, many participants will have had enough exposure to Christianity (or what they consider to be ‘Christian’) to convince them that they have already tested it, rejected it, and moved past it, which makes it psychologically unavailable as a ‘live option’ for their adherence. But when we take the historic critiques that Christianity was effectively the ‘imperialist instrument of alienation,’ then one’s rejection of it is not merely ‘changing beliefs’ but a project of liberation from foreign and artificial categories. Yet because the Lore was almost entirely written by Christians in a Medieval milieu which had contact with Christianity, reconstruction also becomes a discipline of purging any perceived Christian elements, with ‘perfection’ or ‘purity’ being synonymous with ever-increasing standards of what must be purged. In their reconstructions, then, the Heathen must oppose Christianity in order to recover the religion, and in turn, they must recover the religion to recover themselves. This is why Heathenry spends just as much time (if not more) denigrating Christianity than performing its own practice.

Interestingly, Heathenry’s anti-Christian rhetoric runs on two mutually-exclusive tracks at the same time. On the one hand, Christianity is attacked as something that supposedly makes men soft and unhonorable, and trains them for guilt and submission - something to be immediately dismissed as ‘psychologically and morally unfit’ for the kind of person who Heathens valorize. On the other hand, Christianity is attacked as an imperial force that spread by coercion and cultural replacement, with the ‘conversion of Europe’ retold as a foreign invasion that subverted or murdered the indigenous. But these two tracks contradict each other. Christianity is called both ‘weak’ and ‘all conquering,’ or at least strong enough to overthrow the ‘old gods.’ The first track makes Christianity unlivable as a way of forming the self, whereas the second track makes it unclaimable as a legitimate inheritance. This is further tied-into a tactic of attempting to inculcate guilt in a Christian interlocutor by ‘revealing the sordid history of Christianity.’ This tactic is a mirror-image of the same guilt that Leftists will try to impose onto White Americans by ‘revealing the sordid history of Europe and the Americas.’ It goes like: ‘you should feel ashamed of your religion (or race) because of the historical narrative I’m presenting you with.’ We will get more into the exact historic critiques the Folkish Heathen has against Christianity in Part III, but for now, it is important to recognize that the denigration of Christianity is related to making the Folkish Heathen ‘blameless.’ The more Heathenry functions as a total identity-reconstitution project under conditions of discontinuity, the more Christianity must function as the totalizing antagonist - conceptually contaminating, historically imperial, and anthropologically deforming. Only that level of negation makes the given reconstruction seem superior, to the extent that it can fill the need for ‘a perfect system.’

To conclude this part of the article: much of the Heathen mindset can be described as originating in a perceived need for ‘a perfect system.’ In Modernity, where communities are translucently thin, identity stops being primarily received or communal, and becomes instead something the individual must assemble or select. The digital world compounds this by rewarding performative certainty and flooding people with contextless information, such that the worldview one adopts must feel uniquely airtight to the point of idiosyncrasy. Under that pressure, ‘being right’ becomes self-protection, disagreement feels like personal invalidation, and the search shifts from truth-seeking to system-sealing, which predictably produces purity-spirals and the reflex that critics must be unintelligent or dishonest. In that setting, the fixation on ‘authority’ and ‘tradition’ functions less as submission to an inheritance and more as a way to hide the fact that one’s subjectivity is doing the selecting. From this, the Lore must be treated as quasi-scriptural even if curatorial judgment becomes the real magisterium. The same sealing logic is reinforced by the lack of real socialization, which keeps one’s practice voluntary and sporadic. De-colonial narratives and an inherent opposition to Christianity ensure that Historic Paganism is protected as a ‘victim of history’ which Heathenry must revive in order for the practitioner to be perfectly authentic.

III.

Lastly, now, and to conclude Part I, we must address the ‘experiential epistemology’ of Heathenry in general, which is one of the strongest and most attractive rhetorical tools at their disposal. The spontaneity of the moment, the wakeful mystery, the testing of auguries, feelings of connection, and the perception of synchronicities, omens, and dream-meanings are all real features of human experience and all grab the psyche to pull one in. It is reasonable to treat them as ‘data points’ rather than dismiss them as ‘nothing consequential’ because they can genuinely reorient a person. And it would be naive to pretend our phenomenological, interior life has no cognitive or moral significance. Indeed, it is this ‘experiential openness’ which allows the Heathen to make the claim that they are able to ‘re-enchant’ the world that has been ‘de-enchanted’ by the materialist science and deconstructive reasoning of Modernity. The Heathen is fond of commenting that, to them, practice, experience, ritual, and ‘embodied presentness’ are given a priority over belief, theology, dogma, or ‘intellectual ascents.’

Now, though it might be true that their ‘orthodoxy of belief’ is not as essential or valued as their ‘orthopraxy of ritual,’ we must remember: lex orandi, lex credendi (“the law of prayer is the law of belief”). In other words, orthodoxy and orthopraxy are intimately linked. We can arrive at the need for coherent and consistent theological beliefs very quickly by asking ‘if ritual and experience are primary, then what are we sacrificing to?’ or ‘what are we sacrificing for?’ or ‘how should we sacrifice and why?’ This principle of interrelatedness is also made clear in how every sacrilege contains heresy, even though not every heresy contains sacrilege. Likewise, a religion that claims to have ‘no doctrine’ simply has ‘unstated doctrine,’ even if it is only the ‘doctrine of no doctrine.’ The very existence of rituals themselves (in any form) implicitly smuggles in a set of expectations about how the divine interacts with the world. This intrinsic linkage means that even a ‘practice-focused religion’ cannot escape the need for a consistent - albeit potentially flexible - standard with regard to experience. And it must be noted here that if the Heathen’s primary rationale for performing these acts or attending these festivals is for the ‘feeling of the moment’ or ‘a sense of community,’ then the act is no different than attending a ‘religiously-veneered concert.’ It is then (again) merely an aesthetic. Therefore, we must concern ourselves with the theological and epistemological reality, not socio-political or emotional accounts.

But before getting into the methodology that Heathens use for discerning the epistemic weight of their religious experiences, there are a few points we must go through first about efficacy. These points will be based on the following accounts which all evidence the similarity of outcomes originating in a diversity of methodologies. To begin - Folkish Heathens have discerned phenomena that they consider ‘signs of divine favor’ during their rituals. The Irminfolk Odinist Community performed a ritual, took pictures around a fire, and saw faces in the morphing shape of its smoke. They said that these faces were “evidence of a miracle [...] that our gods are with us.”Survive the Jive recorded that:

“when performing a blot at an ancient Anglian bog holy to Thunor and Nerthus (Earth) there was also a calling of ravens and when approaching the bog a snake jumped out. When approaching a great oak nearby to address Thunor there was a sudden strong gust of wind.”

Inclusivists have discerned similar signs in their rituals as well. A Troth ‘community organizer report’ from 2005 relates how there was a “blot to Sunna” where “the Gods showed great favor as the thunder rolled all around us, the wind blew and Sunna shined (all at the same time).” Wolf the Red and Ocean Keltoi had a blot to Fenrir where they asked the “based and chill” land-spirits to “vibe amongst” them. This was met with many positive responses by other Heathens who worship Fenrir, Loki, and others who are traditionally ‘enemies of the Aesir,’ with some claiming benefits from their worship. And veritably ‘Wiccan’ Heathens have found signs in their rituals as. While still performing Wiccan-style “magic circles” before forming Theodism, Garman Lord (then known as Merlin Solomon) was contacted by Odin and Freya. They granted his request for “a job” a few days later. A half-black convict performed an Ostara blot while in prison and received “the blessing of Idun,” by being “out of [prison] like a week later.” Taken together, we can say that different groups within Heathenry doing different things under similar labels seem to get the same results.

If Folkish practitioners report ‘it works’ when they blot, and Inclusivist practitioners also report ‘it works’ when they blot, and non-Whites report ‘it works’ when they blot, and all of these groups (and the members within them even) all blot differently, then what is the utility of the accuracy of a reconstruction? If ‘it works’ is reported among incompatible understandings, then ‘working’ cannot function as a truth-test for the ‘favor of the gods.’ Either the gods are indifferent to the historical authenticity of the ritual or at least some people are ‘misunderstanding the signs.’ But how can we determine who is misunderstanding and what is just special pleading? The first logical issue that arises from these accounts, then, is whether accurate conformity to pre-Christian Norse-Germanic ritual forms has any bearing on efficacy. The Norroena Society themselves openly concede that perfect accuracy is unattainable:

“the ultimate goal of practicing a traditional, ancestral religion is to obtain the most accurate incarnation of these beliefs [...] This is not a perfect process”

And:

“the idea is to find a working religion that will actually be useful for people today. It is the idea that we must connect to our ancestral ways in the most authentic manner possible, but then we build the religion from that core”

Imperium Press gave a sign of approval for the Norroena Society’s reconstructive work Aefinrunar by answering the question of where Heathen ‘prayer books’ and ‘rites’ are: “The answer is, they exist (cf. Norroena Society’s Aefinrunar).” We will have much more to say about the Norroena Society and their reconstruction project in Part II. But other organizations speak in similar ways about historical accuracy. Raven Kindred says “While we attempt to be historically accurate to our religion’s roots, it’s important to note that there are many things that we simply don’t know” And The Troth similarly states:

“Heathens [...] hit the history books to try to figure out if they could reconstruct a genuine pre-Christian Blot. Unfortunately, no such description exists, so practices continued to vary across the Heathen community.”

If a system admits that perfect accuracy is unattainable yet still claims it can ‘work,’ then ‘working’ is being defined in a way that tolerates reconstruction error, where different groups can do different things under the same title and expectations. This calls into question the necessity or the efficacy of the reconstructive effort itself. Let us suppose that there is an Inclusivist Heathen who is practicing one liturgy, a Folkish Heathen who is practicing another, and another Heathen who is veritably Wiccan in their disregard for authenticity in their ‘reconstruction.’ They all perform something that they call blot and they all determine it was accepted by the deity because they ‘cast runes’ to check and then later receive what they asked for. Given this, the only reason one would choose to be Folkish, Inclusivist, or Wiccan is because the ‘denomination’ is aligned with one’s ideological priors - not because the gods themselves prefer one denomination’s approach over another.

Which leads into the second logical issue that arises from the above accounts: whether or not the ritual has any bearing on altering the will of the gods. One will be hard-pressed to locate accounts from Heathens that their ritual ‘did not work.’ Yet for Historic Paganism, the relationship with efficacy was far more uncertain and even pessimistic. For example, the Ynglinga Saga (ch. 43) recounts that King Granmar went to Uppsala to offer sacrifices for peace, and the omens foretold he would not live long. This is a very dire, unfavorable sign. Similarly, in the ninth-century Vita Ansgarii, (ch. 30) Vikings besieging a city cast lots to see if any of their gods will help them conquer it, and “having cast lots they failed to discover any god who was willing to aid them.” In Ibn Fadlan’s 10th-century eyewitness account of Norse Rus traders, a merchant offers daily sacrifices and prayers for success in trade. If business is bad, he tries again with other gods, with no guarantee of success. Only after a successful trade would he sacrifice animals in thanks, leaving the meat as an offering which dogs later ate – the merchant took the dogs’ consumption as a sign that “my lord is pleased with me and has eaten my offering.” These historical examples show a pre-Christian mindset in which the gods could say ‘no,’ withhold favor, or even doom an endeavor even when the rituals were completely accurate (because they were being practiced by ‘emic’ insiders before Conversion). Contemporary Heathenry, however, conspicuously behaves differently when every ritual seems to be efficacious in a positive way. If ritual always trends positively, one wonders if this is because the gods are actually never displeased or if the individual or group is unwittingly biasing its interpretations?

Now, if the gods can say ‘no’ according to the Lore, regardless of the ritual’s authenticity, then this leads into a point about divine volition which has specific issues for the Folkish Heathen. As we saw in Part I, Section I, Folkish Heathens believe that the religion is for those of European descent and vice-versa. Given this commitment, what are they supposed to make of the experiences of those who are not of European descent but claim a real, personal connection with the Aesir? If the Folkish Heathen response is to claim that ‘such a person is either delusional, a fraud, or misunderstanding their own experiences,’ then the dismissal is not epistemic but purely ethnic. If the same kind of experience is treated as potentially evidential when it comes from ‘insiders’ but categorically non-evidential when it comes from ‘outsiders’, then this implies that experience has no stable epistemic status independent of ancestry. Therefore, it is more probable that the Folkish Heathen will say something like ‘their experiences are real but those people should worship their own pre-Christian gods rather than ours.’ But this raises an interesting and important question - and the third logical problem - do Odin and the other Aesir want worship only from those of Norse-Germanic ancestry, or are the gods amenable to any devotees? Even granting the Folkish Heathen point that those of Norse-Germanic ancestry would be inclined to restrict worship because this would be akin to a foreigner earning your birthright and absorbing the power of an otherwise default ancestral bequeath, this stance does not mean the gods themselves would view the situation as such.

We might say that the gods would not inherently deny devotion from others, especially when there are accounts that the given god seeks out those who are not of European descent. The following reports are not offered as statistical evidence but as counterexamples sufficient to defeat a claim like ‘Norse-Germanic ancestry is necessary for a real relationship with the Aesir.’ One person has claimed an encounter with something that “introduced himself as ‘Odin’. He said he was my ‘father.’ I am black or Indian.” Another, “the son of Chinese immigrants and [...] a diasporic Chinese polytheist,” claims to have directly interacted with Odin and “worked with him” for three months. And another person has said,

“I am Black. When I was young I thought Odin would rescue me from people who I was told hated me [...] I even had a dream that a handsome old White man with long gray hair saved me from someone trying to kill me. I associated the man with Odin. He felt more like an ancestor than a god [...] I have natural runes on my body”

If the Folkish Heathen claims that these people should turn to their own ancestral religions, is this not effectively ‘vetoing’ the relationship between the god and the person, denying agency to both? A rule that filters religious evidence by ancestry is not a discovery about the gods, but a boundary condition imposed on the Aesir in advance. But returning to the core question of aptness: the existence of such cross-lineage experiences forces the Folkish Heathen to weaken their thesis. They cannot claim that ancestry is a necessary condition for access to, or fit with, Odin and the Aesir, since these accounts show that one’s lineage does not seem to be the deciding factor of cultivating a relationship with the gods.

With these three points stated, we can deduce that Heathen ritual worship is performative, not functional. In Historic Paganism’s reciprocity-based, devotional-models, ‘sacrifice’ is often framed as maintaining a ‘right relationship’ with the divine through exchange, classically summarized as do ut des (“I give that you may give”). This understanding, however, leaves a structural uncertainty about whether one has given enough or given correctly or what an adverse outcome ‘means’ for the relationship. As we saw from the Lore, according to the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs, one could perform the rite perfectly and still get a ‘no.’ This means that divine favor is ultimately at the discretion of the gods, which seems like it should go without saying, but the implication is that if that is the case, then we must ask ‘what is the actual functional efficacy of ritual?’ It is not causing the result, the god’s will is causing it, and their will is not necessarily swayed by offerings or by the relationship itself up to that point. If the Heathen responds that ‘ritual is about showing respect, fulfilling your part of a relationship, and demonstrating fidelity regardless of outcome’ then the value of these acts becomes mere symbolism. There is no inherent theological utility or purpose to them other than the fact that the Lore attests to their existence and they should therefore be part of a reconstruction. But as we saw above, the historic authenticity of the reconstruction does not determine divine volition. So then what is the point? …

Contrast this with Catholic worship, which begins where reciprocity-religion cannot. Catholicism denies the Historic Pagan premise that the person must do something as a bid to obtain attention and action from opaque spiritual powers. Instead, worship begins with God’s own self-disclosure and covenantal initiative. Christ explicitly reframes prayer as filial trust rather than verbal leverage:

“when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:7)

Catholic prayer is therefore a relationship in Christ, a communion in which the believer responds to a God who has taken the initiative in the relationship and proven Their love in giving Their life for us. This same logic governs Catholic ritual. The decisive ‘gift exchange’ is Christ’s self-offering “once for all” (Heb 10:10), with Eucharistic worship being a participation in that accomplished act. The Eucharist makes present again (literally ‘re-presents’) Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and applies its fruit, as the Church offers to the Father what He has first given. Because Christ himself is at work in the sacraments, their efficacy is neither a ‘mood-reading exercise’ nor a superstitious external performance because the sacraments are ‘efficacious signs of grace’ - they do not merely symbolize communion with God, but truly confer the grace they signify, because Christ himself acts in them. For that reason, their efficacy is not grounded in heightened feeling, private interpretation of ‘signs,’ or the minister’s holiness, but in Christ’s saving work ex opere operato (“by the very fact of the action’s being performed”). Whereas reciprocity-religions tending toward two pathologies - escalation (more rites, more checks, more ‘proofs’) and discouragement (self-disqualification when signs or outcomes cease) - the sacramental economy of Catholicism answers with the “free and undeserved help” of God’s grace which originates in His love, which was proven “while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5:8).

This further offers a disciplined alternative to the experience-centered religion of Heathenry. Christianity neither dismisses interior experience as unreal nor enthrones it as self-authenticating but instead subordinates experience to Christ’s definitive Revelation, answering Pontius Pilate’s pessimistic question “what is truth?” (John 18:38). Spirits are “tested” by their confession of Christ and conformity to the faith, (1 John 4:1-3) and one’s experiences and gifts are discerned by the apostolic authority of the Church rather than ratified privately. Whereas divinatory ‘checks’ attempt to convert one’s uncertainty of the world into ‘control through knowledge,’ and whereas Heathen sacrifices similarly attempt to align the will of spiritual powers to our own, Catholic teaching calls the believer to simply trust God. And even when the believer fails to conform themselves to Christ (Rom. 8:29) in that trust, that failure is not read as ‘exclusion from the divine economy’ but as the very circumstance in which God’s love shows the clearest.

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-9)

The sacrament of Penance, where we confess our sins, waits for the believer to subordinate their desires and their experiences to their relationship with God. It calls one to honestly account for their failures and improve, through God’s grace. In that framework, one’s ‘failure’ is not evidence that one is outside the divine economy, as it is in Heathenry. Indeed, it is the very condition that makes God’s greatest love intelligible and real. God died for us to be brought back into a relationship with Him, in order to prove that greatest love - His mercy. There will be more to say on this in Part III, but the distinction must be noted here that there are other theologies on sacrifice and worship which avoid Heathenry’s logical and psychological problems.

Therefore, given this foundation, we can move on to the methodology that Heathens use to weigh the validity of their religious experiences. Any spirituality that gives serious, preeminent significance to ‘signs’ and ‘spontaneous contact’ must also take seriously the ‘discipline of discernment’ because human beings can perceive patterns and agency where none actually exist. Due to our social and meaning-seeking nature, we can often conjure faces from objects, find intention in genuine randomness, and perceive design in coincidence. This is because our minds inherently detect patterns even at the risk of ‘false positives.’ We also tend to disproportionately remember the ‘hits’ that confirm our expectations while quietly forgetting the ‘misses’ that complicate the story, which means that sincerity by itself cannot serve as a safeguard. Therefore, if ‘the gods willed it’ or ‘the divine told me’ is to function as more than a pious description of one’s psychological situation, there must be some standard-governed way to test interpretations with standards that can sometimes say ‘no,’ ‘not yet,’ or ‘you are mistaken,’ rather than endlessly ratifying whatever the interpreter already wants or what their unconscious has recognized. A serious religion therefore needs a way to weigh claims, correct errors, and rank competing explanations. It must be repeated that the crucial question here is not whether people have significant experiences (they do), but what shared rule-set - anchored in something more stable than mood and more public than ‘private certainty’ - can responsibly and confidently convert one’s experiences into claims about divine will.

In this way, to discipline and classify spiritual experience, many Heathens employ a threefold scheme for ranking significance. Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG) denotes a privately-held belief or insight that does not derive directly from authoritative textual sources but instead arises from interpretation, intuition, deduction, or personal experience. Shared Personal Gnosis (SPG) denotes a non-textually-derived belief or practice that becomes communal - either because multiple individuals report similar experiences independently or because a community converges on and reinforces the same interpretation over time. Verified Personal Gnosis (VPG) denotes a personal belief or practice that is also found reflected in sources treated as authoritative, so that the private insight is regarded as ‘verified’ by its agreement with the textual record. In ordinary use, this functions as an epistemic hierarchy where UPG is treated as the weakest category, SPG as stronger because it is shared, and VPG as strongest because it is anchored - at least in principle - in the received sources of the religion. This is a good-faith attempt to balance ‘personal revelation’ with ‘historic evidence.’ However, in practice, each rung of this ladder has serious issues to the extent that the Heathen cannot climb up it.

Unverified Personal Gnosis is where every spiritual or mystic journey starts. But by definition, UPG has not been cross-checked against anything outside the person’s own head. This raises several concerns. Firstly, it is too easy for a person to misidentify the source of a powerful internal experience. Someone might sincerely believe ‘Odin spoke to me,’ but how can they know it was truly Odin and not their own subconscious voice wearing an ‘Odin mask?’ The term ‘sock-puppeting’ could describe the scenario where one’s imagination is basically putting words in a god’s mouth. Secondly, if one believes in a world of spirits and gods, one must also admit the possibility that not everything which one is contacted by is benevolent or honest. As we saw in the prior article, Odin himself is a notorious trickster and master of disguise. If a Heathen claims to have had a dramatic encounter with a being claiming to be Odin, how can they be sure it’s not some other entity? Or if it is actually Odin, how can the Heathen be sure Odin is not ‘toying’ with them? Thirdly, while certainly not true of all practitioners, it must be acknowledged that some individuals use psychoactive substances or intense emotional-physical ordeals to induce spiritual experiences. The resulting visions and feelings can be extremely powerful – but are they reliable? If someone ‘sees’ a god’s will while in a trance or under the influence, is that an experience they should base their worldview on? Even if no drugs are involved, strong emotions like fear, elation, or desire can flood one’s consciousness during ritual. UPG that is generated under such conditions might simply reflect an altered state of mind rather than an objective revelation from outside.

