{"id":30,"date":"2024-10-24T15:00:11","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T14:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/?p=30"},"modified":"2024-10-24T15:00:11","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T14:00:11","slug":"my-heathen-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/2024\/10\/24\/my-heathen-path\/","title":{"rendered":"My heathen path."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To begin with, what do I mean by \u201cheathen\u201d? If you look the word up, the dictionary definition given will be along the lines of \u201csomeone who doesn\u2019t follow an abrahamic religion\u201d. This I reject, because you don\u2019t define a word by explaining it in terms of what it doesn\u2019t mean. To heathens answering to that name today, a better definition would be \u201csomeone who follows a spiritual path rooted in the traditional beliefs of a Germanic people\u201d. The word derives from \u201cheath\u201d – i.e. a moor, or uncultivated land – so, in essence, it has pretty much the same implications as \u201cpagan\u201d from the Latin \u201cpaganus\u201d (\u201cof the countryside, uneducated\u201d) but has been chosen in preference to it because it comes from a Germanic-language root rather than a Latin one. \u201cPagan\u201d has come to be used as an umbrella term, whereas \u201cheathen\u201d is more specific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, what does heathenry entail? That depends on who you ask. In general, modern heathen practice is very diverse, with no central authority. I tend to regard the \u201cno central authority\u201d thing as a plus though, because it\u2019s virtually a universal constant that every power structure is, sooner or later, going to end up riddled with corruption, inward-looking to the point of being concerned chiefly with perpetuating itself, and full of the sort of people who are interested in being part of that kind of arrangement for the power they can get from it. Every religion has its arseholes, and they tend to end up with more influence than they should have; but with no central authority for them to infiltrate, there\u2019s nothing protecting the arseholes from being called out as arseholes. I once read – and I don\u2019t remember where, or who said it – that the two best observed rules of heathenry are \u201cYou\u2019re not doing that properly!\u201d and \u201cYou\u2019re not the boss of me!\u201d, which is fair. We can be a nowty bunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brief Google comes up with the estimate that there are no more than 20,000 heathens worldwide, which seems implausibly few, given that the 2021 UK National Census would put nearly a quarter of that number living here; but however many there might be, I can\u2019t speak for anyone\u2019s practices and beliefs but my own, so my own are what I\u2019ll stick to. There are those working more along Norse traditional lines in this country, and for all I know there may be more of them than there are of us Anglo-Saxon bods; Norse traditions are certainly more widely known and practised outside the United Kingdom. But my practice is based on Anglo-Saxon roots, which to me makes sense, since I\u2019m English and live in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First and foremost, my heathenry centres on the veneration of gods. There are many, but most of us have a particular devotion to one or a small number of them. I don\u2019t want to go into too much detail here because you can do your own background research if you want to, but here are \u201cmy\u201d three:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) Ing Frea (Lord Ing), also sometimes called Ingui; probably better known by his Norse name, Freyr (which just means \u201cLord\u201d.) A god of peace and freedom, the king of the world of the elves – yes, there are elves – and a fertility god who brings the successful harvest, prosperity and security to the homestead. (It\u2019s at this point that someone usually pipes up, \u201cOh yeah, he\u2019s the god with the massive dick!\u201d And yes, he is – known for it. But we all know that\u2019s not a good enough reason in itself for worshipping someone, I hope? Good, then don\u2019t interrupt.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) Freo (the Old English equivalent of her name in Old Norse, Freyja, which means \u201cLady\u201d.) A proud, self-possessed goddess of witchcraft, war, gold, and sexuality in all its forms. There\u2019s not much evidence that she was worshipped outside Scandinavia in the old times, but as Ing\u2019s sister – some would say twin sister – she nonetheless deserves and owns her place on my shrine beside his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) H\u00e6le\u00f0 (\u201cWarrior\u201d or \u201cHero\u201d.) A specifically Anglo-Saxon deity (hence, no Norse name or equivalent) historically worshipped in the counties of Devon, Dorset and Wiltshire in the West of England. A god of war, healing and good fortune, whose worship has been revived in recent years and associated by some with the famous chalk hill figure of the Giant in the Dorset village of Cerne Abbas. Given that recent analysis of the figure has found that it may well date back to the Anglo-Saxon period, and that the historian William Stukely recorded in the eighteenth century that local people called the Giant \u201cHelis\u201d, you can look into that and decide for yourself. Certainly I\u2019ve always been fascinated by the Giant since my first visit to Cerne Abbas at the age of around nine, when I scandalised my grandmother by knowing (and using) the word \u201cphallus\u201d. I was that sort of kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I make regular offerings to these three gods, in a ritual known as a housel. This is an old word formerly used of the christian mass or holy communion ceremony, but which derives originally from the Old English \u201chusel\u201d – an offering or sacrifice – so I like to think I\u2019m giving the word