Fourthly, if a Heathen insists that ‘this is Odin’s will because I feel it strongly,’ what would count as evidence to the contrary? For any claim falling under UPG, it’s worth asking ‘what could prove this interpretation wrong?’ If the honest answer is ‘nothing, I just know,’ then UPG becomes unfalsifiable and purely subjective. In a community setting, this sort of UPG can even become socially coercive, such as if a respected leader declares ‘I had a vision that the gods demand I sleep with you,’ then how could any community-members deny the leader based on their other prior ideological affirmations? We must also caveat this observation by understanding that experiences generally do not arrive with their meaning already attached. A surge of peace can accompany the truth, but it can also accompany self-deception. A frightening dream can be a warning, or it can be the psyche rehearsing anxieties. In other words, ‘experience’ is not self-authenticating. Experience becomes ‘a message’ only once it is interpreted, and interpretation is never neutral (there is no way to truly ‘bracket’ it, as Hussurl would advocate for). Therefore, the interpretation of our experience is conditioned by prior beliefs: expectations of possibilities, vocabulary of defining things, and one’s values about what ‘counts’ as a sign and what it is ‘supposed to mean.’ Without some check on that interpretive layer, a person can end up mistaking the echo of their own desires for a voice from ‘the beyond.’

This is why, fifthly, many long-term Heathens advise newcomers to “go through the motions and [...] mean it, and then it ‘clicks’ and it becomes true” - essentially ‘faking it until you make it.’ This is very revealing. It acknowledges that through consistent practice and mindset, you can generate the very experiences that then convince you that it’s all ‘real.’ That is, the causal arrow goes from expectations, to practice, to experience of confirmation (not necessarily external truth), to more experiences gauged through the self-authenticating hermeneutic, to belief. If one can intentionally prime oneself to eventually have a confirming experience, it suggests the process is as much about self-programming as it is about discovering an independent reality. If a confirming experience can be intentionally cultivated, it becomes weaker as public evidence (even if it remains valuable privately). This is a recipe for abuse at worst and allowing error at least. This understanding of UPG might be precious and meaningful on a personal level, but as a guide to truth it is only as good as the individual’s own discernment, which, as we noted, is never completely neutral or error-proof. Without further verification, UPG can too easily become a mirror for one’s own psyche, or worse, a blank check for claiming divine endorsement of anything.

Sixthly, a common argument in favor of Heathen practice is that ‘ever since I started honoring my ancestors and the gods, my life has improved.’ Even if a Heathen does not have a testimony of improvement, they will still have a philosophical stance of being a ‘pragmatist’ where lived results matter more than abstract proof. The implication from attestations like this is, essentially, that ‘due to beneficial effects, the content of the religion is true.’ Because of one’s life-improvement, the worldview must be correct, which means that the gods must exist. There is no doubt that human lives can be profoundly changed by spiritual practice, but positive personal impact is not necessarily a reliable truth-test between competing worldviews. This can be demonstrated even in the field of medicine, where ‘placebo research’ documents how people can genuinely perceive and experience improvement in response to ‘imaginary mechanisms’ where expectation, context, and falsely-informed beliefs help produce real changes in the individual. This is to show how the testimony that ‘Heathenry worked for me’ does not, by itself, validate the explanatory story attached to the experience. If it did, then the person should conclude that the placebo itself is actually real. Clearly, results alone are an unreliable guide to truth.

In the end, the Heathen’s appeal to ‘lived results’ amounts to a methodological proposal that we should accept a low evidential threshold for religious claims because religion produces meaning, identity-coherence, and relationships. But accepting that framing changes the topic from truth-tracking to life-management. Even granting that evidence need not be ‘absolute’ to count as evidence, the problem is that the ‘evidence’ being offered is radically ‘non-discriminating’ - meaning that the same kind of testimony which can be generated inside mutually-incompatible religions (and even, as we saw, within incompatible interpretations of Heathenry itself). Therefore, ‘experience’ cannot do the specific job it is being assigned - namely, to select the true, real, or apt worldview among rivals - because it underdetermines the conclusion. Worse, as we saw above, the UPG pipeline makes this weakness predictable. Experience does not arrive with its meaning already attached, and once meaning is supplied by an interpretive framework, expectation can become a self-reinforcing engine. People preferentially absorb confirming instances, update more readily toward what fits prior expectation, and can ‘grow’ confirming experiences through practice-driven priming. The Troth, the largest Inclusivist Heathen organization in America, says:

“UPG is typically a ‘conversation ender’ because it’s like saying ‘that’s just your opinion’ without going into the specific methods you used to get to your conclusions. It’s certainly a way to keep the peace, [that is to say: ‘defining experiences this way’ keeps the peace] but too often what happens is UPG gets dismissed as ‘feels over reals.’ There’s no objective way to evaluate whether or not someone’s UPG makes more sense than anyone else’s UPG.”

This is how the Heathen arrives at Shared Personal Gnosis. On the surface, SPG seems more credible than UPG, because if five or fifty people independently felt the same spiritual message, then it must point to something actually in reality itself. But SPG has pitfalls of its own. Firstly, SPG can arise not because multiple people separately perceive an objective reality, but because they share the same predispositions and desires about reality. If a whole kindred is predisposed to interpret any sudden breeze during ritual as ‘the gods giving approval,’ then unsurprisingly, many members will report feeling ‘divine acceptance’ when the wind blows. This isn’t independent confirmation, it’s a shared cultural script, or effectively ‘group UPG.’ Secondly, similarly to what we saw with UPG, groups tend to reinforce positive interpretations and forget negative or ambiguous ones. If ten people do a ritual asking for a sign, and one person sees something vaguely promising (a raven flies by at the right moment), that will be remembered and recounted as evidence that the gods favor the endeavor. Meanwhile, the nine other instances where nothing happened aren’t talked about. Over time, the community narrative becomes ‘we always get signs of divine favor,’ because those are the only stories that get amplified. In a group, this confirmation bias is compounded by peer affirmation – everyone recalls the same celebrated hits, creating an impression that the ‘gods are consistently giving green lights.’ A shared error is still an error. A community can be collectively wrong just as an individual can. And if a group is predisposed to read any sign as a favorable sign, then SPG will naturally drift toward benevolence-by-default.

Thirdly, then, SPG can easily become unfalsifiable. One hallmark of a robust truth-claim is that it can, in principle, be tested and potentially falsified. This doesn’t mean we treat faith like a lab experiment, but it does mean that there should be conceivable events or outcomes that could show a claim to be mistaken. Yet Heathenry’s epistemic claims about one’s experiences are often set up so that no possible event can disprove them. Let us imagine an example. A Heathen performs a ritual to ask for the gods’ favor in an upcoming endeavor. If the endeavor succeeds, they credit the ritual. If it fails, there is always a ready excuse. ‘Perhaps the god had other plans,’ ‘perhaps another god intervened,’ or ‘perhaps the god is testing us by temporarily withholding this.’ In every case, the goalposts shift to accommodate the outcome. No clear doctrinal standard or prophecy exists that could ever definitively say ‘this event counts as the gods saying no - full stop.’ As a result, no possible event can definitively falsify the religion’s claims. The system is insulated from reality-checking. This interpretive flexibility, where every outcome gets interpreted as confirming the religion in some way, means the practice is never allowed to fail in the minds of believers. If any outcome (even the opposite of what was asked for) can be explained in a way where the ‘will of the gods’ is ‘not disproven,’ then how can one ever know if the gods are truly acting? A ritual that ‘works’ no matter what happens is indistinguishable from a ritual that does nothing at all, except for the interpretation layered on afterward. For another example, suppose that a community claims their sacrificial rites are effective because ‘we always see divine favor afterward,’ but they have also decided in advance (whether explicitly or implicitly) that even a lack of tangible results or a negative turn of events won’t count against the hypothesis. If everything can just be rationalized as ‘well, the gods move in mysterious ways,’ then the claim that ‘this practice works’ becomes meaningless. It’s like a game where the rules are rigged so that your team can never officially lose. That might keep morale high, but it also means you’ll never know if you’re actually winning or if the game is even real. As an outsider evaluating truth-claims, this veritable unfalsifiability raises red flags. A belief that bends to accommodate any and every outcome ‘evidences’ nothing except the creativity of its believers.

Therefore, to mitigate the free-for-all of UPG and SPG, many Heathens place the greatest weight on Verified Personal Gnosis (VPG). These are experiences that align with the established Lore. Again, though this might seem sensible at first, it exposes a tension at the heart of the religion in two main ways. Firstly, if ‘verified’ essentially means ‘matches the Lore,’ then the Lore is functioning as the ultimate standard of religious epistemology. In practice, this means any experience that contradicts the written sources (or one’s interpretation of them) is downgraded or dismissed. There is actually an example of this recorded in the ‘Hugnrunar’ appendix in the Asatru Edda, put out by the Norroena Society. The appendix is actually a reprint of a work called The Meditative Paradigms of Seidr, which itself claims to be based on “oral tradition” that “has no one author.” It is dedicated “for Johannes, Paalo, and Ragnar, who taught it,” implying a lineage of instruction or experience rather than a purely textual derivation, making it SPG. This means that The Norroena Society considers some SPG valid enough to be approached at a similar level to the Lore itself.

However, the Meditative Paradigms of Seidr is also able to be overwritten by the Lore where they conflict. There is a certain passage in the Hugrunar appendix discussing how to resolve disputes among kin-groups, (with very striking parallels to the advice of Matthew 18:15-17) which has an endnote that reveals “this passage has been moderately altered to fit the context of the researched lore.” It would appear that the Norroena Society changed two brief clauses from the original Paradigms when they reprinted the work in the appendix The first is the passage “where Tyr and Odin, Saga, and the Fates sit” becoming “where Forseti and Odinn, Saga-Idunn and the Nornir sit,” with the god Forseti being added. The second is the passage “together seek Tyr’s council” becoming “together seek the counsel of the Godin,” with the god Tyr being replaced by the priests of the community. Now, the Norroena Society could argue that this is a mere clarification of the powers involved or that the will of Tyr is still being ‘processed’ through the priests, but that argument is to miss the point. The point is that an “oral tradition” (again: effectively SPG) which is elsewhere treated with authority can be overwritten by the Lore where they disagree.

To this, a Heathen might clarify that ‘we hold the position that any new revelation that conflicts with prior Lore should be rejected,’ but the problem is that this position is best described as a ‘modern epistemic policy,’ not something the Lore itself clearly teaches. If the Lore is the only ‘stable’ or ‘confident’ revelation of the religion, but it says nothing about what can be considered part of the Lore or about whether or not aspects can be ‘overruled’ or ‘re-written’ (whether through reconstruction efforts or by the gods themselves) then it cannot preclude the possibility of additions which either replace or conflict with prior revelation. This is to return to a few observations we have made throughout this article about the Heathen relationship with the Lore being very Protestant in nature, (e.g., where does Scripture say ‘Scripture alone’?) along with a point from the prior article about how the gods actually behave.

Because according to the Lore, at one point the gods did not exist, and, after existing, they exhibit temporality and mutability, this means that the depiction of the Aesir in the Lore is not necessarily the final rubric. This is due to the recorded contingency of the gods being bound with ‘wants’ which can change, making it stand to reason that the gods have developed new or different ‘wants’ since the penning of the Lore which are now distinct from what was recorded there. To evidence this temporality and mutability, we can look at a few episodes. Grimnismal (st. 5) notes how the god Freyr received the realm Alfheim as a “tooth-gift” which was a gift given to a child when they lost their first tooth, implying a period of youth for the deity. In Skaldsskaparmal, the Idunn episode shows how the Aesir grew “old” in her absence. And Odin, the ostensible author of Havamal, says in stanza 47 that “Young was I once,” implying he too has aged. Likewise, the gods are subject to losing parts of themselves. In Gylfaginning (ch. 15), Odin gives his eye to Mimir’s Well in exchange for knowledge (which implies the information available to the deity can change as well). In Gylfaginning, (ch. 34) Tyr loses his right hand when the wolf Fenrir bites it off. And in Gylfaginning (chs. 37, 51) Freyr gives away his weapon in one episode which then leaves him to have to fight a giant with an antler, and leaves him without a weapon at Ragnarok which is how Surt is able to slay Freyr. All of these episodes attest to how the gods change. Now, a Heathen could argue that any mytheo-poetic language does not necessarily signal that the gods are metaphysically developing through our experience of time. Though it is vital to keep the genre in mind, we should also avoid treating the Lore’s ‘mytho-poetic’ nature as a ‘masterkey solvent’ that disintegrates ‘prooftexts’ when expedient. The narrative sources of the Lore are the only stable accounts we have of these deities, and those sources repeatedly portray real temporality and real loss in the divine life (youth and aging, sacrifice and diminishment, even vulnerability to the point of death at Ragnarok). If every indicator of divine change can be dismissed as ‘poetry,’ then the same move can dismiss any supposed indicator of what the gods ‘want’ or how to give it to them, since that too comes to us from the same genre. But again, if the Heathen posits an underlying metaphysical stasis behind these depictions in order to avoid the theological implications of the contingent mutability of the Aesir, then that is a doctrine being imposed onto the Lore, not a conclusion drawn from it.

So the Heathen cannot argue (and should not deny divine volition) that a god could decide to reveal some new aspect of themselves, or to ‘reintroduce themselves’ after a ‘millenia of change.’ Similarly, as we saw in the prior article, Odin breaks or reverses prior commitments. Therefore, the position that ‘the old record can veto the new record’ is not a Lore-taught doctrine, (which again is our only inlet into what is real for the religion) but is instead an ‘external control mechanism’ placed over claimed interactions with the divine. There is nothing in the Lore revelation to deny new, conflicting revelation as a possibility, nor to deny that the gods could say that ‘the revelation of the Lore is no longer accurate or standing.’ Furthermore, if the Heathen persists in this position of ‘textual authority being higher than personal revelation,’ it undercuts the importance of experience by drawing ‘boundaries of validity’ from an external authority. If a Heathen feels that they received a new message or a different perspective from a god, but it conflicts with the Eddas, they are expected to doubt their experience first, not the text. Indeed, it is quite possible that the experience would more likely lead to a reinterpretation of the text in order to sanction itself.

Secondly, another aspect (and one we have hinted at above) is that many Heathens will say that their religion is about ‘doing the will of the gods’ first and foremost. On the surface, this sounds admirably pious. But a crucial question arises: ‘how do we reliably know what the will of the gods is, especially in a system with no prophets or magisterium to clearly tell us?’ The Heathen will of course gesture to the Lore. Yet if a god actually contacts the Heathen but the behavior of the god conflicts with the Lore, then this calling is to be ignored, making one disobedient or untrusting. But at the same time, a god can contact a Heathen and demand atrocious acts (as we saw in the prior article) which are in conformity with the Lore, meaning that one should believe it and obey. So if Odin contacted a Folkish Heathen and asked that they give food to non-Whites, the Folkish Heathen would say ‘it does not conform with the Lore.’ But if Odin contacted a Folkish Heathen and asked them to kill their own child as a sacrifice to him, the Folkish Heathen would be obliged to actually commit the murder if they are consistent in their approach to the Lore and their experiences. Without a stable method of discernment, ‘we do the will of the gods’ can become an empty slogan of following hermeneutic dogma and ignoring genuine calls, or a cover for dangerous subjectivity. In a milieu with no structured way to verify divine commands, how can it prevent the rise of a fanatic who launders their own impulses as ‘Odin told me this?’ In ancient times, there were public oracles, systems of omen-reading, and priests whose job was to interpret and often, by their authority, filter these ‘commands.’ Yet in contemporary Heathen practice, if a person today said ‘Odin commanded me to hang and impale someone,’ other Heathens might immediately object that the gods would never ask for such a thing. But on what grounds do they know that? The Lore itself evidences how Odin could make such a command.

The ‘appeal’ to VPG, then, reveals a paradox. Either the Lore is the final court of authority for determining the ‘will of the gods,’ or personal revelation can override the Lore. If the former, then personal or social experiences (UPG and SPG) have no independent evidentiary value unless pre-approved by the texts. And if the latter, then the religion loses any common baseline and dissolves into UPG-driven chaos. Most Reconstructionists clearly prefer the first option - Lore as the anchor - but that means their epistemology isn’t really ‘experiential’ at all. Therefore, in practice, ‘doing the will of the gods’ means treating the Lore as the only infallible rule and admitting ‘revelation’ only when it repeats the text, which again just imports all the values and weaknesses of sola scriptura but into a different set of sacred literature. And any ‘authoritative hierarchy’ which can be established to prevent this and filter the commands of the gods at this point is either based on the founder’s UPG, or faith in their hermeneutic acumen. It is effectively the structure of a cult.

To summarize - Heathenry’s experience-first rhetoric rightly takes interior life seriously. But when ‘signs’ and ‘efficacy’ are reported across mutually-incompatible theologies - Folkish, Inclusivist, and Wiccan-inflected hybrids - claiming that ‘it works’ cannot discriminate between camps or validate the historic-accuracy of a given reconstruction. Historic Pagan sources depict adverse omens and withheld aid whereas contemporary Heathenry drifts toward uniformly positive readings, which looks more like selective recall and interpretive bias than consistently-verifiable favor. The UPG-SPG-VPG classification-system does nothing to mitigate the issue. UPG is easily misattributed and functionally unfalsifiable. SPG often amounts to group-scripted reinforcement. And VPG either subordinates experiences to the Lore or vice-versa, dividing the religion again on which takes precedence. In the end, Heathen ritual and experience become performative and interpretively plastic rather than truth-tracking. In a religion of UPG and text-interpretation, extreme or erratic behavior can look a lot like mysticism because Heathenry offers no objective basis for knowing what is real or true and what is not. The point is not that ‘signs and experiences are fake’ but that without a stable, shared, corrective standard, signs and experiences fail to contain the religious weight that Heathens place in them.

IV.

This article concludes Part I of this three-part project. Part I, Article I showed how Folkish Heathen apologetics attempts to make the religion feel non-optional by shifting the question from ‘is it true?’ to ‘is it ancestrally apt?’ and then treating ancestry as if it can generate duty. But the moment you try to apply that claim, you have to import prior judgments about which ancestors count, which sources govern, and how conflicts get adjudicated, which ultimately means that the modern interpreter is doing the decisive work. Therefore, the apologetic cannot deliver what it promises: it cannot bind co-ethnics by ‘blood’ alone, and it cannot close the public question of truth it is trying to bypass. Part I, Article II showed how the Folkish Heathen moral system begins at an intuitive point about prioritizing family and insiders, then hardens that into a boundary-based account where membership is treated as what makes obligations real in the first place. Once that move is made, there is no stable moral floor for outsiders, which is corroborated by the Lore which the religion is derived from. Whatever limits remain are easily reduced to prudence, law, or strategy rather than principled constraint. So the theory gets forced into a dilemma of either accepting the severe implications of status-grounded morality, (which conflicts with other advertised values like ‘family’ or ‘the folk’) or quietly re-importing cross-boundary norms that undo the distinctiveness the system was built to secure.

The present Part I, Article III has focused on the motives and pathways that make Folkish Heathenry attractive and why the religion itself cannot fulfill the expectations of the adherent. In seeking the ‘most apt,’ the ‘most real,’ and a ‘perfect system’ outside Modernity, the Heathen binds themself to one of the most modern projects imaginable - the sacralization of a consciously-engineered identity. In this endeavor, the Heathen is perhaps best described as a vaguely spiritual ‘not Christian.’ Despite their ‘life affirming’ or ‘vitalist’ rhetoric, Folkish Heathenry is built primarily as a negation - a ‘not that’ of Christianity and Modernity, with anything remaining being called ‘Folkish Heathenry.’ This makes the religion strongest only when it is critiquing other systems, yet weakest when it has to justify or explain itself. In order to preserve its coherence, it must continually intensify this negation such that Christianity remains cognitively central even while being rejected. This is also expressed in the way that the Heathen ultimately behaves similarly to a Protestant. In their ecclesiology, their textual hermeneutics, and their experiential epistemology, they are fundamentally Protestant, even while praising authority, tradition, and ancestral hierarchy. The de-colonial negation takes this observation further as the individual is forever reminded that they do not and can never possess the identity they are attempting to recapture. So, one renames oneself and one’s actions to conform to the idea that one can or is doing what one’s ancestors did. ‘Heathenry as performance’ is most clear in how rituals have no theological efficacy. The Folkish Heathen wields their new identity against their co-ethnics, shouting “Ottar, you fool,” as they impatiently wait for their interlocutor to acknowledge their own heritage. Yet it is not their heritage which the interlocutor rejects, but Folkish Heathenry itself, and for all the reasons which we have shown above and in the past two articles to be inherent to it.

Therefore, the overall conclusion of Part I is that Folkish Heathenry functions as an ‘identity-stabilizing project’ that sacralizes prior ideological commitments while lacking the institutional and epistemic resources required to achieve the durable unity it rhetorically presupposes to achieve its goals. It fails to square those ideological priors and rhetorical commitments against its moral system. And it fails to supply the apologetic arguments necessary to facilitate its radical epistemic departure from Modernity - indeed, it requires those values to be intelligible. This sets up Part II by shifting to the actual possibility of capturing a Historic Pagan worldview. Even if one bracketed every philosophical argument, moral claim, and sociopolitical incentive discussed thus far, the question still remains whether or not the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs are in fact reconstructable in the sense required for the project to succeed …

Let us pray:

“Almighty ever-living God, who were pleased to imbue with mystical doctrine Saint Gregory of Narek, the teacher and glory of the Armenian people, grant us, by his teaching, to learn the art of speaking with you and constantly to fortify our life with the Sacraments of the Church. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

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Part I, Section II: The Wolf Runs Free

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Today, on the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, we contemplate how zeal can be redirected by grace, and how one who once persecuted Christ’s Church and martyred its earliest members was called to proclaim the Good News and be welcomed into Heaven by those he once sought to destroy …

I.

As we saw in the prior article, the Folkish Heathen appeals to the historic, pre-Christian Germanic-Norse customs as an authoritative source of normativity. In this present article, we will look at what those customs actually entail (or more accurately: what can be known about them). We will briefly look at the Folkish Heathen moral system, followed by a more in-depth analysis of the Lore it appeals to, and conclude with the philosophical and ethical implications of their system. This article will be especially source-heavy, with those sources containing material that some readers might find disturbing.

The Folkish Heathen moral system begins from an innocuous and intuitive premise. Our obligations are not evenly distributed across every single human being. Obligations are thickest the closer someone is to us - first to those in our own home, then to kin, then to the community and tribe. Morality and ‘group membership’ are intimately linked. This is something nearly every custom encourages, including the Christian ordo amoris. Folkish Heathenry however distinguishes itself by taking this priority-structure and positing that the very existence, content, and enforceability of normativity is generated by membership itself. It is not that we ought to care for our own first, but that the only real obligations we have are to our own. In this system, the ‘folk’ is the highest possible circle of moral concern, forming a sharply defined ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ - a friend-enemy distinction and boundary. This mirrors medieval Scandinavian law, where skoggangr (“full outlawry”) formally designated a person as being an ‘outsider,’ stripping them of any ‘insider’ status-protections to the extent that they were rendered killable. If moral obligations are anchored in communal incorporation, then whatever constraints are owed to an outsider are not owed as such but are instead contingent allowances, granted or withdrawn according to the outsider’s relation to the community.

This inside-outside distinction is the conceptual hinge that enables the Folkish Heathen moral system, which is often given a ‘traditional, Germanic varnish’ through terms like innangard (‘inside the fence / ‘in-group’) and utangard (‘outside the fence’ / ‘outgroup’). These terms appear frequently across the milieu, though in varying ways. The Asatru Folk Assembly has used them to describe obligations of affective loyalty to the innangard, which are contrasted against a modern ‘individualist posture’ which is less attuned to innangard-utangard boundaries. Raven Folk United employs the same polarity in programmatic language, urging self-improvement “within the secure innungard of your folk,” which positions the term as a practical boundary for who is being formed, protected, and prioritized. In isolation, such usage can appear to be a standard political affirmation of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ But once the system is framed as an ethnic religion with prescriptive obligations received through ancestors, the moral stakes become difficult to bracket. The Bog show on the Hearthfire Radio network explicitly uses the innangard-utangard distinction in the moral sense, foregrounding the schema as the basis for morality in episodes like ‘Innangard and Utangard’ and ‘The Morality of Our Forefathers.’

At this point, then, the Folkish Heathen moral system can be stated with a bit more precision. Because normativity is treated as ancestrally-mediated and folk-bounded, it must also repudiate any account of moral obligation that binds us as ‘human’ prior to, and independently of, folk-membership. This is the distinction between ‘universalism,’ which holds that at least some moral constraints apply to all human persons as such, and ‘relativism,’ which holds that morality is authoritative only relative to a given framework or standpoint, with there being no framework-independent vantage from which one set of norms binds all human persons. Now, from the prior article, we know that Folkish Heathens reject ‘universalist religion’ and the concept of ‘universally applicable standards’ as both a “lie” and a “poison” (as the Asatru Folk Assembly states) but this approach also applies to definitions of humanity as well. Imperium Press says that “moral law is situational, not universal,” with Raven Folk United agreeing that “The Good is not a universal but rather a particularist force.” Likewise, The Norroena Society affirms for themselves that “as Sedians we reject the notion of a brotherhood of man” with ‘humanity’ being seen “not as a universal fellowship.”

But given all of this, the Folkish Heathen must take one of three unstable stances on the limits to the treatment of outsiders, balancing their committed obligations to the folk, family, and to public perception. These stances are not theoretical, but directly determine whether anything is intrinsically forbidden to do to the utangard or whether ‘wrong’ collapses into mere prudence and power. First, the Folkish Heathen can reintroduce a universal moral floor for all people, but then they have conceded precisely the kind of cross-boundary constraint their folk-bounded framework is organized to exclude, effectively becoming Inclusivist Heathens. Therefore, secondly, the Folkish Heathen can deny any moral floor for outsiders, which preserves the internal logic of bounded obligation but immediately raises the issue of the potential for atrocities (as we will see in a moment is evidenced by the Lore). Or thirdly, the Folkish Heathen can claim there are real constraints on the treatment of outsiders which are grounded in something other than universal dignity, such as law, custom, honor, reciprocity, hospitality, or something similar. But this third option still relies on ‘principled constraints’ where those constraints are ultimately binding either because of what persons are (in which case they reinstall a universal floor) or because of contingent social mechanisms (in which case they reduce to prudence, reputation, and power-management). This third option therefore offers no stable refuge. The moment its ‘constraints’ bind regardless of who the other is, it has simply smuggled universalism back in under a different name. And the moment they bind only where law, reputation, and reciprocity can be enforced, these ‘constraints’ simply function like conditional ‘if–then rules’ of self-interest that disappear when one can act with impunity. They are simply a tactic. Therefore, once the outsider lies beyond law, reciprocity, or reputation, taking this third option slides into the second option where there are no constraints on treating an outsider. Once universalism is rejected as a matter of principle, the system has only one coherent resting place: outside the folk, there is no guaranteed moral floor. So the only remaining question is how far the Lore itself carries that implication …

To restate all of this: the dispute is not about grading duties or prioritizing the innangard (which we have already said is veritably ubiquitous across cultures), but about whether the utangard has any standing that constrains what may be done to them. In other words: how ‘other’ is the outsider in this system, and where do any limits come from? If the Folkish Heathen says there are real limits on what should be done to the foreigner, enemy, or slave, then those limits must be grounded either in something about the outsider that holds regardless of folk membership, or some rule that binds the folk even when dealing with those outside the folk. If the Folkish Heathen tries to avoid that concession by grounding all outsider-protections purely in positive law or contingent status (guest, treaty-partner, hostage, slave, outlaw, and so on), then the constraint is no longer moral in the strong sense at all: it becomes an administrative switch. The outsider is protected only so long as the community chooses to confer a category, and the same community can revoke that category and thereby revoke the protection. In that frame, the question is no longer ‘do we have duties to outsiders?’ but ‘what prevents us from redefining outsiders into unprotected classes whenever it is convenient?’ If, however, the Folkish Heathen answers in the other direction and says, ‘yes, we can do anything to the other,’ then the position must face the sharper historical and evidentiary question posed by chronicles, archaeology, and the Lore itself: ‘in your reconstruction, are you willing to take tiered-morality seriously enough to condone human sacrifice, infant exposure (infanticide), polygamy, slavery of Whites, and rape?’

The following section will move through examples from the Lore to push that question. In my analysis of the record, I have attempted to use a consistent evidentiary method. I treat outsider chronicles as potentially biased, yet still relevant when they independently converge with other witnesses. I treat poetic and saga narrative primarily as evidence for moral imagination and norm-language rather than as courtroom-grade reportage. And I treat archaeology as evidence for deposition practices, though not, by itself, for motive. On that basis, the argument tests four evidentiary buckets in descending moral stakes:

1. Human sacrifice (ritualized killing and its theological status)

2. Infanticide (whether infants possess any protected standing)

3. Marriage and sexual order (norms of polygyny, concubinage, and sexuality)

4. Other practices in the record (slavery, relations with Arabs, and intra-group violence).

The point is not to cherry-pick shocking anecdotes, but to press one controlled question across each bucket: ‘for Historic Paganism, what, if anything, should restrain the strong from doing whatever they want?’

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II.

Firstly, human sacrifice. Even in ancient times, the Romans recorded the Germanic peoples performing human sacrifices. Tacitus (Annals 13.57) notes that the Hermunduri tribe “had devoted, in the event of victory, the enemy’s army to Mars and Mercury, a vow which consigns horses, men, everything indeed on the vanquished side to destruction,” which is the religiously-framed extermination of the defeated side. According to Sidonius Apollinaris, (Epistulae 8.6) when setting sail from Continental Europe, the Saxons would cast lots and “abandon every tenth captive to the slow agony of a watery end.” Later Christian chroniclers preserve similar reports. Thietmar of Merseburg (Chronicon 1.17) records human sacrifices at Lejre in Zealand where every nine years, ninety-nine people were sacrificed along with as many horses, dogs, and roosters. The Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae lawcode imposed on the Saxon by Charlemagne after their defeat prescribes the death penalty for anyone who sacrifices another person, treating the prohibition as a real deterrent against a real possibility. Perhaps the most widely-known account of Norse-Germanic human sacrifice though is from Adam of Bremen, (Gesta Hammaburgensis, bk. 4) who records that at nine year intervals, nine male victims of various species - including humans - were offered up at the Uppsala Temple, with bodies hung in the sacred grove adjacent to it.

A common Folkish Heathen response to these attestations of human sacrifice or other acts which we might now consider ‘heinous’ or ‘barbaric’ is to say that ‘these are propagandistic slanders from foreign sources.’ Yet in the Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 10) - an Icelandic record - there is a description of Thor’s stone in a cultic-legal setting where convicted criminals are sacrificed. Likewise, in Guta saga (ch. 1) there is discussion of how the island of Gotland was legally-politically divided and the manner of sacrifice offered at each division, with the ‘highest’ (the island as a whole) offering human sacrifices. Now, the Folkish Heathen is quick to accept these accounts because it allows them to say that ‘this is emblematic of how these sacrifices were perpetuated against criminals or for the good of the folk,’ yet there are many other native accounts of human sacrifices being performed without a legal context.

In Orkney saga (ch. 8), Haralds saga (ch. 13), and Reginsmal (st. 26) the infamous ‘blood eagle’ is performed - where the back is cut open and the lungs are pulled through to give the body ‘wings’ (like an eagle) - with the scene framed as an offering to Odin. There seems to be a depiction of the ‘blood eagle’ or some other form of human sacrifice on the Stora Hammars I stone, which shows a valknut symbol (often associated with Odin) above the scene of a man with a spear leaning over the back of another figure, who is laying on a table. In Styrbjarnar thattr Sviakappa, (ch. 2) Eirikr goes to an Odin temple on the night before a battle and “gives himself” to Odin for victory, bargaining for ten more years of life before Odin takes him. Soon after, a hooded figure tells him to shoot a reed over the enemy forces and say “Odin owns you all.” When Eirikr does this, his enemies are struck with blindness and a landslide destroys the force, granting victory in the story. Eirikr essentially sacrifices himself and all of his enemies to Odin in exchange for victory. In Sigurdarkvida in skamma (st. 65), the valkyrie Brynhildr instructs that “five slave women” and “eight male slaves” are to be killed to follow Sigurd in death as part of his funeral-pyre arrangements. There are also reports in Kristni saga (ch. 12) of men being sacrificed on the four corners of Iceland in the hope of invoking the gods’ favor to resist the spread of Christianity.

Now, a Folkish Heathen response to these accounts might be to say that ‘because the folk believed itself to be descended from the gods, it would not make sense to sacrifice one of their own kin and the sources are vague on who is being sacrificed here, so we can presume that this was all against the utangard, which is consistent with our morality.’ However, there are other accounts where the human sacrifice explicitly involves the jarl elite and named kin making human sacrifices to Norse deities. In Jomsvikinga saga (ch. 32) during a fierce battle, King Hakon first attempts offering ‘conventional sacrifices’ to the goddesses Thorgedr Holgabrudr and her sister, Irpa. After these sacrifices are rejected, Hakon ultimately sacrifices his own seven‑year‑old son, Erlingr, which is depicted as bringing about a sudden storm of hail and thunder that turns the tide against Hakon’s enemies, allowing him to be victorious. This sacrifice of the boy-prince by his father is therefore something which elicits the favor of the goddesses. In Ynglinga saga (ch. 18), King Domaldi’s reign is framed by “great famine and distress,” prompting the Swedes at Uppsala to escalate the ‘quality’ of the offerings until they offer up people. This still does not bring any improvement. The chiefs conclude the dire situation has been brought about on account of Domaldi himself, and so they kill the king and “sprinkle the stalle of the gods with his blood.” The saga immediately contrasts this with his successor’s reign having “good seasons and peace,” presenting the king’s death as a fertility-transaction under cultic logic. Another emblematic episode is found in Ynglinga saga (ch. 29) where King Aun performs “a great sacrifice” in which he offers up his son to Odin, receiving the stark reply that this purchase of favor will buy him sixty more years of life. The account then escalates the bargain into a grisly rhythm. Aun sacrifices son after son “every tenth year,” until he is prevented from sacrificing the final son. When the sacrifice is halted, King Aun dies. In all of these episodes, human sacrifices are performed on nobility, children, and kin which grants the gods’ favor in their obliging of the requests …

Now, the Folkish Heathen might say that ‘these texts have been corrupted or otherwise do not reflect the historic norm.’ Given the excess of prior evidence - especially when the Folkish Heathen will often use a single textual mention of something as a warrant for other more innocuous moral or liturgical acts - and the fact that these texts are how reconstruction can occur at all, this would be a very self-undermining position to take. But even granting it for the sake of argument, we can also look to archeological evidence. The historic phenomenon of ‘bog bodies’ dating from the Bronze Age to Medieval times was something which Northern European peoples performed by depositing animal and human remains in wetland areas. This phenomenon is often ‘memed’ about by Folkish Heathens in how they often presume the bodies were criminal executions, with any modern opposition to Folkish Heathens needing to be ‘bogged’. Now, due to the nature of archeological evidence, it is impossible to know if the bog body examples are criminal executions or human sacrifices in the sense of them being ‘religiously motivated liturgical killings’. However, there are numerous examples which do show indication of ritual killing immediately before deposition - and not all are adults.

One database records two-hundred sixty-six sites and over one-thousand remains stretching from Ireland to Sweden, to Germany and the Netherlands. In the Uppland region of eastern-Sweden, there is a site with fifty-two human deposits including one child. Five of these people had received cranial wounds immediately before their deposition, which led to their death. There is also evidence from bone cut-marks without any signs of healing that suggest the bodies were carved up and dismembered after death. Other individual examples like the Tollund Man, who was hanged before being carefully placed into a bog, do not give any definitive motive for why they were killed, only that it was done with great care as he was not being treated like a criminal. Those who executed him covered his eyes and closed his mouth before his deposition. The Grauballe Man is an interesting example however because it would appear that the identification of a motive is possible. His final meal “contained plants and grains from the entire agricultural year” indicating that there was some sort of association with the fertility of the land, though the true motivation is certainly lost to time. Shortly after the meal, he had his throat slit and was deposited into a bog.

The ritualism of hanging is attested to not only in its similarities with the textual record (Odin hanging himself on Yggdrasil, the Uppsala Temple’s hanged bodies, etc.) but also with the Elling Woman who was twenty-five years old when she was hanged, killed, and deposited a mere fifty-five yards away from where the Tollund Man was discovered (perhaps both were sacrificed to the same god). The Netherlands’ Yde Girl was not hanged but instead strangled and stabbed before being deposited in a bog. She was sixteen years old when she was killed. The Kayhausen Boy from Lower-Saxony is another example of a young person being executed. His arms and feet were bound and he was stabbed four times: three times in the neck and once in his left arm, with the arm wound possibly evidencing his resistance to the act. He was ten years old when he was killed. Obviously, these latter examples show the possibility that these killings were not just of people ‘hostile to the stability of the folk’ and therefore take on a much different moral character.

It is not that the data is confined to one particular site and then extrapolated across Northern Europe, but rather that these bog deposits reflect a consistent archeological grammar which is evidenced across the Germanic world, independently corroborating the textual record. Therefore, when we read accounts from eyewitnesses about the barbarity of this world, we should be hesitant to hand-wave them away. For example, at first glance, the description of a Frisian custom where lottery-selected human sacrifices - including children - were regularly hung and offered to local gods, as related in the Vita Vulframni (ch. 6-8) from the 8th Century seems to be nothing more than Christian slander against their enemies. But when we compare it with other sources and archeological evidence, the account becomes actually very likely. Therefore, we can see how Folkish Heathens must acknowledge that human sacrifice is an integral part of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs that they appeal to in their reconstructions. Nobody was exempt from the possibility of being sacrificed to a god, not even one’s own children.

Secondly, we move to infant exposure - that is: leaving newborn babies alone in the wild so that they die. This practice was apparently such an important aspect of Historic Paganism that during the Conversion of Iceland in 1000 AD, here it was determined that the entire island should become Christian, only two concessions were made to the Pagans: they would be allowed to continue eating horsemeat and they could maintain their practice of infant exposure [Islendingabok (ch. 7)]. This practice is evidenced in numerous other legal codes as well. In the Gragas (the early laws of Iceland) infant exposure is only treated as “murder” if the newborn has taken food, otherwise it is completely lawful. This seems to mirror practices from Continental Europe too as evidenced by a passage from Altfrid’s Vita sancti Liudgeri (bk. 1, ch. 6) which describes how the eponymous Liudgeri’s Frisian grandmother attempted to drown his mother when she was an infant because the baby had not eaten or drank any milk yet. The Lex Frisionum lawcode (tit. 5) does not itself mention infant exposure, but does grant legal leniency if the mother kills their child immediately after it is born. Another Continental source: the Visigothic Code (Forum Judicum) says in reference to infant exposure that “parents who have been guilty of such wickedness shall be condemned to perpetual exile,” showing how (like human sacrifice) it must have been common enough to warrant the threat of punishment. Therefore, we can see how this form of infanticide was a very common practice in the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs.

Now, the Folkish Heathen might respond here that in Germania (ch. 19) Tacitus records how “to limit the increase of children, or put to death any of the later progeny, is accounted infamous.” This, however, is a weak text to use as a blanket denial of infant exposure, because the passage is embedded in Tacitus’ moralized portrait of German marriage and sexual discipline. Tacitus, who never actually witnessed Germanic tribes ‘in the wild’ himself is using second-hand accounts, angled in a certain way to invite comparison with and shame Roman decadence. It is a consciously-framed moral treatise as much as it is an anthropological record. Regardless, the line in question only says that limiting the number of children or killing “any of the later progeny” is “accounted infamous,” which reports a normative stigma, not an empirical claim that the act never occurred. The context of this line is also considering “later progeny,” signifying children born after an heir already exists. This is then a condemnation about eliminating ‘extra’ children, not a technical rule about ‘newborn personhood’ or a ‘pre-incorporation window.’ So Germania 19 may show that at least some German groups (or at least Tacitus’ ‘rhetorical Germans’) regarded certain forms of offspring-reduction as disgraceful, but it cannot, by genre, scope, or phrasing, refute more specific legal and narrative evidence showing that exposure was culturally intelligible and regulated by timing, (‘before incorporation’) especially in the Norse world.

As we noted in the prior article, the practice of ausa vatni (“sprinkling with water”) ritualistically welcomed the newborn into the kin-group. But this also functioned as the terminus for leaving the child out to be exposed, meaning that before the child was considered part of the kin-group, they could be disposed of but after that they could not. This effectively provides a ‘window’ where the infant is not yet considered part of the innangard - not yet a person. Hardar saga ok Holmverja (ch. 8) states that it was called “murder” to kill a child after water had been poured over it. Therefore, if one was going to expose the infant, it had to occur before the incorporation ritual. Usually, it seems that the father had the final say in ordering infanticide. In Thorsteins thattr tjaldstaedings (ch. 1), before leaving to take part in a raid, a husband commands his pregnant wife to expose their baby when it is born. In Thorsteins thattr uxafots (ch. 4), it is the mother’s brother who is head of the household who orders an illegitimate boy to be abandoned. However, in Vatnsdaela saga (ch. 37), a wife orders the exposure of her husband’s illegitimate child, showing the ‘right’ belonged to the household head, normally the father, but could be asserted by others in his stead.

This propensity for infant exposure seemed to be especially the case with girls (as has already been attested to above with Liudgeri’s mother) and with the poor. In Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu (ch. 3) a man tells his wife to expose their newborn if it is a girl - the narrator explains that this was more common among the poor, but always considered ‘wrong’ (perhaps the Icelandic Christian author was attempting the same sort of polemics that Folkish Heathens do by caveating mention of the practice). This is also explained by Finnboga saga ramma which stresses that even though a wealthy character is attempting to have his baby killed, it was moreso only the poor who had the right. Hervarar saga ok Heidreks, (ch. 4) narrates how a girl is born to a high-status household, yet the head of the household refuses the ‘social default’ of exposing her, instead performing incorporation (notably including ausa vatni) and raising her. A similar value-scheme arguably surfaces in the social mythology of Rigsthula, where the thrall and karl households have both sons and daughters, but the noble couple Jarl and Erna are explicitly said to have only sons and no daughters. Likely an idealized pattern that coheres uncomfortably well with a world in which unwanted girls could simply be exposed.

In these narratives, the theme of exposed-infants is often countered with the theme of intervention and adoption. In Finnboga saga ramma (chs. 1–2), a newborn boy is ordered to be exposed, but the foster-mother refuses to comply and instead removes the baby and raises him. The child survives specifically because another household takes responsibility for the discarded infant. In Hardar saga ok Holmverja (ch. 8), the child’s father decides after the mother’s death that the girl should be exposed. The person tasked with this role, however, refuses to throw the child into a river and leaves her at a farm-gate, where another man takes her, sprinkles her with water and names her Thorbjorg. Ala flekks saga (chs. 1–2) makes the logic even more explicit. The king declares that if the queen bears a boy “he must be exposed.” The queen orders slaves to carry the newborn into a forest and leave him under a tree, where an elderly couple later finds him and stages a birth so they can bring him up in their cottage. In Reykdaela saga ok Viga-Skutu, (ch. 7) there is an especially harsh winter, so the people go to the Pagan priest-chieftain Ljot to see what should be done. Ljot suggests that they donate to the temple, expose children, and kill the elderly “to vow for improvement in the weather.” This is immediately contested by a character who sounds suspiciously like a Christian. And lastly, although it does not relate explicitly to infant exposure, there is a passage that shows the general Viking attitude toward children and their propensity for indiscriminate killing. In Sturlubok, (ch. 98) the text explains the name of one Viking:

“There was a famous man in Norway called Olvir the Child-Sparer, a great viking. He wouldn’t have children tossed by spear-points as was the custom of vikings at the time, and that’s why he was called the Child-Sparer.”

This Viking is singled-out by his unwillingness to toss children onto spear-points … Taken together, the repeated exposure-and-rescue pattern across different sagas strongly corroborates that infant exposure was a familiar, culturally recognized practice in the Norse world rather than a one-off literary oddity. When compared to narratives and laws originating in Continental Europe, it becomes clear that infanticide was a very important practice in the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs.

Thirdly, marriage. In his Germania, (ch. 18) Tacitus again is often cited as praising the strictness of tribal Germanic marriage yet immediately caveats that some do practice polygamy for political or diplomatic reasons - something only a concern for the ‘upper class.’ This description functions identically to what we saw above with infant exposure. Tacitus’ moralized portrait of ‘German sexual discipline’ - where the barbarians are used as a foil to shame Roman laxity and the elite-polygyny caveat is part of that same stylized contrast, with monogamy as virtue, exceptions only for alliance politics - is polemical as much as anthropological. However, when we look at the Norse corpus, we find numerous analogs to this mention of polygamy for the elite. In Harald harfagers saga (ch. 21), the titular character is portrayed as having numerous wives and concubines and later being required to dismiss nine wives when contracting a high-status marriage. This is a narrative that only makes sense in a milieu where elite polygyny is taken for granted. Likewise, outside observers corroborate this. In Ibn Fadlan’s description of the Rus, (Scandinavians operating in eastern-Europe) in his Risala, there is an episode (§93) about a ruler who sits on a high seat surrounded by forty slave-girls “destined for his bed,” with whom he has intercourse with openly in front of his retinue. Adam of Bremen, writing about Sweden, states in Gesta Hammaburgensis (bk. 4, ch. 21) that in “intercourse with women alone they know no moderation,” and that:

“each man, according to the capacity of his means, has two or three or more [wives] at the same time, while the rich and princes [have] without number.”

There is other evidence that corroborates this note of non-monogamous mores being open to any male with enough social and economic capital “according to the capacity of his means.” In Laxdaela saga (ch. 12-13), Hoskuld, a married chieftain, buys an Irish slave-girl from a Rus trader and “makes her his concubine.” Hoskuld then brings the slave-girl home to Iceland and has a son with her who is brought into his household as a legitimate member. As noted above, in Vatnsdaela saga (ch. 37), a man’s lawful wife orders his concubine’s child to be exposed. In Njals saga, (ch. 103,105) the titular character has a long-term sexual union with Hrodny, separate from his marriage to Bergthora. Njal’s son with Hrodny, is illegitimate in law but fully acknowledged in kin-terms. Hrodny even later refers to Bergthora with a term meaning roughly “co-wife,” with legal historians classifying this as a ‘non-marital but socially recognized union’ rather than a second formal marriage. The runestone So 297 from Uppinge in Sodermanland seems to be archeological evidence of a similar practice in its commemoration of the husband of two women, Amoda and Moda, who jointly raise the stone for their mutual spouse.

Ruth Mazo Karrass observes that Scandinavian provincial law codes from the Christian period assume that rulers and wealthy landowners can and do keep concubines and, as for Sweden and Gotland, they often treat concubinage not as an unthinkable aberration but as a semi-formal status with roots in slavery. The very fact that Christian legislators repeatedly condemn and seek to regulate polygyny, concubinage, and sexual relations outside marriage across northern Europe implies that these were real, entrenched practices that had to be curtailed, not marginal deviations invented by Christian propaganda. Taken together, the sources converge on the same conclusion: Norse-Germanic societies formally centred marriage on one primary wife but permitted, and in some strata normalized, both polygyny and concubinage for men. The legal and narrative sources assume that the wife is the central, honour-bearing spouse, yet they also treat male access to additional partners - enslaved women, concubines, prostitutes - as a normal and often unproblematic part of male life. To conclude, our ancestors did not conceive of marriage as closing the male off from sexual relations with other women.

Fourthly, we will look at ‘other practices’ which are recorded by the historic record and which must factor into any reconstruction project. Frankish, English, and Arabic witnesses consistently portray a Viking world in which sexual violence against women and slaves were routine features rather than exceptional aberrations. The Annals of St-Bertin (s.a. 843) describe the sack of Nantes in the mid-9th Century, when Northmen “burst in” during Mass, killed the bishop, clergy and “many men and women” in and around the church, then plundered and burned the city and carried off captives. The Annals of Xanten (s.a. 845–846) likewise depict mid-9th Century raids in which Vikings devastate churches and “carried men and women away prisoners.” Later tradition around Coldingham, preserved via Roger of Wendover in his Flores historiarum (s.a. 870), has Abbess Ebbe and her nuns cutting off their own noses to render themselves sexually repellent before a Danish attack. Even if we assume hyperbole in this account, the logic presupposes that rape by raiders was expected. Finally, another account from the Risala (§87-91) of a Rus chieftain’s funeral along the Volga depicts a chosen slave girl being plied with drink, passed from tent to tent for intercourse with the dead man’s companions as a supposed ‘farewell,’ and then ritually strangled and stabbed to accompany her owner in death, embedding human sacrifice in a frame of normalized, collective sexual exploitation.

This sexual exploitation was not only isolated to women, however. Old Norse legal and narrative sources make clear that sexually abusing men - especially slaves and defeated enemies - was a recognised, if morally-asymmetrical, practice embedded in a wider system of property and honour. Norwegian provincial law (Gulathing) states that a man has the same right to compensation for “carnal intercourse” involving his male thralls as for his bondwomen. In the Icelandic Gragas, a klamhogg (“shame-stroke”) - a deep slash across the buttocks - is classed with brain, marrow, and abdominal penetrations as one of the “major wounds.” Modern interpreters argue that its location and pairing with castration show it functioned as a juridical label for male anal rape and symbolic ‘unmanning’ of captured foes. Defamation rules in Gulathing and related codes likewise make it an outlawry-level insult to call a man sannsordinn (“demonstrably penetrated”), grouping this with accusations that feminise him or liken him to female animals, which indicates that dishonour attached not to same-sex acts per se but to the loss of masculine, penetrative status. Saga narratives set in the same cultural world show these legal assumptions at work. In Gudmundar saga dyra, (ch. 20) for example, the titular Gudmundr seizes the priest Bjorn and his wife Thorunn. Gudmundr and his men explicitly discuss putting Thorunn “in bed with” a man while doing something to Bjorn that would be “no less disgraceful.” In the Viking world, victors would sometimes punish and humiliate male captives through rape. Taken together, these texts depict a milieu in which male-directed sexual violence was institutionally recognised.

But Norse-German sexuality extended to other strange practices as well. Survive the Jive, an academically-minded Folkish Heathen who also has a show on the Hearthfire Radio network called Radio North Sea, put out a video arguing that there was a “weird” Indo-European practice of prospective-kings mating with a horse. The evidence he provides is convincing. Gerald of Wales’ 12th Century account of “bestial intercourse” between the king-candidate and a white mare, immediately followed by the killing and boiling of the mare, all proceeds a ritual bath in its broth and a communal consumption sequence which collectively confers kingship and ratifies sovereignty. This account is also corroborated by the Betha Mholaise Daiminse. The mare functions as a figure of sovereignty or the land with the sexual contact being the ritual mechanism of legitimacy. It is a public ‘union’ that makes the king belong to the territory and binds the people to him through shared participation in the animal’s transformation into food. Comparative Indo-European studies point toward this practice having deep roots. In the Satapatha Brahmana’s Asvamedha sequence (a royal horse rite), the queen is made to lie down near the horse, which is explicitly framed as “the completeness of union.” High-status ritual literature possess the same conceptual grammar of horse, royalty, and sexualized union language. Hittite law includes a rule where sex with various animals is criminalized but sex with a horse or mule is treated as there being “no offence.” This mention is paired with a restriction from approaching the king or becoming a priest, which again connects royalty, horses, and sexuality. Plutarch describes Rome’s October Horse as a public rite where the right-hand trace horse of the winning team is sacrificed, its blood is hurried to the Regia, and factions fight over the head. Tacitus describes sacred white horses used for divination where leaders and priests read their neighs and snorts. Archeological evidence also points to horses being associated with nobility and royalty. Taken altogether, there does seem to be some sort of sexual horse ritual that was connected to royal status which existed at the edge of sacral kingship.

The Hearthfire Radio show The Bog once had an episode where the hosts covered this subject with the added evidence of pictograph carvings from Scandinavia that depict a figure with an erection behind a horse. There were also theories of Loki’s transformation into a horse and his impregnation with Sleipnir being a possible inverted allusion of the royal mating ritual. Regardless, the hosts agreed that “this is a practice which we in the Heathen community want to bring back.” Even though the episode is still advertised on the Hearthfire Radio Telegram page, the link takes you to a now defunct page on the Hearthfire Radio website - evidence of the episode being taken down. Whether or not this was an actual historic practice, the fact that some prominent Folkish Heathens believe that it was and further that it is something which would be part of a ‘true reconstruction’ should prompt a moment of reflection on whether or not reconstructions should venture into bestiality.

Along with these contemporarily transgressive sexual mores, Viking-Age Scandinavians were deeply enmeshed in Islamic trade networks, trafficking African and European slaves for silver. Archeological and numismatic work shows that Viking-Age Scandinavia was deeply plugged into Islamic economic circuits with ‘coin hoard’ studies now counting close to five-hundred-thousand Islamic silver dirhams in Scandinavian finds, attesting to heavily-sustained trade with the Muslim world. Arabic geographers spell out what at least part of that trade entailed. Ahmad ibn Rustah writes of the Viking Rus in his Kitab al-A laq al-Nafisa that “they attack the Slavs using ships, they capture them as slaves and sell them,” explicitly describing a Scandinavian-led group living off the seizure and sale of eastern-European captives. Ibn Fadlan’s eyewitness account of the Rus on the Volga in his Risala (§83) adds detail, depicting long-distance merchants who arrive with “beautiful slave girls, destined for sale to the merchants,” noting that a buyer might find a Rus having intercourse with a slave girl and must wait until the man “has satisfied himself” before the sale can proceed. This sort of behavior should be expected since law code provisions assume that slaves are truly property. The Frostatingslova lawcode (ch. 20) explicitly allows a master to kill his thrall, with the only constraint being that he had to publicly announce that the slave was killed.

Whereas Vikings seem to have often exported European slaves to foreign lands, there is also an account of foreign slaves flowing into Europe through Viking channels. The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland (FA 330, s.a. 867) records how a band of Norwegians found themselves in Africa, fighting hard against Mauritanians and capturing many native black Africans which the band brought to Ireland, presumably to sell as slaves:

“Then they brought a great host of them captive with them to Ireland, i.e. those are the black men. For Mauri is the same as nigri; ‘Mauritania’ is the same as nigritudo. [...] Now those black men remained in Ireland for a long time. Mauritania is located across from the Balearic Islands.”

Set against Medieval Christendom’s self-understanding as ‘resisting Islamic expansion’ through the Crusades, the above material shows how Historic Paganism deeply integrated into Islamic slave markets and were perfectly willing to sell neighbouring Europeans or even bringing Africans into Europe whenever it suited their interests. The operative ethic for Vikings was loyalty to one’s own household and warband, not any trans-tribal ‘White’ or ‘Germanic’ solidarity. Their innangard was certainly not racial or ethnic.

We might imagine what a season in this world could look like … Longships quietly slide up a river in the fog of dawn. Leather boots jump from wooden planks onto soggy soil at the river’s edge. They rush into the town, enter the church and interrupt Mass. The priest is axed down at the altar, and others of the congregation are attacked. Screaming men, women, and children are taken back to the ships. Nuns are raped in the mud and marked out as saleable spoils. From there, the band follows the sea-roads south, selling their White captives at an Islamic slave market in Spain. The warband begins their return home with the drowning of some captives as a sacrifice for safe passage. Their chieftain brings a new concubine back to his household, where his pregnant wife and their son wait. When his wife’s labors begin, she struggles for the entire day but finally gives birth to a daughter. Yet before she can nurse her newborn, the chieftain orders that the wailing infant should be quietly left out in the woods and never spoken of again. A few weeks later, a rival warband attacks the group but is beaten back and defeated. The captured enemies are impaled with spears, noosed, and hung from trees - sacrificed to Odin - while the son of their leader is held down and publicly sodomized before having his back carved open and his lungs pulled through the wound. As autumn arrives, the chieftain suddenly falls ill and slowly dies. At his fire-lit, night-time funeral, the warband takes his concubine and have their way with her one-after-another. She is then strangled to death and laid atop the chieftain’s pyre … And so the world would go on like this until Christianity overcame it.

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III.

With these accounts of pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs established, we can now return to the moral posture of Folkish Heathenry. The defining claim is not merely that the ancestral ways are historically curious or interesting, but that they carry special authority precisely because they are ancestral and ‘ours,’ and therefore, ‘reconstructing’ or ‘reviving’ them is necessary for personal, ethnic, and moral authenticity. Once that premise is granted, the historical record creates a methodological crisis. The record includes practices that are condoned and interwoven within the customs such as human sacrifice, infanticide, polygamy, slavery, and rape. The question is therefore not a cheap provocation, but a test of coherence: ‘by what principled method can a religion that treats ancestral practice as authoritative decide if these are still binding or discardable, and why?’ In other words: ‘should these practices be included in the reconstruction or not?’ …

The question forces a trilemma, and each horn carries a cost that cannot be avoided by rhetoric. The first option is ‘filtration’ - to exclude the practices as somehow not actually authoritative. This is the most attractive escape because it seems to preserve ‘ancestral authority’ while discarding inconvenient content. The Folkish Heathen says ‘these practices were not an essential part of the custom, not truly endorsed by the gods, or otherwise not truly part of a necessary tradition - they were distortions, misunderstandings, corruptions, or later accretions.’ But this move only works if one can supply a non-arbitrary criterion for filtration or some principled method for distinguishing ‘authentic’ from ‘inauthentic’ that does not simply smuggle in modern preferences. And as we shall see in Part II, hermeneutically pruning the Lore of ‘foreign,’ ‘Christian,’ or otherwise ‘unwanted’ content is fundamentally impossible because you cannot both treat the sources as your continuity-bridge and then disqualify whatever in that bridge conflicts with your desired endpoint. If the Folkish Heathen can only supply special pleading, then reconstruction collapses into ‘selective retrieval,’ where one discards what one cannot live with and labels the remainder ‘the real tradition.’ Yet that operation is functionally the same subjectivizing curation that Folkish Heathens criticize Inclusivist Heathens of. To filter responsibly, one must explain how one knows what the gods truly require and why this criterion is more than a modern moral sensibility operating behind a Pagan aesthetic.

Therefore, the Folkish Heathen might choose the second option of holding an ‘external standard’ - to reject the practice as wrong by appealing to a higher ‘moral yardstick.’ Here, the Folkish Heathen says ‘even if our ancestors did these things, they were wrong, or at least they are wrong now, and therefore we should not bring them into our reconstruction.’ This response has the advantage of clarity, but it comes with a decisive concession of admitting a moral standard that stands above the ancestors and judges them. Whether that standard is named ‘natural law,’ ‘universal human dignity,’ ‘conscience,’ ‘divine goodness,’ or ‘rational moral knowledge,’ the structure is the same - the moral yardstick is no longer ‘the folk,’ but something trans-cultural that can actually condemn ancestral custom. The moment this is granted, the foundational Folkish Heathen move is effectively abandoned, because ancestry stops being the final court of appeal. One may still practice a form of Heathenry after this concession, but it is no longer the robust Folkish claim that ‘the religion of my ancestors is correct for me,’ because one has rejected the religion of their ancestors and accepted a form of universalism similar to the Inclusivist.

So, in order to maintain themselves as such, the Folkish Heathen could choose the third option of ‘full continuity’ - affirming the ancestral practice as legitimate in principle. Taking this position, the Folkish Heathen says ‘if human sacrifice, infanticide, polygamy, and White slavery were genuinely part of the ancestral moral-religious world, then they remain legitimate because the very point of Folkish Heathenry is fidelity to that ancestral pattern.’ Now, the Folkish Heathen can caveat this by saying that modern law makes such acts impracticable, but this is only a pragmatic concession, not a moral one - indeed, it is a sort of capitulation or resigning to ‘Christian sensibilities.’ Regardless, the moment that the Folkish Heathen affirms legitimacy in principle, this simultaneously affirms that the gods’ demands can outrank the safety of the folk and its children, thus excluding the Folkish Heathen self-presentation as ‘for the family’ (as the Asatru Folk Assembly, the Irminfolk Odinist Community, and the Norroena Society do) because the family’s security becomes conditional upon what the gods or the folk may require. Likewise, they cannot maintain the posture of it being ‘for the folk’ if the folk can be offered up too, because the gods’ demands would be prior to the welfare of the group. Therefore, the cost of full continuity is not merely reputational, it is also conceptual. The Folkish Heathen’s public-facing rhetoric becomes subordinate to divine command and power.

The conclusion is, therefore, very straightforward. Folkish Heathenry cannot avoid this trilemma if it is serious about its own stated commitments. Either it filters out the dark parts of the record, but must then defend a non-arbitrary epistemology which survives collapsing into mere preference, or it repudiates those dark parts by appealing to a moral standard beyond ancestry, thereby conceding that the folk is not the final yardstick, or it embraces continuity and must defend the legitimacy of practices that conflict with other stated objectives. This effectively leaves two positions: the Reformist who is willing to ignore or edit aspects of the Lore, and the Fundamentalist who seeks to incorporate the entirety of the record. Folkish Heathen reconstructions cannot coherently treat ancestry as the supreme authority while also claiming the right to amend the tradition unless they import a higher standard. If we are to be serious about reconstructing the past, we must look at all of it, not just the parts that align with modern, Christian-derived sensibilities.

My intent here is not to berate or chide the Folkish Heathen, but ultimately to have them see that every person has a degree of human dignity, a baseline which excludes this moral relativism. Recognizing universal dignity does not dissolve tribal loyalty, it simply places limits on how we treat outsiders. Prioritizing the well-being and success of one’s ethnic, cultural, or national group is not inherently in conflict with recognizing the dignity of those outside that group. Supporting ‘us’ does not require dehumanizing ‘them.’ The assumption that in-group preference demands out-group denigration is an unwarranted conflation. All of this is basic and often acknowledged by the Folkish Heathen, yet for their reconstruction to accept it, they must ‘amend the tradition.’ This further goes to show that one cannot reconstruct without also editing, and to edit is to have a standard above, beyond, or otherwise prior to the tradition.

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IV.

But this all raises a fundamental question: if the gods issued prescriptive demands to our ancestors, what kind of authority are we actually dealing with when Folkish Heathens call those demands ‘binding?’ There are two basic ways to construe it, which are easy but incorrect to slide between.

First, the gods could be treated as ‘moral legislators’ in something like a divine command model. The gods issue binding norms, and an act is right or wrong simply because they commanded or forbade it. On this reading, a Folkish Heathen may try to locate something like a ‘Sinai moment’ in the Proto-Indo-European primordial lawgiving figure of Manu. This figure is found in the Hindu Manu, the Iranian Manuchehr, the Roman Romulus, and the Germanic Mannus. But when we attempt to locate the content of this primordial law in the Norse-Germanic lore, we find only charter-myths and late institutional origin-stories rather than something that warrants belief in a revealed custom. In Germania (ch 2), Tacitus mentions how the Germanic tribes used songs to trace their groupings back to the divine progenitor of Mannus. But Tacitus adds that “antiquity gives free rein to speculation” (something profoundly succinct in our investigation of Folkish Heathenry) and then immediately supplies competing tribal genealogies. Regardless, this mention does not note anything about the origin of tribal norms, only the genealogy of their people. The poem Rigsthula depicts Rigr founding the social castes and teaching Jarl runes. It is a legitimation narrative for hierarchy and kingship which similarly does not state anything about the origin of the customs. It is only in Ynglinga saga (ch. 8) - where Snorri has the euhemerised Odin prescribe funeral customs, memorial mounds, a three-fold sacrificial calendar, and a head-tax - where we find anything approaching a firm ‘law giving’ moment. Yet the fact that the Folkish Heathen only has a single episode written by a Christian in a fully Christianized milieu about a euhemerized Odin coming from Troy to establish certain rites (the content of which are not explicated) in order to assert a ‘revelatory inauguration of the customs’ to fulfill their perceived need for divine command makes the evidence flimsy at best. This passage also has no actionable code - for example, with the ‘three calendrical sacrifices:’ what specific days should they be performed on, what rites are entailed, what sacrificial victims are desired, who is obligated to perform or attend the rite, what counts as ‘compliance,’ are there any exceptions, what are the ‘penalties’ of non-compliance, and so on.

The underlying problem with treating the gods as ‘moral legislators’ is that none of these episodes supply what the model actually requires, namely: a fairly comprehensive, stably-transmitted code of binding norms. Therefore, treating these texts as condoning the model forces the missing breadth and clarity to be supplied by reconstructive associations and definitions rather than by the texts themselves. As we saw in the prior article, the moment you try to obey the command, you must first supply the missing content through selection, interpretation, and debate about what the binding customs actually were. This leads down an endless series of disagreements about what exactly the practice should be. So we can see how if one insists on the ‘moral legislator’ reading, the burden shifts onto the Folkish Heathen to explain where their asserted ‘binding code,’ what it contains is located and why it should be treated as anything other than the interpretive moves of their own particular reconstruction (we will investigate this further in Part II).

Second, the gods could be treated less as legislators and more as ‘powerful patrons,’ who are sources of favor and exemplars of prudential wisdom. In this model, the point of divine speech is not to promulgate a codified statute-book, but to form a kind of ‘workable sagacity’ that preserves honor, secures the folk, and teaches a person how to move between guests, neighbors, and enemies in a way that ultimately tends to succeed. This picture aligns more naturally with the genre and tone of Havamal, where the repeated skal/skaltu (“you shall / must”) formulas function as hard counsel and character-shaping maxims, closer to the prudential advice of wisdom literature like Proverbs than to the codified divine statutes of lawcodes like Leviticus. Yet this model too has its own problem. As we will see momentarily, Havamal does not present Odin as a simple moral ideal whose counsel is self-authenticating. He is also a trickster and, at times, an oath-breaker. If Odin’s counsel includes trickery and calculated breach of trust, then the move from ‘Odin says it’ to ‘therefore it binds us’ must now also account for why counsel from a powerful patron is automatically normative for the folk when the tradition itself foregrounds the patron’s capacity for deceit.

Whether the Folkish Heathen ascribes to the ‘moral legislator’ or the ‘powerful patron’ model, both have implications that can be found in the Euthyphro Dilemma. The Dilemma is located in Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue where, outside the Athenian court, Socrates (who is being prosecuted for impiety) meets Euthyphro (who is prosecuting his own father for impiety). Because both characters are there for reasons relating to piety, Socrates begins his trademark questioning, pressing Euthyphro to define the idea of piety in a world where many gods exist and disagree. Over the course of their dialogue, (or: Socrates’ interrogation) facts are established through a refining series of questions. For example: the gods don’t argue about things that could be measured or counted because they could just remeasure or recount until everyone is in agreement. Instead, they argue about qualitative concerns. Therefore if piety is ‘what the gods love,’ then piety is going to be something that is prone to change due to the multiplicity of gods. Piety must be, then, what ‘all the gods love.’ But the central question that emerges from that - which is the dilemma - is: ‘do the gods love it because it is pious or is it pious because the gods love it?’ … If the gods love something because it is pious, then piety is what is independent of the gods’ love and is effectively a truth operating above and prior to their will. But if that same thing is pious only because the gods love it, then piety is arbitrary and could change with their whims, leaving us without any foundation for coherent moral determinations. In the polytheist schema: either the gods themselves are subject to a universalizing morality or the morality that emerges from the commands of the gods is effectively arbitrary.

If the Folkish Heathen takes the ‘powerful patron’ model or would consider themselves a ‘Reformist’ from the above definitions, then they are likely to hold that ‘what is good’ is logically prior to and independent of the gods’ preferences - it is that the gods are adept (but not perfect) at securing the good. But this would make the Aesir answerable to their actual securement of the good such that by it they can succeed or fail as patrons. Perhaps there are other gods who are better at securing the good? Regardless, if goodness does not come from ‘whatever our gods and ancestors did,’ then ancestral practice and divine behaviour are no longer self-validating - their aptness is contingent upon their alignment with ‘actual morality.’ So if the Aesir love the good because it is good, the real moral authority is not ‘the gods’ or ‘the folk,’ but ‘the good’ itself, and the entire Folkish Heathen project of making ancestral practice the final standard quietly gives way to a higher ‘court of appeal’ - the same court that Christianity operates in. Therefore, in order to maintain their system, the Folkish Heathen would more likely take the ‘moral legislator’ model and consider themselves a ‘fundamentalist’ from the above definitions, holding that ‘an action is right or wrong because Thor, Freyr, the Aesir, and especially Odin (as the high-god) commands so.’ Indeed, this is the foundation of Imperium Press’ Ancestral Principle.

But the implications of this are highly unsavory because there are numerous episodes in which Odin’s will is tactical, reversible, and predatory. In Volsunga saga (ch. 11) Odin gives Sigmund the sword Gram as a gift. Decades later, while Sigmund is in battle, Odin strides up to him, smashes Gram with his spear, and leaves Sigmund to die. In Lokasenna, (st. 22–23) Loki taunts Odin for “often giving victory to those who least deserved it,” a critique that Odin does not deny, showing how the gods themselves recognised his preferences in patronage. One of Odin’s heiti (that is: one of his titles or names used in poetry) is attested in Grimnismal (st. 47), thul Odins nofn (st. 3), and Gylfaginning (ch 20), as being Glapsvidr - that is: “swift in deceit” or “quick in treachery.”

In Gautreks saga (ch. 7), Odin’s patronage is portrayed as a form of strategic indebtedness that culminates in a deliberately-engineered betrayal. After King Vikarr’s long run of successes, his fleet is unable to move due to the lack of winds. Divination indicates that for the winds to return, a life must be given to Odin, and the lots repeatedly fall on King Vikarr as the desired victim. Everyone naturally wants to evade this high cost and so the decision is put off until the following day. But that night, one of the men and the king’s advisor, Starkad, is called to a secret council of the gods where Odin and Thor are present. After blessing Starkad, Odin tells him that he wants Vikarr to be sacrificed, giving Starkad a spear which Odin says will turn into a reed at the critical moment. With the understanding that the sacrifice will be symbolic, Starkad convinces the others and the king that Vikarr should stand on a stump, wrap a ‘noose’ around his neck made from calf-guts, (which will easily break) and then he will plunge the reed into King Vikarr. When the critical moment comes, however, and Starkad says “Now I give you to Odin,” the stump slips away, the calf-guts turn into a real rope, and the reed turns into a spear. King Vikarr is actually sacrificed. Odin’s deceit in this story is not incidental but structural. Odin demands the sacrifice, engineers the outcome by disguising the weapon, letting men believe they are performing a harmless sign, and then converts the signs into the reality they were meant to evade. In this story, Odin’s patronage functions as a predatory contract based on deception.

In Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II, the story similarly shows Odin as the active author of a kin-slaying rather than a neutral onlooker. Helgi has killed Hunding and his sons in a feud, but he spares their kinsman Dag and takes him into his service, binding Dag by oath as brother-in-law and retainer. Dag then goes to Odin and offers sacrifice, explicitly asking for vengeance on Helgi despite their new relationship. Odin accepts the offering and responds by lending him his own spear, the weapon that guarantees victory to the one who wields it. Armed with this divine weapon, Dag lies in wait at Fjoturlund, ambushes Helgi, and kills him. When Dag brings the news to his sister, she curses him, and Dag answers with this crucial line (st. 34):

“Mad art thou, sister, and wild of mind,

Such a curse on thy brother to cast;

Odin is ruler of every ill,

Who sunders kin with runes of spite.”

Dag is shifting the blame from himself to Odin. But in the logic of the poem, Odin really does accept a sacrifice specifically aimed at vengeance, equips Dag with a special weapon, and thereby becomes the proximate cause of the treacherous killing of a man who was both Dag’s lord and in-law. Rather than reorienting Dag’s desire for revenge against his oath, Odin allows and even encourages the endeavor.

But this behavior is something that should be expected of Odin, who Havamal presents as himself breaking oaths. In the mead-of-poetry story, Odin gains access to Suttung’s daughter Gunnlod, (who protects the mead) sleeps in her bed for three nights in exchange for three draughts of the mead, then takes all the mead, flies away, and leaves her behind in grief. In the reflective line (st. 108) the poet comments that:

“A ring-oath, I think, Odin once had taken – how shall one trust his troth?

He left Suttung cheated of the drink, and Gunnlod made to weep.”

This explicitly uses Odin’s conduct as proof that even a sacred oath from Odin cannot be relied on and his favor is never safe. Yet within the Norse religious frame this does not lead to a call to abandon Odin; instead it reflects a worldview in which even gods can deceive, and piety means negotiating with powerful, morally ambivalent beings rather than trusting a just or faithful deity. That said, if a Folkish Heathen wants to relativise the story on the grounds that Gunnlod is a jotunn and therefore outside the moral concern of the Aesir, the internal framing is still starkly critical: Odin himself is the one whose broken ring-oath leaves a woman betrayed and weeping, and the text directly poses the question, “how shall one trust his troth?” …

This question is especially relevant for women. In Gesta Danorum (bk. 3), Saxo Grammaticus tells a euhemerized version of Odin needing to generate an avenger after Baldr’s death. In this account, he sets his sight on the princess Rindr who denies him in multiple disguises. Finally though, by disguising himself as a female healer, Odin convinces Rindr’s father, the king, to tie her to her bed. With Rindr bound, Odin rapes her. This episode is also alluded to in the Skaldic poem Sigurdardrapa (st. 3) which only mentions how Odin “seidr-enchanted Rindr” - that is: used magic against her (likely alluding to a variant telling). Therefore, we see how Odin somehow tricked a woman into bearing him a child even though she did not want to. Likewise, in the poem Harbardsljod (st. 32-33) the figure of Harbarth (identified as Odin) tells Thor that he needed Thor’s help to “hold the white maid fast,” and Thor replies that he would gladly have helped had he been there. This is an allusion to physically restraining a beautiful woman, which, in context, is an episode of one god confessing his attempted rape and another god (his son) stating his willingness to assist in rape. Overall, this non-morality of Odin can be summarized by Havamal (st. 58):

“Rise early if you would have another man’s life or money;

The drowsy wolf takes no lamb, the lying warrior wins no fight.”

Because Odin is demonstrably capricious, he could tell a Heathen to make an oath today, break it tomorrow, and reinstate it the following day. And because Odin is demonstrably licentious, he could decide that he wants to have his way with your daughter and regardless of anyone’s concern, he will try to rape her. There is no limit on what Odin could command you to do or what he will not just do himself. And as we saw above with human sacrifices, Odin is willing to make bargains with you, but at the cost of your own life and the life of others, including that of your own children.

Now, a Folkish Heathen might respond that ‘Odin is operating on a higher tier of concern than human fairness - his task is to prepare for Ragnarok.’ In this view, what looks like betrayal or injustice to us is actually part of a wider, divine strategy. In the same way that parents give rules to their children that the parents themselves cannot always abide by in order to protect the home, so too do the gods give us standards which they themselves must often ignore. But if Odin demands loyalty, oath-keeping, and courage, yet openly breaks oaths (Gunnlod), engineers kin-slaying (Helgi), uses trickery generally (Vikarr) and specifically to rape women (Rindr) and gives victory “to those who least deserve it” (Lokasenna), then he is acting more like an abusive or negligent parent than a nurturing one. A parent who forbids a child ice-cream at breakfast but openly eats from the tub themselves is already sending a mixed message. And what is the child supposed to take away from the authority-figure example who they will naturally imitate when instead of ice-cream the analogy involves dishonor and sexual exploitation? We rightly expect more responsibility and restraint from those with greater power, which means that when the Aesir - especially their leader, Odin - break the very norms that Norse society prized, then the gods function as bad examples even by ancestral standards. At that point, the question is unavoidable: why should we obey a commander whose orders can run directly against the welfare of our communities?

The ‘Ragnarok justification’ of the Folkish Heathen likewise fails for two reasons. First, in Eddic eschatology, Ragnarok is not a victory-myth. It is literally “when the gods go to destruction” or when they “meet their end” (Vafthrudnismal st. 52). Odin is devoured by Fenrir the wolf. Thor kills the Midgard Serpent but then collapses from its venom. The weaponless Freyr is cut down by Surtr. Tyr and Garm tear each other apart. And Heimdall dies slaying Loki. My rebuttal here is not that the gods should passively submit to this fate, but that ‘Odin’s higher plan,’ on the myths’ own terms, is an expedient war-craft under the threat of doom, not the establishment of some sort of long-term standard of conduct. But even if the Folkish Heathen retreats to a softer version of the position - ‘Odin is merely preparing, mitigating, or meeting doom honorably’ - the moral problem does not disappear. What kinds of acts are permitted in that preparation? Are there any actions that remain forbidden even under doom? If the answer is ‘whatever helps preparedness is allowed,’ then what is ‘right’ has simply been reduced to ‘tactical usefulness’ by another name. If the answer is ‘some things remain forbidden,’ then they have admitted a moral floor that does not originate in Odin’s planning, because it constrains him even while he prepares. Second, the moment that the Folkish Heathen say that ‘Ragnarok leads to renewal’ or that ‘the strategy of the Aesir serves the greater good of the post-Ragnarok world,’ they re-open the Euthyphro dilemma because goodness stops being identical with what Odin says. Instead, Odin is being evaluated by a higher standard, namely how well his conduct serves that telos. If, instead, they insist that whatever advances Odin’s Ragnarok plans is ipso facto right, then the ends simply justify the means, full-stop. Anything becomes permissible whenever it is believed to serve a ‘higher end.’ Either way, the reconstruction loses moral stability. The Aesir cease to be legislators or the ground of any definition for ‘the good’ and instead become patrons whose power must be managed. The folk is left without a principled reason to avoid imitating the same suspension of norms whenever it claims group-survival as the higher aim, which is precisely how the moral floor for the utangard becomes thin enough to vanish.

To summarize thus far: either the Folkish Heathen amends and edits the content of the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs or they embrace it. By editing it, they are implicitly denying the authority of their ancestors. By embracing it, they are incorporating human sacrifice, infanticide, slavery, and rape into their reconstructions. Likewise, if they hold that right things are right regardless of if their ancestors and the gods say so, then they deny their binding authority. If they hold that right things are right because the gods say so, then they are enshrining the predatory whims of a capricious, doomed, and desperate pantheon as the ultimate moral standard.

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V.

But there is another aspect of this religion’s ethics which we must address before concluding this article because it is - in many ways - a core attraction for many Folkish Heathens. The ‘combative ethos’ of Historic Paganism is something that Folkish Heathenry is very much keen to adopt because out of all the ‘spiritual options’ present today, it is the only one viewed as being able to allow the necessary degree of self-preservation given that those of European descent are being globally persecuted and delegitimized. However, the moral architecture of pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs (tiered personhood, feud-based honour, and gods who themselves foster strife) has predictable failure-points. There is a tendency toward the escalation of violence and a difficulty in de-escalating it due to the reification of aggression and honor. These play out within the folk too, not just against ‘outsiders.’ I want to walk through these movements from the Lore and then show modern examples of these failure-points, not to argue that the Folkish Heathenry endorses or entails criminality, but to argue that it makes serious, destabilizing harm more likely rather than less, even when no one explicitly wills that outcome. This, again, conflicts with the self-presentation of Folkish Heathenry as being

As we mentioned in the prior article, according to the Lore, the cosmos itself is a permanent field of conflict. After all, it is not just murder that constitutes creation, but the veritable ‘kin-slaying’ of Ymir. This is likely why the Aesir are constantly feuding with the jotunn, whose progenitor was Ymir, with there being no end to the feud without one side’s capitulation at Ragnarok. In the logic of the mythos, Odin is incentivized to create conflict because he is trying to ‘harvest’ the best warriors to himself to increase the ranks of his Einherjar who will aid in his resistance to Ragnarok. Indeed, Odin is known as the “battle promoter,” (‘a poem by Hofgarda-Refr Gestsson about Thorsteinn,’ st. 2) the “instigator of discord,” (Lausavisur, st. 17) and “the stirrer of strife” (Harbardsljod st. 22). Grimnismal (st. 18, 23-24) and Gylfaginning (ch. 38) relate that the Eninherjar battle every day in Valhalla and are healed in the evening - an afterlife of fighting and feasting. There is likewise a ‘forever feud’ called Hjadningavig where two sides fight every day, are resurrected at night, then fight again the next day. If the highest end value is attaining the ‘best’ afterlife of Valhalla, (which is deeply related to another goal of ‘leaving a legacy of great deeds’) then you should always run into fight - combat should never be avoided. It is an interesting aside that the Heathen will assert that their moral relativity allows for numerous views, thus allowing for many ‘separate but equal’ spaces, when it is that very stance that Postmodernism acknowledges must reduce to violence.

Saga conflict showcases socially-structured responses to how this ethos played-out in history. Feuds typically progress through direct negotiation, arbitration, or legal adjudication with violence most often following when a party refuses to negotiate, rejects an arbitrated settlement, or later repudiates an agreement that had been publicly accepted (usually for reasons relating to their honor). Settlements are frequent and meaningful, but their durability depends on whether all parties - and the surrounding community - regard the outcome as honorable and satisfactory. When that acceptability fails, feud reopens. This pattern appears across the major feud narratives. In Brennu-Njals saga (ch. 35-45, 123-128), early insults and household quarrels do not immediately lead to violence but to repeated legal and arbitrated settlements at the Althing. Only when a final arbitrated resolution is rejected does the feud collapse into catastrophic violence and the burning of Njal’s household. In Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu (ch. 18), a poetic rivalry over a woman develops into formal duels. After temporary settlements fail to restore mutual satisfaction, kin groups adopt the quarrel and sustain the feud even beyond the poets’ deaths. In Vapnfirdinga saga (ch. 3, 5, 13–15), sworn-brothers drift into enmity through a sequence of broken agreements, with later generations inheriting and perpetuating their unresolved claims. In Heidarviga saga (ch. 1, 12–13), vengeance chains persist for decades precisely because no settlement achieves durable communal acceptance. In Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 37–46), Snorri godi repeatedly negotiates legal and extra-legal settlements with rival kin-groups - each agreement temporarily halts violence, yet renewed provocations or rejected terms reopen the feud until eventual exhaustion brings stability. In Volsunga saga (ch. 6), the extremity of the honor imperative is dramatized when Signy demands the death of her own sons rather than allow their perceived weakness to undermine the family’s vengeance-claim. And in Laxdaela saga (ch. 12), a dispute involving three individuals expands into three generations of reciprocal killings, finally closed only when a Christian priest brokers a settlement recognized as binding by all parties. Across these narratives, arbitration and compensation are neither illusory nor irrelevant but instead are the primary means by which violence is delayed and often prevented. Yet because honor remains the ultimate metric of acceptability, settlements that fail to secure recognized satisfaction or impede the party’s ability to ‘save face’ leave latent claims unresolved.

So when Folkish Heathenry appeals to Historic Paganism in their reconstructions, what is being idealised is precisely this system of mythological violence, intra-ethnic vendettas, and Valhalla-oriented aspirations. These narratives show that conflict in this world tends toward escalation rather than resolution because it lacks any robust internal mechanism for subordinating violence or honor to a higher ethic of cooperation or peace. And even if one seeks to adopt this framework as a means of ‘freeing those of European descent,’ it does so by valorising a morality that turns other even allied Whites into potential feud-targets, rendering any putative ‘racial solidarity’ structurally precarious (more will be said on this in the following article). Against that backdrop, it becomes a reasonable, if uncomfortable, question whether a movement that idealises this combative ethos will tend to draw a disproportionate share of those already inclined toward aggression and boundary-breaking, and whether the pathologies visible in the sources appear in present-day Folkish Heathen milieus.

Using federal Bureau of Prisons religious-preference totals alongside large-scale U.S. survey data, one Commission on Civil Rights table reported in 2007 that ‘Pagan’ identifiers are 0.4% of U.S. adults but 1.4% of inmates in all federal prisons. This is a 3.5x overrepresentation. The same table showed that only Muslims (0.6% of population, 9.3% of inmates) and Native American religions (0.1% of population, 3.8% of inmates) held a worse ratio of ‘more in prison, less in general public.’ A similar report from 2025 notes how Pagans are <1% of the population but comprise 1%-8% of the prison population, depending on the given prison. Now, as we saw in the introductory article, ‘Pagan’ can encompass many different spiritualities, including those which Folkish Heathenry would oppose. However, since Folkish Heathenry is a self-consciously ‘warrior-minded,’ ethnocentric strand within the wider Pagan field, it is not ‘special pleading’ to suggest that this Pagan prison population has a significant presence from Folkish Heathens.

Indeed, their emphasis on prison-outreach is striking. Wotansvolk - a Folkish Heathen ‘Odinist’ network - organized ‘kindreds’ of White inmates behind bars such that by 2001, the network was communicating with more than five-thousand prisoners and had ‘prison kindreds’ in every state, effectively converting whole gangs into adopting the religion. Wotansvolk activists would also help launch the ‘National Prison Kindred Alliance,’ a coordinating body of Folkish Heathen prison kindreds. However, the texts they would give to inmates would be banned from state prisons in Wisconsin due to their tendency to incite agitation. The Asatru Folk Assembly maintains a dedicated ‘prison ministry’, which “benefits not only [inmates] as followers of Asatru but their families and loved ones.” The Odinic Right’s ‘Prison Affairs Bureau’ likewise supports incarcerated Odinists. The Asatru Alliance publishes a thirty-five-page booklet titled Our Sacred Land, “written specifically to aid inmates in establishing their own sacred land in a prison environment.” So, far from those inmates who self-identify as ‘Pagan’ diluting the possibility of Folkish Heathens contributing to that population, we might be more correct in saying that the population of incarcerated Pagans it is predominantly Folkish in character.

There are many cases of individuals having their religious views prior to their incarceration as well - including some prominent leaders in the sphere. A member of the Wolves of Vinland (whose founder has a show called ‘Right Action’ on the Hearthfire Network streaming service) pled guilty in 2013 to felony arson and related charges involving the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Virginia, serving two-and-a-half years in prison. This member had ‘666’ prominently marked on their right-wrist while in prison. Ironically, after their release, they would be brought back into the organization and help construct a hof (essentially a ‘Heathen church’ or ‘temple’). Else Christensen - whose gravestone bears the title “Folk Mother and Founder of the Odinist Fellowship” - was sentenced to five years in prison in 1993 for a drug-trafficking case involving marijuana and heroin. She claimed to be reciprocating favors for a young couple who asked her to drive the car across state lines, which she apparently did not know had drugs in it. The Asatru Folk Assembly has a hof in Minnesota with a shrine set up to Else, and the Asatru Folk Assembly website says:

“Hail the Folkmother!

Hail Else Christensen!

Hail the Asatru Folk Assembly!”

A member of the Asatru Folk Assembly - previously described by the group as “the newest apprentice Folkbuilder for the Odinshof District” - is still awaiting trial for a 2024 incident in New Mexico reported to have involved carjacking resulting in death and using a firearm during a crime. This member had ‘1488’ tattooed on his finger.

In 2014, a New York City Councilman – once a founding member of an Anglo-Saxon Heathen (‘Theodish’) group – was convicted of two overlapping bribery and fraud schemes and in 2015 was sentenced to ten years in federal prison. In 2020 he was released amid COVID-19 measures. But then, in March 2025, after returning from Cuba, he was arrested in Florida on federal charges of possession and transportation of child pornography. A different Theodish leader and author who helped found the Angelseaxisce Ealdriht organization was accused of making overt sexual advances on a member.

And lastly, the ‘President of the Irminfolk Community.’ Before his time in organized Folkish Heathenry, this person was involved in a 1995 incident involving explosives and vandalism with wind-reporting transmitters (aviation safety infrastructure). In 2000, while still on federal probation, police searched his apartment and found an AK-47 with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, silencers, a home-made gun, and neo-Nazi paraphernalia, which would lead to him being sentenced to twenty-seven months in prison, also barring him from any future possession of firearms whatsoever. After re-entering public life, he repositioned himself as a ‘Folkish religious organizer,’ working closely for several years with the Asatru Folk Assembly who would call him a “good friend.” He would build up the Irminfolk Odinist Community as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that organized the multi-day Folkish Summer Hallowing gathering in Pennsylvania. Survive the Jive would give a talk at the 2023 Folkish Summer Hallowing. Imperium Press and The Bog host brought the leader on to talk about the growth of Heathenry. And the Norroena Society credits the Irminfolk with an image on their page describing their Smrja ritual. But in July, 2025, federal agents would search this person’s home and discover weaponry which broke their prohibition on possession, and would lead to their detainment awaiting a new trial. Shortly afterward, the Irminfolk Odinist Community cancelled the 2025 Folkish Summer Hallowing. …

The anticipated Folkish Heathen response that ‘every religion has people involved who commit bad deeds’ does not really address what is at issue here. The concern is not that any one crime automatically falsifies the religion, but that the Folkish Heathen milieu shows a cluster of serious criminal cases tightly entangled with their religious leadership in a way that goes well beyond the ordinary expectation of ‘some adherents do bad things,’ especially for such a niche organizational network. The pattern documented above does not prove that Folkish Heathenry causes crime in any simple way, nor does imprisonment automatically discredit a person or a belief system, but it is reasonable to infer that this particular style of religion tends to attract and retain asocial personality types who use the mythology and the sagas as a warrant for this sort of behavior.

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VI.

To recap: A reconstructionist ethic that treats ancestral custom as authoritative must treat at least some ancestral practices as normative for adherents now. The historical record depicts practices which contemporaries reject as morally impermissible, such as human sacrifice, infanticide, polygamy, slavery of Europeans, and rape. Therefore, reconstructionists must either affirm those practices, or filter them by a moral standard which is by necessity outside of the ancestral customs. If they affirm them, they embrace a conclusion that conflicts with their own rhetorical commitments to ‘family,’ ‘the folk,’ and ‘appealing to high-quality, demanding people.’ If they filter them, the Folkish Heathen implicitly appeals to a trans-ancestral moral standard. This is similar to the Euthyphro Dillimea where if the gods command the good because it is good, then goodness is prior to and above the gods. If the good is good only because the gods command it, then morality becomes contingent on divine will in ways that conflict with the rhetorical commitments. Either divine authority collapses into a higher standard, or it becomes morally arbitrary - so it cannot stabilize the moral theory Folkish Heathen apologetics needs. The heroic warrior ethos of Heathen Lore - prizing honor, vengeance, and endless feuds - further highlights these flaws. Such a code historically led to cycles of violence and revenge that only ceased when a Christian peace-ethic was imposed. Today this combative, in‑group mindset appears to attract a disproportionate number of asocial individuals. In short, a moral system that rejects universal values in favor of ancestral or tribal dictates is either forced to defend indefensible cruelties or else smuggles in the very universal principles it claims to reject. Both are untenable positions for the Folkish Heathen to maintain their identity as such.

This should cause us to pause for a moment, reflect on everything we’ve seen in Part I and ask: who would be attracted to this system and why? … Which will be the subject of the following article.

Let us close in prayer:

“O God, who taught the whole world through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul, draw us, we pray, nearer to you through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today, and so make us witnesses to your truth in the world. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

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Rebuilding Bifrost and the Elivagar of Ancestry: A Critique of Folkish Heathen Apologetics

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Today, on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we behold the Son emerging from the river as the Father once more brings forth creation from the waters with the Spirit, before sending Him into the desert to confront everything opposed to His mission …

I.

Historic Paganism was a totalizing, holistic socio-legal-religious-political system more analogous to a ‘custom’ (sidr) than a ‘religion’ as understood in our contemporary world. Within that historic system, one did not agonize over whether one’s children would ‘accept’ the faith because transmission was embedded in communal patterns of ritual, taboo, and myth, which were all accepted as given rather than seen with a sense of volition. It would be akin to asking if a fish ‘believed in’ their underwater life, to which the fish would respond by asking ‘what’s water?’ It was the ‘old customs’ (forn sidr). It just was. This is why, during the advent of continued contact with Christianity which would ultimately lead to conversion, the incoming faith was understood as a ‘new custom’ (nyr sidr) rather than a ‘true-false belief system.’ While the ancient Greco-Roman world produced figures like Celsus and Porphyry who directly argued against Christianity, nothing comparable survives from the pre-Christian North. There, obligation was derived from law and kinship rather than apologetic treatises which acknowledge epistemic value as such. So there is a tension here: a system that historically did not engage in apologetics is attempting to be transplanted into a milieu where every worldview is forced to justify itself.

Many Pagans/Neopagans today - especially Folkish Heathens - insist that debating non-Pagans or justifying themselves to outsiders is unwarranted given the nature of their faith. Often, the argument will come from Folkish Heathens that ‘the gods don’t need converts’ or ‘these traditions are from and for our people and that’s enough.’ These attitudes can be misinterpreted as obstinance or even ignorance, but their position is more one of sincere conviction or loyalty. One might contrast this insular caution against Alviss the dwarf’s attempt to prove his wisdom and win the hand of Thor’s daughter. As the story goes, Alviss pedantically lectured on his exhaustive knowledge until dawn’s light turned him to stone, all according to Thor’s plan for his daughter to avoid the marriage. A parable, perhaps, that we can succumb to external pressure and promises of intellectual reward to become petrified in place through our educated inaction.

All the same, leading voices in the Folkish Heathen sphere have advised for an outward-facing nuance which can articulate itself to ‘modern man’. Stephen McNallen - founder of the Asatru Folk Assembly (and in many ways the ‘founding father’ of Reconstructionist Heathenry in America) - calls attention to the necessity of polished apologetics when he admits that “[...] verses from the Havamal will not suffice to express our beliefs to a sophisticated world.” Likewise, the Hearthfire Radio network of personalities have strongly advocated for ‘Pagan Apologetics’ to combat Christian and Atheist polemics. This is not only a way to defend itself from the corrosive critique of Modernity at large, but also to attract outsiders. In its more sophisticated understanding, then, Folkish Heathenry aims to appeal to serious, demanding people who in turn expect their worldview to be coherent, articulate, and defensible. After all, as Havamal (st. 26) states:

“The fool who fancies he is full of wisdom
While he sits by his hearth at home.
Quickly finds when questioned by others.
That he knows nothing at all.”

Where arguments are offered, they overwhelmingly take a similar shape: appeals to ancestry, history, and experiential resonance all working on one’s identity and in one’s life. That is: they argue that Folkish Heathenry is uniquely apt for those of European descent. In this way, because they attempt to preclude critique by insinuating the inherent rightness of Folkish Heathenry, our first task will be to deconstruct these arguments before investigating anything else. My goal in this present article is to steelman the core philosophical moves of Folkish Heathenry and then test them against the standards its own proponents explicitly or implicitly accept. From there, in the following article, I will trace the implications of this system and conclude Part I in a third article which analyzes the kinds of people this system tends to attract, and why.

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II.

The foundational move of Folkish Heathenry is not to claim that it is ‘true’ in some abstract sense, but that it is more ‘appropriate and authentic’ for those of European descent (or specifically: German descent) to accept it. This is a very intriguing move because the axis of its evaluation shifts from veracity to legitimacy, and once the primary question becomes ‘is this ours?’ rather than ‘is this true?’ we move away from idealizing a universalized vantage and into accepting a relative vignette. A tradition becomes seen as ‘true’ insofar as it rightly expresses and deepens the life of a specific group. Now, many thinkers in this sphere will of course still assert certain universals, (e.g., that there are objective natural hierarchies or that decadence is bad for all peoples) but they will equally insist that the concrete shape of the ‘good life’ is ancestrally-patterned.

This philosophic positioning shares an “incredulity toward metanarratives” with Postmodern thought, which calls into question the availability of any neutral or universal approach to securing truth. On this view, because there is no ‘independent evidence’ or reasoning beyond internal language games or concepts of reality, we are merely looking out from one of many specific and incomplete vantages, not some sacrosanct peak. Every narrative is only ever a particular narrative, especially those which claim dominion over or superiority to other narratives. Imperium Press, a leading publisher in the Folkish Heathen sphere, argues in Postmodernity as a Return to Tradition that the breakdown of liberal-universalist narratives through Postmodern thought creates space for a return to rooted, ancestral traditions. Similarly, religious studies scholar Kennet Granholm notes in his analysis of Edred Thorsson’s work that pluralism of thought is regarded not as an enemy of tradition, but rather as something which “facilitates the rediscovery of tradition.” In other words: the allowances for multiple viewpoints and the decline of a ‘one-size-fits-all truth’ opens the door for each folk to take its own authentic path.

David Bentley Hart, (an Orthodox theologian) following John Milbank, (an Anglican theologian) also highlights the structural kinship between certain strands of Postmodern philosophy and Historic Paganism. In both cases, reality is understood as, essentially, a ‘field of conflict’ rather than something ordered by a peaceful and metaphysical Logos. In the Postmodernist’s distrust of narratives like traditional metaphysics, they must still explain what epistemic concerns like ‘meaning’ or ‘knowledge’ are, yet in the coherence of their explanation - which is not that ‘differences matter’ or ‘power is an important aspect of epistemology’ - it behaves much more like ‘a hermeneutic skeleton key’ where ‘difference’ and ‘power’ effectively function as foundational ‘anti-Logos’ or as an ‘anti-metaphysical metaphysics.’ This is analogous (though certainly not identical) to the Heraclitean emphasis on ‘becoming’ which similarly finds much agreement (at least with regard to the ‘surface tone’) between the realist philosophy of Historic Pagan thought, like Havamal (st. 76). When applied to Norse-Germanic mythology, one can see resonances: the world arises from conflict (the slaying of Ymir; Aesir vs. Vanir vs. Jotunn), order is continually threatened (Ragnarok), and the gods themselves are enmeshed in inter-pantheon struggles (Lokasenna, for instance). Both Postmodernity and Folkish Heathenry believe that ‘violence’ is almost always unavoidable as different folks or different narratives inevitably come into disagreement. Given this view of an inherently pluralistic and conflictual reality, the crucial question becomes: whose perspective or authority fills the void left by the absence of universal truth?

[...] “I do not believe in Heathenry because it is ‘epistemologically superior’ and better reflects some abstract higher truth, but rather because it is the tribal belief of my ancestors, there can be no higher standard of authority than that.”

In the Folkish Heathen schema, the decisive answer is: ancestry. This is not a metaphor or a loose sociological category, but is instead meant as a biological and genealogical reality: a concrete chain of descent, a shared ‘biospirit,’ a people coherently defined by blood. As a pre-discursive fact - an authoritative, pre-rational inheritance - one’s ancestry expresses itself as a folk, a people, an ethnic community. And organically emerging from that folk and forming that folk in an interplay from primordial times, a religious tradition gives voice to its deep-level needs, wants, and values. To the Folkish Heathen, among the many narratives on offer in the modern world, the one that is truly fitting - indeed, the one that is literally ‘for you’ - is the one that arises from your own ancestry. This is succinctly captured in the Biblical maxim about fidelity in marriage “drink from your own well” (Proverbs 5:15-21) which was adopted and recontextualized by Folkish Heathens to mean: ‘defer to the traditions of your own people.’

This axiomatic principle is argumentatively developed in two main ways: Steven McNallen’s “Metagenetics” and Imperium Press’s “Ancestral Principle.” Within the Folkish Heathen sphere these are increasingly treated as quasi-orthodox. Metagenetics originally comes from an eponymous magazine article from 1985, which was later updated in 1999, formed into a booklet in 2006, and made into a brief sub-chapter of McNallen’s 2015 magnum opus: Asatru: A Native European Spirituality. As one scholar has observed, “McNallen’s need to revisit his concept [...] indicates the impact his provisional reflections have had among Asatruers.” The Asatru book has been reviewed on a two-episode reflection on the Hearthfire Radio show Newark Roundtable with McNallen contributing to the discussions. Another show on Hearthfire Radio, The Bog, opened their ‘Pagan Apologetics’ series with an episode about the Ancestral Principle formulated by Imperium Press. One of the hosts of the show - author of the book Germanic Theology: Volume I - has stated on their Substack page that the Ancestral Principle is “perhaps the most important theological innovation in modern Heathen reconstruction.” Another guest on The Bog, the Norroena Society - who has published leading books for Folkish Heathens like the Asatru Edda and the Aefinrunar books - has an article titled Our Ancestral Endowment where they espouse a view that is very similar in outcome to both arguments. Taken together, these publishers, podcasts, and reconstruction projects treat Metagenetics and the Ancestral Principle as critical to Folkish Heathenry, not incidental or ad hoc rhetoric. Therefore, it is crucial to fully understand them.

First, Metagenetics. Human beings are not blank slates. For McNallen, heredity shapes not only our bodies but also characteristic patterns of temperament, perception, and valuation at the population level. Drawing on numerous studies, theories, and findings, Metagenetics argues that there is a biologically-grounded patterning of inner life. In Asatru: A Native European Spirituality, McNallen reintroduces Metagenetics as the thesis that culture, and specifically religion, is carried along family and ethnic lines:

“Indigenous religions place emphasis on the ancestors and on the identity of the group. In Asatru, as the story of Rig reminds us, we know that the Gods themselves are among these ancestors. The idea that there should be ‘different’ groups with different religions no longer seems strange. Indeed, it becomes inescapable.”

On this reading, a people’s traditional religion is the symbolic and ritual flowering of an inherited psychic structure which finds its origins in the gods rather than from a detachable set of ideas. One’s sense of finding a ‘religion that fits me’ is therefore expected to be answered by following the ancestral path that corresponds to one’s own line of descent.

From within this framework, the preservation of a folk and the preservation of its religion are two aspects of the same underlying reality: a transgenerational pattern of being that manifests as shared ancestry, shared character, and a shared sacred vocabulary. Race (understood as genealogical peoplehood), religion, politics, and morality are treated as inseparable dimensions of this pattern – often condensed into the language of a ‘folk soul’ or ‘racial soul’ that differentiates one people from another. Because this pattern is carried genealogically, it can in principle re-emerge even after centuries under an imported creed. Therefore, the ancestral customs remain latent as a potential expression of one’s deepest being, which one can only truly feel fulfilled and oneself by acknowledging and embracing. This is why the religious organization that McNallen founded, the Asatru Folk Assembly, has its Declaration of Purpose state:

“Asatru is an ancestral religion, one passed down to us from our forebears from ancient times and thus tailored to our unique makeup. [...] If the Ethnic European Folk cease to exist, Asatru would likewise no longer exist. [...] All native religions spring from the unique collective soul of a particular race. [...] Asatru is not just what we believe, it is what we are.”

From Metagenetics’ own logic, someone ‘should’ be Heathen because their ancestral religion is the natural expression of their inherited patterns, so returning to it is framed as the way to live in accordance with what they most deeply and truly are.

Secondly, the Ancestral Principle. Imperium Press begins from a kind of ‘factualism’ about reason and justification. They claim that reason cannot be its own foundation, because any attempt to justify everything by argument eventually bottoms out in something that is simply given rather than chosen after deliberation. This is not only an abstract epistemological point but a claim about ordinary life. One did not reason one’s way into having a native language, a family, a body, a temperament, a community, a childhood formation, or the basic trust in memory and perception that makes reasoning possible at all. One finds oneself already standing inside these conditions. Therefore, Imperium Press treats the deepest, most real premises of human action as simply ‘brute facts’ of embodied existence. The point is not that such givens are infallible, but that they are pre-rational by nature. A core takeaway from this is that critique itself depends on these brute facts. A simple illustration is linguistic formation: one cannot step outside inherited meanings to decide from scratch what words mean, because one learned ‘father’, ‘mother’, ‘home’, ‘shame’, and ‘good’ through authorities and practices that preceded personal autonomy.

From that starting point, Imperium Press formulates: “The ancestral principle is: authorship is authority. This simple principle, which the entirety of the Western tradition rests on, justifies folkishness and has radical implications for our religious life.” The relevant given that grounds obligation is genealogical authorship, with the claim not merely stating that ‘my ancestors caused me’ but that ‘what authors me has jurisdiction over me’. Origin is therefore not a neutral historical fact but a normative relation, with ‘parenthood’ being the paradigm case. Parents do not merely produce a child the way a storm produces debris - they stand in an ‘authority relation’ that names, teaches, disciplines, transmits standards, and supplies the first coordinates by which the child can later evaluate anything. Imperium Press then generalizes this parental structure. What made you, and what made your world intelligible, is treated as the proper source of commands for you. To displace that source in favor of an ‘alien’ authority is framed as usurpation rather than neutral intellectual correction, because it rejects the very order that made one’s evaluative capacities possible. After all, the critique one might leverage against those who authored you is foundationally dependent on those authors and therefore, one would be epistemically and morally ‘pulling the rug out from under oneself’.

Finally, then, the Ancestral Principle can be extended into an ‘upstream’ hierarchy intended to cast tradition as primarily imperative. If ‘authorship is authority’ is granted, authority becomes layered. Parents are upstream of children, grandparents upstream of parents, founders upstream of institutions, and gods upstream of peoples. Imperium Press notes that even in day-to-day life, people justify what they value by ‘pointing upstream’ to what made ‘the good’ possible in the first place, meaning (generally) that ‘older is better’. If more recent authorities are derivative, then derived authority cannot outrank - let alone ‘outcompete’ - its source. So when commands conflict, the most upstream command is treated as decisive. Applied to religion, modern norms and universalist claims are treated as recent layers that often conflict with the older, ‘folkish’ ancestral layer. Therefore, tradition is not primarily a set of propositions to be assessed from nowhere but instead it is an inheritance of prescriptive commands binding a particular people. ‘Folkishness’ is presented as the ultimate implication because if a people’s ancestral order authored its way of life and its gods, then that ancestral religion is not one option among many but the apt obligation for those who belong to that lineage, with critique permitted only from within the inherited order rather than by appeal to an external, universal tribunal.

Taken together, Metagenetics and the Ancestral Principle present a commendable defense of Folkish Heathen beliefs. Because we are always already born into a folk, we are also already situated within a web of obligations that reach back to those who first sired and shaped that folk. These arguments draw on widely shared intuitions, such as the preference for cultural rootedness over deracination, the sense that biology and spirituality are somehow not wholly separable, the impulse to honour one’s forebears, and a resistance to cultural or religious colonization and degeneration over time. In this way, Folkish Heathenry presents itself as both an expression and a defence of one’s ethnicity in its thickest sense. It does not deny that there are real gods, real peoples, and real orders of value - rather, it denies that there is a single, universally binding religious or moral code applicable to all peoples. Normativity is ancestrally-patterned and context-dependent - what is virtuous or vicious, permitted or forbidden, can only be rightly judged from within the concrete covenantal situation of a folk and its gods.

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III.

Now, even granting that authority is ‘primordial’ and that ‘the elder command prevails,’ the Ancestral Principle cannot function unless it can non-arbitarily identify who the elders are in relation to me and what they actually commanded. The process of identification inevitably requires the very judgment that the Ancestral Principle claims to exclude when Imperium Press says: “The elder command prevails. No judgement or conscience is involved; this is basically an algorithm.”. It should be noted that this is only the case because the historic transmission of pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs was decisively broken at some point between their issuance and the present, prompting the necessity of ‘reconstruction’ to determine the shape of those customs before they can be ‘enacted’ or ‘obeyed’. A reliable answer to ‘who my ancestors are’ often relies on documentary genealogy and, increasingly, population genetics rather than ‘oral memory.’ This is especially the case for those settler societies like the United States where European lineages have mixed for centuries and family lore is often fragmentary, romanticized, or simply wrong. Likewise, because answers to ‘what my ancestors commanded’ require an epistemology beyond what was given in my pre-rational formation, there is a whole evidential and inferential toolkit of knowledge which precedes my understanding of the commands, such as literacy, translation work, philology, source-criticism, archaeology, and so on. Therefore, by having to use this toolkit, we can say that for any historically-ruptured tradition, because the tradition cannot appeal to an unbroken internal transmission, decisive questions of content and scope are settled by methods of adjudication which by necessity are either not derivable from elder-command or are coming from standards of reason which are outside the tradition.

Therefore, to establish both ‘who my ancestors are’ and ‘what they command of me,’ I first have to reverse the epistemic order of dependence that Imperium Press is insisting upon when they say “the foundation of truth is authority.” This is the case because - whereas ‘new evidence prompting fundamental change’ is not a valid category for the commands of a ‘living tradition’ - in a ‘historically-ruptured tradition,’ ‘new evidence’ can change understandings about my ancestry and about pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs, thereby changing who my authority is or what they tell me to do. Knowledge of the tradition is only possible if I presuppose standards of evidence and reasoning that are not licensed by the tradition itself, but by a prior commitment to accuracy in my correspondence between my reconstruction of the tradition and ‘what actually happened’. This correspondence is colloquially referred to as ‘truth.’ Therefore, a broken tradition that has to be reconstructed using evidence evaluation and interpretive techniques must treat its own claims as answerable to reality because that reconstruction itself is a form of knowledge. Therefore, far from a prescriptive “algorithm,” the elder command requires a long chain of judgements to even begin to be determined. And even if we can discern it, it still requires judgments in applying criteria of ‘correct-incorrect application’ and knowing who is being addressed (only men, only women, the folk as a whole, a certain caste / profession?) because we cannot simply defer to someone inside the tradition. There is no emic insider and has not been for many generations. Obedience presupposes content, but in this case the content must be discovered and ‘reconstructed’, making the tradition primarily a proposition from which the imperative is synthesized - an assembly of shape before loyalty to its form. And it must be noted that this dependence on judgment is not a temporary defect that ‘goes away’ once a reconstruction ‘stabilizes,’ because even if a community successfully perpetuates a reconstructed praxis for (let us say) ten generations, the authority of that praxis still rests on the founding evidential and interpretive decisions that first selected and synthesized it, not on an unbroken transmission from the ancestral command it invokes.

We can see then how it is not that ‘truth trumps authority’ but instead that ‘the authority they appeal to cannot be identified or understood without truth-apt commitments’ and their own position cannot be stated, defended, or applied without ‘norms of correctness’ they did not derive from an elder command. If the Ancestral Principle is “the recognition that you don’t get to choose your own authority” then in the Folkish Heathen ‘acknowledgement’ of their ‘real authority,’ they still completely depend on interpretative judgements about the content and scope of commands, which, at that point, what’s the practical difference between those judgements and ‘choosing’ what their authority is commanding? How can one seriously say that they are not choosing their authority but they are choosing or interpreting what their authority says? Put frankly, ‘blood’ is not an immediate Bifrost from ‘I feel called by my ancestors’ to ‘this is what I should do’. There is still a significant degree of hermeneutics involved.

This also calls into question whether I can be straightforwardly counted as sharing my ancestors’ folk-identity - the supposed ‘tether’ to my ancestral folk that is meant to settle my ‘insider status’ with them in advance. Folkish Heathens typically identify this ‘tether’ with ‘the blood,’ tacitly treating biological descent as both the criterion of folk-membership and a rightful claim to obedience. This reframes disagreement as disloyalty rather than as a dispute about what, exactly, counts as belonging. Imperium Press often speaks as if the ‘folk identity’ they are advocating for is immediately available as a pre-rational brute fact - as though one can just be Germanic or be a man here and now in a way similar to how our ancestors were. This is effectively saying that ‘when you acknowledge your biological and genealogical identity, you are noetically primed to also acknowledge that you are under the authority of the ancestors who root that identity.’

However, even in ancient times, blood or biology alone did not confer manliness or status in the folk - indeed, both were public statuses governed by culturally-specific norms. Indeed, the very act of being accepted into the kinship group of one’s mother and father was not given by the fact of one’s birth through them - it was a ritually-mediated status which could be ‘permanently deferred’ (as we will see more of in the following article). The stock phrasing “was sprinkled with water and given a name” (vatni ausinn ok nafn gefit) marks the moment of incorporation into the family, with the formula appearing in historic sagas like Egils saga (ch. 31), Laxdaela saga (ch. 8, 25, 28, and 36), Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 11), Hardar saga ok Holmverja (ch. 8), along with legendary sagas such as Volsunga saga (ch. 13), Ragnars saga lodbrokar ok sona hans (ch. 7) and Orvar-Odds saga (ch. 21-22). This same rite is performed for biological children and for abandoned or non-kin children taken into the household - such as Knutr in Jomsvikinga saga (ch. 1) - indicating that belonging to the kin-group is a status bestowed by ritual, not a purely genetic fact. The poem Rigsthula uses the same water-and-name motif in its mythological establishment of the thrall, karl, and jarl castes. Therefore, we can see how kin-belonging is narrated as a publicly-conferred status rather than as a brute biological fact.

Even after this initial acceptance, inclusion in the folk was not guaranteed either as one could be ‘outlawed’ by disrespecting the given customs, leaving one legally-abrogated from having the identity of the folk. Therefore, it was of utmost importance to signal one’s inclusion through ‘correct action’ but also correct aesthetic, even with things we might consider as ‘unimportant.’ Tacitus notes that the Suebi tribe distinguish themselves by tying their hair in a knot (Ger. 38), while the Chatti had a custom of letting their hair grow out until they had killed an enemy (Ger. 31) For the Merovingians, long hair denoted status, whereas the Normans would shave the short-back of their necks. We can extrapolate that failing to abide by hairstyling etiquette would warrant exclusion or accusations of ‘unmanliness’. Therefore, if doing certain things would make one ‘less of a man’ and this concept was tied to honor, (with the Gragas lawcode making the insult of ragr - that is: “unmanliness” or “cowardice” - an outlawry-grade insult, even allowing lethal retaliation) then this would be critical to avoid - yet one first had to know (learn from proximate sources) what those things were and how to avoid accusations of such. For another example, the extent of Loki’s taunt at Odin about him ‘practicing seidr’ in Lokasenna (st. 24) can only be fully understood if one knows that seidr is ergi for men to perform. This is effectively a given fact in a custom which we are raised in, but not so if we must learn of the custom first. This is the difference between Historic Paganism and Folkish Heathenry.

Therefore we see how concepts like ‘inclusion in the folk-identity’ or ‘being a man’ were dependent on ritual conferral, legal compliance and aesthetic signalling, very similarly (if not identical) to how it is today. This means though, that one had to understand (be taught) the laws and the social-cues necessary to be considered ‘Germanic’ or ‘a man’, thus making those identities dependent on propositional content. Is someone ‘masculine’ just because they have male genitalia, or does it require a certain mindset, values, and behavior? The same applies to ‘being Germanic’ - it is not given by one’s birth alone. But if the Folkish Heathen continues to say that ‘admission in the folk requires both genealogy and compliance to norms,’ then we can gesture back to our prior critique, which recapitulates how both of these concerns (genealogy and compliance) require universal norms of logic to comprehend and reconstruct. Once that is granted, the Ancestral Principle cannot simply say ‘you already belong to our folk by your very birth, so therefore you are bound to the tradition’ because the very content of the identity that is supposed to confer that belonging is not delivered by a pre-rational brute fact but by the acceptance of certain propositions which must be reconstructed before being accepted. Therefore, the Folkish Heathen instead conflates and insinuates the identity of their ancestors with biology and genealogy to - for all intents and purposes - invite themselves into their ancestor’s identity matrices (whether or not those ancestors would actually accept them in).

‘Conflation’ and ‘insinuation’ are not however isolated to this concern - indeed they run throughout the Ancestral Principle. For instance, the Ancestral Principle correctly observes that our language, cultural-knowledge, and values are formed by authority, but it overreaches when it claims that the genealogically-formative source is automatically the ultimate standard. In this way, the foundation of the Ancestral Principle is built from a conflation between four different things: biological causation (who generated you), cultural-historical origination (who first instituted a folk’s forms), developmental formation (who shaped your outlook), and rightful jurisdiction (who may bind action and conscience). The unacknowledged forcing of the association between the four concerns being conflated is a glaring gap in the argument because Imperium Press requires it to connect their own developmental experiences with qualities far, far beyond it. So even if ‘authority is primordial’ as it relates to one’s upbringing, the Ancestral Principle still has to supply (rather than assume) the bridge from formation to rightful jurisdiction, especially when extended from living parents to remote ancestral strata.

This is where Imperium Press brings in how ‘the elder command prevails.’ Although it is presented as an inherent clarification of how ‘authorship is authority’ scales into a hierarchy of commands, it is actually an additional selection rule chosen from several coherent alternatives. Competing commands could be ranked in at least three ways:

1. by recency (later authors can revise earlier ones)

2. by upstreamness (earlier authors override later ones)

3. by office or station regardless of time (father < king < god)

Imperium Press opts for (B), but that priority is not inherently contained in ‘authorship is authority’ - it is a further value-laden commitment that must be supplied from elsewhere. And even if one tries to ground (B) by appealing to the ‘anti-innovation posture’ of historic Indo-European religions - an ancestral preference for strictly preserving the old ways - that still functions as an external normative premise doing the work of the override rule, not as something inherently entailed by authorship alone. It is actually projecting the conclusions onto an earlier premise so that we arrive at the right answer. Likewise, although it is true that earlier commands are ‘upstream’ of more recent ones ontologically, they are downstream of our epistemological awareness - again, this is the confusion knotted up by attempting to tie all these concerns together.

Because the paradigm case of authorship is the relationship between ‘fathers and sons,’ the selection between the three options here matters as it relates to that example. And in that natural relationship, the authority is proximate, the relationship is clear, and the content of the ‘commands’ is directly accessible. But the Ancestral Principle extrapolates that model (through the same conflation as we saw above) onto remote, abstracted ancestry and treats the oldest discernible layer as spontaneously supreme. This effectively makes ‘the elder command prevails’ a filter for which ancestors ‘actually count’ as authoritative, making it the most important piece for the Folkish Heathen. That function then is the rationale behind the drift from living fathers to selectively-privileged forebears, and ultimately (if taken consistently) toward ever deeper strata of ‘the oldest’ within an Indo-European horizon.

Once the Ancestral Principle is mapped onto history - specifically with that awareness of Indo-European origins - it ceases to support a stable ‘local folk-custom’ picture unless a non-arbitrary cutoff criterion is supplied. If ‘older overrides newer’ is treated as categorical, and if ‘ancestry’ is not explicitly capped at some folk-boundary, then the logic pushes upstream: Anglo-Saxon customs should be subordinate to earlier Continental Germanic customs which should themselves be subordinate eventually to Proto-Indo-European horizons. At that point, significant divergences among Indo-European branches cannot all be equally ‘apt’ in the strong sense, and the view is forced to introduce an ‘essential vs non-essential’ distinction onto any given part of the custom. ‘This Anglo-Saxon belief is illegitimate because it conflicts with this earlier Continental Germanic belief’, or ‘because the Sun has different genders in different Indo-European traditions, they cannot all be right and the Norse conception has to be overwritten despite what that will do to the lore’, etcetera. But even that distinction itself poses a fundamental problem. Either ‘essential’ is fixed by a standard that outruns any single folk (thereby puncturing relativism), or it is fixed by folk discretion (thereby subordinating the priority of upstreamness to more contemporary judgment). Furthermore - and perhaps most importantly - by what authority could ‘essential’ elements even be defined as such? What could ever be called ‘non-essential’ or purely aesthetic in a holistic and totalizing custom? Can one remove a single thread from a crocheted blanket without having to cut and edit (thus reintroducing judgement)? Regardless, these sorts of additional values are doing the adjudicative work that ‘authorship’ or ‘ancestry’ alone were supposed to supply.

From the prior points, we can see how the Ancestral Principle cannot be understood or applied without importing additional criterion that tells us who our ancestors are, what they command of us, what our own identity should be, which ancestors are most authoritative, and whether or not we should override a folk custom. There is still significant adjudication required outside the Ancestral Principle. At this point, the most likely course for Imperium Press is to insist that ‘the Ancestral Principle is not a truth-claim at all but a command of loyalty insulated from evidential dispute.’ That is: a return to relativity. However, the Ancestral Principle cannot function as a sealed, pre-rational ‘ought-only sphere’ because pre-Christian Germanic-Norse ‘oughts’ presuppose a web of ‘is’-claims (theology, cosmology, anthropology). When those propositional and often empirical ‘is’-claims fail to track onto reality, the ‘ought’ loses its rationale or changes its content. In other words: no ‘is’ contains a religious ‘ought’ but every religious ‘ought’ contains ‘is’s, and as our understanding of those ‘is’s changes, so too does our understanding of the ‘ought’ shift, potentially even to the extent that they conflict with other values and goals. For instance, if the gods commanded that we ‘ought’ to treat an illness in a certain traditional way, but it is discovered that that method is ineffective or actually antithetical to curing it, then in order truly to treat the illness we in fact ought to do something different, and the original ought must be revised or abandoned in light of the new facts.

Indeed, taking the view that ‘truth’ is conformity between thought (and language) and reality, Edward Feser distinguishes two relativist theses: 1. - there is no truth ; and 2. - there is no absolute truth. Feser argues that (1) is self-defeating or collapses assertion into meaningless noise, since propositions are by their nature truth-apt. Even by using the word ‘is,’ it already smuggles in truth-claims. Likewise, (2) either refutes itself if asserted absolutely or shrinks to a trivial report of personal or tribal attitude if asserted relatively. If the thesis is absolutely true, it has already conceded at least one absolute truth. If it is only relatively true, it says no more than ‘for relativists, all truth is relative,’ which is tautologically empty. In that sense, relativism cannot even convincingly state its own position without invoking the very absolute notion it denies.

Furthermore, the existence of self-evident, agent-independent truths should finish coaxing the relativist out of their self-isolation disguised as ‘humble realism’ or ‘traditionalism.’ Aristotle’s ‘principle of non-contradiction’ - that a proposition and its negation cannot both be true in the same respect - is the precondition of any reasoning whatsoever. The moment the Folkish Heathen says that one account of the gods, or of our obligations, is mistaken and another is right, he is already presupposing the ‘principle of non-contradiction’ and operating inside that universal logical grammar. Mathematics sharpens the point: we did not invent the number π by fiat, we merely discovered that its decimal expansion does not terminate or repeat. No vote, command, or ancestral decree can make π conveniently end at the third or the hundredth digit. Its definition is beyond culture or language. This is a paradigm case of a mind-independent structure that constrains belief and practice regardless of whatever any folk may wish. Once ‘aptness’ and ancestral religion are articulated and defended using those same trans-folk standards - non-contradiction, mathematical and empirical discipline - then the discussion is back on shared territory: claims about the gods and about duty are either coherent or incoherent, supported or unsupported, true or false. They cannot be insulated from that verdict simply by calling them ‘ours’ (whatever that means at this point).

The intent of all this for Imperium Press is to preserve the claim that ‘Christ and Odin are not even in the same arena,’ with the Ancestral Principle functioning as the carapace that keeps Folkish Heathenry from having to answer criticism on shared ground. That insulation works only if religious commitments are treated as private identity expressions rather than public truth-claims. But once Folkish Heathenry is presented as a serious option that seeks to persuade and respond to objections, its assertions function as claims about how the world is, which are answerable to truth-apt questions. Either Odin exists or he does not, and if he does, he is either what the lore says of him or something else. Likewise, either Christ is Lord of all or He is not. These claims are mutually-exclusive. So which is true …? Claims of this kind cannot be ‘true only for my folk’ without sliding into one of two outcomes: a self-refuting relativism, (‘no universal truth - except for this principle’) or a retreat denying that religion is truth-apt at all, reducing it to identity-performance and ethnopsychology. But if the Folkish Heathen takes that tactical retreat, saying ‘our folk commands us to believe in Odin’s existence,’ the statement only binds those who already accept their contested definition of ‘the folk,’ which we have shown above is not a brute biological given but ideologically-constructed, propositional content. In the end, either Folkish Heathenry acknowledges that it already stands in the common arena of truth and reason, where its claims can be weighed like any others, or it retreats into language-games that it plays only with itself.

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IV.

Now, many of the same critiques leveled against the Ancestral Principle can be brought into our critique of McNallen’s Metagenetics. But due to the distance between the original statement of Metagenetics and here, we should first restate what it actually argues. Metagenetics is “the hypothesis that there are spiritual or metaphysical implications to physical relatedness among humans which correlate with, but go beyond, the known limits of genetics,” meaning that “ancestry matters.” First, it observes that human beings are formed within a folk, which was itself formed by particular environmental and social pressures. Second, this leads to group-level patterns of heritable temperament and dispositions driven by genetic material. Third, McNallen infers that therefore any ‘collective unconscious’ or ‘racial soul’ would be differentiated among groups, with distinct ‘spiritual aptitudes’. Fourth, Metagenetics posits a link between this collective ‘inner life’ and its traditional customs, framing the latter as a sort-of ‘outpouring’ of the former. Fifth, it concludes by stating that therefore, the preservation of a folk and the preservation of its ancestral religion are two sides of the same reality and where one falters so too will the other. McNallen asserts that “we are thus a religion not for all of humanity, but rather one that calls only its own.”

But this raises the question: if we are using evidentiary methodologies to determine reconstruction, then this ‘calling’ seems subordinated to rigorous hermeneutic treatment of the sources. It is at least logically possible that if Heathenry can autochthonically and spontaneously arise ‘from the blood’ through a ‘calling,’ then it can be revived at any point in time by those with ‘the blood.’ However, that critical aspect of if it can ‘spontaneously arise’ remains to be seen. Perhaps the inherent proclivities of the ethnic group would assert themselves over any given externally-accepted system, but to equate this ‘assertion of proclivities’ as being contiguous with a historically-specific religious custom remains to be seen unless we regard that religious custom as a mere instantiation of the ethnicity’s proclivities rather than something we are specifically obliged to accept. This understanding is much more akin to Nietzsche or Benoist than to that of the Folkish Heathen, who believes that reconstructing the particular is the only inlet to the ethnic form. Yet the very fact that there are disagreements about the meaning of primary sources between Folkish Heathens (let alone between those of Germanic descent or between the Folkists and the Inclusivists) demonstrates the lack of uniformity or objective direction in this ‘spontaneous arising.’ The ‘authoritative interpretation’ of the lore does not seem to come from one’s blood, but from one’s hermeneutic acumen, thus discrediting the absolutist view (essentially, lineage-indexed determinacy applied to religion) that McNallen and other Folkish Heathens ascribe to the necessity of.

Indeed, without invoking universal evidence, Metagenetics has no reason to ‘stop’ at the Viking-Age layer. If the operative rule is that genetic ancestry grounds spiritual aptness, then the same genealogical stream runs straight through a full millennium of Christian Europe. Again, like we saw with the Ancestral Principle, elevating Germanic-Norse paganism as the uniquely ‘authentic’ expression of our lineage discloses a rhetorical or aesthetic-ideological preference rather than some ‘hard fact’ of nature. Moreover, if one takes genoculture coevolution seriously, the Christian millennium cannot be treated as a neutral digression because the medieval Latin Church’s marriage and family program (bans on close-kin marriage and polygyny, promotion of lifelong monogamy and smaller, nuclear households) was something which profoundly affected the unique character of Western Europe. Whatever specifically ‘Germanic disposition’ exists at present is therefore the cumulative product of both pre-Christian and Christian selection pressures, with the latter chronologically closer to our current genomic and social environment and thus, on evolutionary assumptions, at least as causally salient as Iron-Age Scandinavia.

If the Folkish Heathen wishes instead to argue that these Christian-era developments were disastrous to European peoples, that is an entirely different debate - one that must proceed in terms of concrete historical, sociological, and moral evaluation, (and one which we shall survey in Part III) not by appealing to ancestry as if it automatically supplied the verdict. Metagenetics therefore smuggles in a normative program into ostensibly descriptive talk about ancestry. It speaks as though ancestry itself delivers the verdict on who or what I should worship and how. But it reaches this conclusion only by minimizing the profoundly formative Christian centuries when they would complicate the story, quietly redefining ‘ancestry’ and converting a bare genealogical fact (‘these are your forebears’) into a prescriptive, content-laden mandate (‘therefore you ought to practice this reconstructed cult based on what they did before Christianity’). The practical upshot is a rhetorical ultimatum that ‘if you want to preserve the White race, you must become Pagan,’ which is a leap from evolutionary description to racial-religious imperative that is neither entailed by the genetic data nor justified by history itself, but simply asserted and then back-filled with selectively-filtered appeals to ancestry.

With these preliminary considerations noted, we can move on to critiquing the core of McNallen’s argument itself. Whereas the Ancestral Principle is more of a philosophical argument, Metagenetics grounds its polemic in behavioral genetics and parapsychology. This means that from the start, Metagenetics acknowledges the utility of accepting universal, objective truth (or at least the attempt at grasping such) even if the argument leans heavily on a set of heterodox philosophical and parapsychological authorities - most notably Jung, Sheldrake, and Rhine. However, McNallen never truly demonstrates how their work entails the conclusion of Metagenetics. Rather than using these sources as evidence for his conclusions, McNallen uses them as ‘seasoning’ to give his own thesis the ‘authoritative weight of science.’ Instead, the recurring pattern is a string of uncited quotations and loose study-summaries that at most suggest gaps in strict materialism, which are then treated as if they supplied evidential support for Metagenetics’ much stronger lineage-specific conclusions.

The most widely known of these authorities is Carl Jung, whose theories of the ‘collective unconscious’ and ‘archetypes’ posit universal, inherited structural patterns in the psyche that are ‘clothed’ in culturally-specific images. Even if one grants the reality of Jung’s theory, this does not itself endorse a historically ‘Germanic-Norse’ inflection of the collective psyche. And even if such a particular inflection is conceded for the sake of argument, it is far from clear how it could be cleanly distinguished from the ‘generic human unconscious’ (which Jung is actually concerned with) or have remained stable and salient across centuries of Christianisation and radical changes in symbolic worlds. Furthermore, and most interestingly, McNallen’s use of Jung here contains a checkable misattribution. He frames the sentence “Because the brain is the principal organ of the mind, the collective unconscious depends directly upon the evolution of the brain” as Jung’s own words. Yet Jung never wrote that. The wording originates from Hall & Nordby’s A Primer of Jungian Psychology (1973), a ‘consumer summary’ of Jung, not a primary text. This matters because Metagenetics repeatedly trades on borrowed psychological prestige, (so-and-so said ‘this, which is something that sounds like McNallen’s thesis) so if a ‘line from Jung’ is actually a secondary paraphrase, then the reader is warranted in demanding stricter sourcing and independent verification from any of McNallen’s work. It also calls into question if McNallen has even read a book written by Jung or if he is relying entirely on this summary.

A parallel treatment of the sources appears in McNallen’s appeals to Rupert Sheldrake’s notion of ‘morphic fields’ and to J. B. Rhine’s ‘extra-sensory-perception’ (ESP) research. Sheldrake presents his concept of ‘morphic resonance’ as a hypothesis about habit and form: that patterns of organization and behavior can become easier to reproduce through repetition among sufficiently similar systems. It must be noted that similarity is the influence-tracker here, not bloodline inheritance. The Metagenetic use of this idea therefore oversteps Sheldrake’s warrant in three ways: it firstly treats a conjectural, form-based influence as if it implied a distinct quasi-ethnic field, which is then secondly treated as exclusive and prior to the historically-dominant patterns that have in fact formed modern Europeans, and lastly it treats whatever the field ‘carries’ as normatively authoritative, as though descriptive inheritance automatically yielded what is best or binding. But on Sheldrake’s own terms, the most salient and repeatedly reinforced ‘fields’ for living populations would be those constituted by the practices and institutions that have actually persisted across generations, meaning: Christian cultural forms. A similar conflation appears in appeals to Rhine’s ESP program. Even setting aside longstanding disputes about replication and reliability, the most that Rhine-style results could suggest is some anomalous information effect under restricted conditions, not a genetically-transmitted, ethnicity-indexed religious content that selects one historical cult as uniquely apt.

Taken at face value, Jung, Sheldrake, and Rhine at most support some sort of inherited or collective psychic structure or field-like influence, but none of them justifies the strong Metagenetic thesis that each ethnic group has a biologically ‘correct’ religion and that practising another is inherently misaligned. What McNallen offers, therefore, is less an evidentially-grounded theory than a narrative reification of a ‘Norse-Germanic racial soul,’ constructed by stitching together disparate, speculative psychological-philosophical motifs to underwrite a religious synthesis already derived from the lore.

With all of this though is McNallen’s much more central account of the ‘heritability of religion,’ which equates heritability with content aptness. This is done using two sources of evidence: ‘twin studies’ and extrapolations from broader ‘inborn aptitude’ research. In adolescence, behavioral-genetic work typically finds that the effect which genes have on religiousness is meager compared to the influence of the subject’s family and social environment. In adulthood, however, the influences often shift, with studies reporting moderate heritabilities for religiousness in general, such that genetic factors help explain how strongly an individual tends to engage with religion, (e.g., frequency of practice and salience of faith). However, ‘heritability’ here is tracking a content-neutral disposition toward religiosity, not a predisposition toward any particular creed or ethnically delineated tradition. Accordingly, syntheses of the literature conclude that denominational and creedal identity are shaped predominantly by upbringing, peer context, and local religious ecology, rather than by ethnicity-specific inheritances. Nor do McNallen’s appeals to ‘twin telepathy’ provide a mechanism for inheriting religious content. When tested under controlled conditions, twins do not reliably outperform non-twins, replications commonly fail, and the residual phenomena are adequately explained by shared environment, mutual familiarity, expectation effects, and coincidence rather than by any robust psychic channel capable of transmitting determinate religious traditions across kin lines.

McNallen’s use of Daniel G. Freedman’s neonatal temperament studies correctly notes that some aspects of temperament are inborn, and it is reasonable to suppose that such traits influence how inclined a person is toward religion in general. But when McNallen claims it is only “a small step from inborn temperament to inborn attitudes to inborn religious predispositions,” he slides from the modest, well-supported thesis that ‘genes influence personality and generic religiosity’ to the much stronger, unsubstantiated thesis that ‘genes specify the correct religion for each folk.’ That move - from ‘you are predisposed to be more or less religious’ to ‘you ought to follow an ancestral cult’ - is not a small step but the entire weight-bearing inference of Metagenetics, and it is precisely where no distinct genetic signal has been demonstrated and no argument given by McNallen. Conceptually, Metagenetics treats a content-neutral heritable trait (religious seriousness) as if it carried built-in content, (‘pagan, not Christian’) which is a similar category mistake as inferring from the heritability of verbal aptitude which language a person should speak. In both cases, the heritable trait sets a degree (how religious, how verbal), not the object (which religion, which language). McNallen even seems to understand this concept as he notes in Asatru: A Native European Spirituality:

“According to one study, [McNallen does not cite or name it] even political party preference is to some extent heritable! (Of course, this doesn’t mean that there’s a Republican or a Democrat gene, but that certain underlying traits of temperament and worldview can be passed on through heredity.) Our genetics, that very special gift from the ancestors, is a powerful thing.”

If there is no ‘Republican or Democrat gene’, then there is no ‘Folkish Heathen or Christian gene’ either. Ultimately, Metagenetics takes a very sane intuition about the heritability of certain traits and extrapolates it into a religious programme about ‘you being made for the reconstruction we synthesized.’ The Metagenetic claim that ethnicities come pre-loaded with a specific, biologically ‘apt’ religion is simply not borne out by the behavioral-genetic evidence, however much McNallen attempts to equivocate from the data.

Lastly, we come to the use of reincarnation accounts as evidence for Metagenetics. In the original 1985 version of Metagenetics, McNallen cites a case of a Tlingit Indian apparently being the reincarnation of an ancestor as an example of “metaphysical implications to the bond of genetic kinship.” That this episode is sourced from a book titled Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation should prompt us to ask ‘what about the other nineteen cases?’ … Indeed, when we look at the literature for well-documented cases which are used as evidence for reincarnation, the overwhelming majority of the data contradicts the ‘within family’ standard that McNallen and other Folkish Heathens insist on.

Across a worldwide sample of 971 ‘reincarnation cases’ documented by researchers, only 20.1% involved the child purportedly reincarnating within their own family. The rest – four out of every five cases – were outside the family (about 27.6% involved an acquaintance of the family, and 52.3% were complete strangers with no prior connection). In the West, documented cases show a mix of family and non-family patterns. A survey of published American cases found that out of 35-39 cases where a past-life identity was verified, only 15 cases were within the child’s family, while the others were outside the family. Likewise, among European cases, only about 23 of 46-51 cases had a previous personality from the same family, but the remaining cases were non-family. Thus, whereas the global pattern is non-kin rebirth, in Western cases, half or more are outside the family lineage.

This data however contradicts the way that Folkish Heathens explicitly frame afterlife claims in terms of lineage, with McNallen writing that the Norse believed that: “A person did not come back [...] as a person of another race or tribe, but as a member of their own clan.” On that picture, rebirth is expected to be mechanically intra-familial and intra-ethnic, underwriting theories like Metagenetics. But if one takes the case-literature seriously, that expectation is empirically misplaced. Non-kin rebirth accounts for a significant portion of the data, with kin-line cases appearing as a subset classification rather than a universal law. This yields a straightforward dilemma for the Folkish Heathen. Either they dismiss the literature as ‘unreliable,’ thus forfeiting any empirical or quasi-scientific support for their reincarnation metaphysics, or they accept the literature as broadly credible, in which case they must concede that their interpretation of the sources conflicts with the data they are appealing to, which indicates that reincarnation does not respect fixed ‘folk boundaries.’

Furthermore, if reincarnation is in principle possible between any humans, but Folkish Heathenism teaches it should only occur within one’s own family or ethnic line, then the two accounts are logically incompatible - at least one must be false, because they set mutually exclusive constraints on the same process. Put bluntly, if souls can cross family and ethnic boundaries, the Folkish Heathen restriction is wrong, but if souls never cross those boundaries, the evidential perspective is wrong. But they cannot both be right about the same world (as we concluded with our critique of the Ancestral Principle). Likewise, if reincarnation is supposed to track a ‘specific family line,’ its scope has to be specified. Either it is confined to a narrow genealogical pedigree (excluding most of one’s actual ancestry), or it extends further and further out to ultimately encompass humanity as a whole. But every move outward either abandons the literal family-line claim or yields a de facto universalist account of reincarnation in which souls routinely cross even racial boundaries - undercutting the attempt to use reincarnation to buttress a closed, ethnic-particularist religious system. It is perhaps out of the need for a strategic retreat that McNallen states: “We of Asatru do not overly concern ourselves with the next life. We live here and now, in this existence.”

Metagenetics ultimately trades on an equivocation, sliding from ‘ancestry and temperament can shape dispositions’ to ‘ancestry therefore delivers a binding verdict about which gods one ought to worship.’ That slide is the classic ‘is–ought gap’ where purely descriptive statements about what is the case do not, by themselves, entail prescriptions about what one ought to do unless an additional normative ‘bridge principle’ is explicitly supplied and defended. Metagenetics never provides the bridge that turns ancestry into religious obligation. None of the materials it gestures toward - parapsychology, studies on religious aptitude, and reincarnation anecdotes - supplies the missing mandate from description to duty. Whether the carrier is DNA, ‘folk-soul,’ collective unconscious, reincarnation, or morphic field, the Metagenetics thesis still requires a lineage-indexed constraint that makes one particular, historical cult uniquely fitting for one ancestry. That constraint is asserted but never demonstrated.

_____

V.

When the Folkish Heathen is not flatly stating that ‘this religion is for us and us for it,’ they are making arguments like the Ancestral Principle and Metagenetics. These arguments attempt to provide a connection between the pre-Christian Germanic-Norse customs and the present time, overcoming a significant temporal rupture that has forever disqualified anyone from being an ‘insider’ to the customs. The underlying rationale behind the attempted connection is to avoid ‘conversion language’ and to paint Folkish Heathenry as the only ‘natural option’ which one should ‘acknowledge.’ There’s a genuine longing for continuity here – the desire to be what one’s ancestors were. But ironically, insisting that ‘we are just doing what our forebears did’ can become a kind of illusion when so much has to be reconstructed and reimagined as ‘outsiders.’ It glosses over the hard reality that a thousand-year gap can’t be wished or washed away by blood alone. Ironically, in their desire for a ‘birthright’ or a ‘tradition’, they must find a way to ignore history to arrive at it.

A favored claim of Folkish Heathens is to assert that their religion is ‘the oldest in the world’. But it is not the religion that they practice which is the oldest – it is the religion that they appeal to in their reconstructions, not the thing itself. This is to say that their ‘ancestral commands’ or ‘expression of the blood’ is, even moreso, not even correctly called a ‘reconstruction’ or even a ‘revival,’ but a retrojective ‘sleight of hand’ where the Folkish Heathen says: ‘this - this thing that we are doing now is that - what our ancestors did’ (at least to the extent that the theological or ethical force is analogous). When we break down another favored slogan of the Folkish Heathen, the move becomes more clear. ‘This is your tradition’ is translated to something much different sounding when it is parsed out: ‘This’ refers to a particular reconstruction produced by selection of evidence, supplemented by comparative religious studies, and interpretation of both; ‘Your’ means recruitment of the addressee as a subject to whom the tradition already applies to and binds; and ‘Tradition’ is the conflation of authority, normativity, and inheritance with the particular reconstruction. The addressee is effectively ‘shanghaiied’ into Folkish Heathenry when they accept the given definition of each word rather than parsing it out for themselves. A genuine, living tradition is embodied and continuously transmitted through proximate social interaction and community. When this chain is broken, and a distant, abstract past is invoked as the sole authority, the ‘tradition’ becomes a matter of intellectual choice and ideological alignment rather than organic inheritance or identity. Ultimately, it is a category error to say that Folkish Heathenry has any non-hermeneutic continuity with Historic Paganism. This phenomenon will be expanded upon and proven more in Part II.

But regardless, this is why the move is made to associate ‘the religion’ with ‘the blood.’ If that association - as articulated by Metagenetics and the Ancestral Principle - is true, then it does become the case that ‘the religion has always been with us’ and any spacio-temporal distance can be immediately bridged. The operative word here though is if, with Metagenetics and the Ancestral Principle failing to answer it in the affirmative. The core thrust of McNallen’s argument is not only that religious culture and ethnicity are intertwined in a mutual feedback loop such that inhibiting one tends to inhibit the other, but that religious culture itself is spiritually encoded in the hereditary substrate such that a people’s gods, myths, and ritual patterns are, in principle, properties of that ethnic lineage rather than merely learned conventions. It is this extra leap which the evidence advises against. Indeed, if Metagenetics were true, then present gaps in knowledge or disagreements about practices could be adjudicated through (effectively) ‘group meditation’ on the ‘folk soul.’ Indeed, the ongoing scholarly efforts to ‘establish orthodoxy’ within modern Folkish Heathenry (ex.: the Norenna Society) are perhaps the best evidence against ‘blood memory’ or ‘inherited knowledge’. Similarly, the issue with the Ancestral Principle’s association between ‘the religion’ and ‘the blood’ is not in its acknowledgement of ‘pre-rational brute facts,’ or ‘filial piety,’ or the ‘weight of authority’ in our development - instead, the issue is in how these things are defined, how those definitions require conflation, and how authorities are ‘ranked’ as it applies to reconstruction efforts. The issue is that to even apply the Ancestral Principle in a historically-broken tradition, one must presuppose external truth-tracking methods to identify who the ancestors were and what they commanded, so ‘ancestral authority’ is epistemically dependent on the establishment of external, objective standards rather than something ‘primordially binding.’

It should become quite clear at this point, as we conclude this article, that Folkish Heathen apologetics function more to shield the worldview from investigation than to invite a reassessment by ‘setting the record straight.’ The severity of the arguments betrays the desperation of intending to preclude debate, which ultimately undercuts credibility. And it must be stated again that these arguments - along with my own rebuttals - are only really warranted by a ‘broken tradition’ (which is fundamentally an oxymoron). If the pre-Christian Norse-Germanic customs had survived to the present, the conversation would be much, much different. However, that is simply not the case, which is again why the Folkish Heathen emphasis must be on the only thing shared between them and their ancestors, which is blood - or moreso: why they transmute a selective genealogy and a particular definition of what ‘blood’ is into an insistence on a priori obedience to the ‘reconstruction’ they generate and gesture toward.

_____

In the following article, we will investigate the extent of Historic Pagan commands by examining the Folkish Heathen moral system and the lore that it appeals to. After that, we will conclude Part I with an article that investigates who this ideology attracts and why. Let us close in prayer:

“Almighty ever-living God, who, when Christ had been baptized in the River Jordan and as the Holy Spirit descended upon him, solemnly declared him your beloved Son, grant that your children by adoption, reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, may always be well pleasing to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

Amen.

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I.

On this first day of the two-thousand twenty-sixth year of Our Lord, on the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, I would like to take a moment to introduce this most important project. By the grace of God and for His glory, I have undertaken the first systematic refutation of a certain branch of modern Paganism called Folkish Heathenry (a definition of which we will explicate momentarily). This project was inaugurated with two goals in mind: to provide Christians with the necessary knowledge to honestly answer and positively persuade their interlocutor, and to lead the Folkish Heathen to embrace that which is fully Good, True, and - perhaps most importantly - Beautiful. It will be structured in a specific way. First, it must deconstruct the reconstruction attempts of the Folkish Heathen in order to open up the possibility of Christianity. Second, it will answer the Folkish Heathen critiques of Christianity. Thirdly, it will emotionally and intellectually articulate the worldview, mythology, and ethic entailed in allegiance to Jesus Christ. This series will be accomplished, God willing, in twelve articles, with each article posted as a .pdf file on this Substack.

Everything which is to follow is a labor of love. A labor firstly to comprehend the philosophic and historic subjects which have illuminated the way my distant forebears lived. But it is also subsequently (and even moreso) a labor of love for my brothers and sisters ‘of the flesh,’ that is: for those of European descent. It is my love for this extended family which prompts my fervent hope and daily prayers that my People - all of them - come to the joy and fulfillment of Christ. Now, at this juncture, one might rightly ask: ‘why such a strong initial emphasis on ethnicity?’ Perhaps the most coherent answer is that, even though the Gospel is for everyone, it was never addressed to an abstract ‘humanity,’ but to real, embodied men and women belonging to particular peoples and cultures. In that way, we must always meet people where they are, meaning who they are, acknowledging their present identity and temptations without necessarily endorsing them. And I, as a member of a particular people, can better understand our aspirations and struggles than others, positioning me here to speak on what the Gospel means for us. But perhaps the answer which will most resonate with both the Christians and Folkish Heathens to whom this project is addressed would be that: in this moment of Western Civilization’s greatest need, there must be an equally great unity and spiritual sense of purpose between the People and the Faith which formed our civilization.

My approach is to convince the Folkish Heathen not by telling, which is ultimately just a ‘polemical assertion’, but by - as much as is possible through this written medium - showing and demonstrating who a Christian is. I am commanded by my God to treat those I am evangelizing to, (that is: ‘bringing the Gospel to’) with respect, patience, honesty, and essentially love (1 Peter 3:15–16; Colossians 4:5–6; John 13:35). In this way, I aspire to accurately represent the views I will be refuting, because there can be no glory, no power, nor honor in debating a strawman or defeating a sock-puppet. Furthermore, to misrepresent or malign those one hopes to be called to sainthood is to assert your superiority over them and convince yourself that ‘you don’t need to try as hard’. This trains the mind to decide that they are unreasonable, ‘other’, and that they cannot even become a saint in the first place, or even worse: that they should not become a saint. This unhumble mindset must be prevented at all costs, even at the temporal cost (that is: literally spending our lifetime) in rigorous, attentive study. To give one’s attention, one’s time and care, for someone else’s best interest is fundamentally to love them.

For the past fifty years, Christian apologetics have put on blinders to hyper-focus against Atheism and perpetuate interdenominational disputes. Yet in this lack of awareness, an interesting phenomenon has occurred: the emergence of modem Paganism as an alternative to both Christianity and Atheism. This reemergence has been perhaps a century in the making, but with the advent of the internet it has truly emerged into the world, stepping around the Church’s atrophied trophies of arguments against its ancient instantiations. Due to the difference in historical context and motivations of adoption, those old apologetics are inadequate to counter this small and heterogeneous but burgeoning contemporary alternative - an alternative which predominantly attracts those of European descent. The subject who I am and will be appealing to are those who have accepted this Paganism, specifically that form which is called ‘Folkish Heathenry’.

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II.

But before continuing any further, we must address who and what we are addressing. It is an unfortunate reality that because our subject can be defined in so many different and conflicting ways, that we must establish a ‘terminological bedrock’. I say ‘unfortunate’ because definitions are such an insipid enterprise, and the offering of any terminology can be mistaken as a method of controlling verbiage. After all, a definition will only ever remain provisional. Nevertheless, in order to set the stage of what is to follow, we must first answer taxonomical questions, such as: ‘what exactly is a Folkish Heathen?’

The noun here - the core which its adjective makes more precise - is ‘Heathen’, so we should start there. A ‘Heathen’ is someone who practices a Norse-Germanic informed style of ‘Paganism’. Because they are attempting to ‘accurately embody’ a specific, historic form of pre-Christian customs, they distinguish themselves as ‘Reconstructionists’ separate from many other ‘New Age’ eclectic practices such as Wicca. The ‘Folkish’ qualifier for the ‘Heathen’ distinguishes them from the other primary approach of Reconstructionists: the ‘Inclusivists’, who are considered to be ‘universal’ in how they believe the practice should be ‘open to anyone’. This means that a ‘Folkish Heathen’ is someone who believes that a reconstructed pre-Christian Norse-Germanic custom should be restricted to only those whose (broadly co-ethnic) ancestors historically practiced it. Therefore, if we imagine that ‘Paganism/Neopaganism’ is an umbrella term for all these different kinds of practices, it predominantly bifurcates into ‘New Age’ and ‘Reconstructionists’, the latter of which encompasses ‘Heathenry’, which likewise encompasses ‘Folkish Heathenry’. Therefore, our subject is a subset of a subset of a fairly modern ‘spiritual movement’.

With this stated, there are still some colloquial nuances. For instance: ‘Heathen’ and ‘Pagan’ are often used interchangeably by those who we are defining as Folkish Heathens. Indeed, statistically, these are the two most-used terms to describe Norse-Germanic Reconstructionists by those who actually practice it. We separate them here so as to maintain precision, even if there may or may not be distinction given the person or group. A Folkish Heathen might also go by: ‘Odinist’, ‘Ethnicist’, ‘Asatruer,’ ‘Forn Sidr practitioner’, and other titles too. The reason there is such a complex variety and network of different approaches and terminology falling under Paganism/Neopaganism is that there are many different “tributaries” which inform individual or collective approaches. Many who ascribe to the Pagan/Neopagan identifier have discovered these worldviews from different sources, different sociopolitical angles, and at different points in their lives, leading to a hyper-diverse (often to the point of idiosyncratic) spectrum of approaches. In this way, it is better to first define what Folkish Heathenry does not believe before seeing what it does, in order to narrow the parameters until we reach the core.

Many New Age practices and beliefs are effectively modular and self-contained so that the practitioner can mix, match, and ‘collect’ various spiritual accoutrements in a particular combination. One can identify as a Celtic Druid who has found some use in the I Ching and Kabbalah. The overall commitments demanded of the New Ager in ‘adhering to it’ are very minimal because they are effectively demanded only by the New Ager themselves. There is no overarching ecclesial body or creed with which to enforce orthodoxy other than the highly tolerant social-circle one chooses. The New Ager often exhibits a certain libertarian distrust of structure, and therefore adopts the withering adage of being ‘spiritual but not religious,’ that is: their only authority is their own subjectivity. This is fundamentally an untenable position because there is no ultimate reason why one should hold to any standard at all because you - being the deciding authority - can always just choose to hold some other standard. Therefore there must be some sort of external authority by which things are actually determined (whether morals or truth) - a need to appeal to something beyond oneself.

Whereas many New Agers will believe that ‘they can’t really be wrong in their practice because they are experimenting (and essentially making it up)’, Reconstructionists want to establish some degree of ‘historic guardrails’ for their practice. And the Norse-Germanic subset - ‘Heathenry’ - attests in its very name to which customs those practitioners find resonance with. These customs are discerned from the ‘lore’ of ancient and medieval texts along with archeological and linguistic data, which draws the identifying boundaries of the practice. Those who practice Heathenry without reference to the lore, or who ‘syncretize with the modern world’ by adopting contemporary standards, are then effectively partaking in the same New Age trend of subjectively crafting their own spirituality (but with an interesting, prepackaged aesthetic).

To the Folkish Heathen, this phenomenon is embodied in the approach of the Inclusivist Heathen, their ‘denominational shadow’. The Inclusivist is viewed as diluting what ought to be an inherited, ethnically-bounded cult by opening its rites and symbols to those with no ancestral claim to the ‘folk,’ turning what they regard as a historically blood-bound obligation into a mere lifestyle choice. How can the Inclusivist hail their ancestors when they would just as soon deride their ancestors as bigots? How can the Inclusivist determine the legitimately of their deviation from the strictness of the custom they claim to reconstruct when, in Kjalnesinga saga (ch. 3), the charge of “incorrect creed” (rangr atunadr) is punishable by the exile of outlawry? In the eyes of the Folkish Heathen, the Inclusivist has already surrendered the very principles that makes Heathenry reconstructable at all, and thus stands less as an ally than as a warning of what happens when ancestral piety is subordinated to the modern demand for indiscriminate inclusion.

Taken together, then, the image of the Folkish Heathen who stands before us is not a vague ‘spiritual seeker’ piecing together curiosities, but a self-consciously European-descended Reconstructionist who believes that ancestry grounds obligation, the customs described in the lore attest to the specific obligations, and that one should be distrustful of New Age eclecticism and the Inclusivist capitulation to ahistorical norms. In their own understanding, the Folkish Heathen is attempting to restore an historically-bounded way of life for a particular people in a disenchanted age, and it is precisely this sense of seriousness, coherence, and duty that gives their position its initial plausibility and force. From this, it attracts high-quality people who ‘punch above their weight’, making it - in a way - an admirable opponent for Christianity to go against.

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In the following article - the true beginning of our rebuttal - we will investigate the ways in which the Folkish Heathen justifies their practice and the fascinating arguments they have formulated to claim that their approach has an a priori claim on those of European descent. Let us close in prayer:

“O God, who through the fruitful virginity of Mary bestowed on the human race the grace of eternal salvation, grant, we pray, that we may experience the intercession of her, through whom we were found worthy to receive the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.”

Amen.

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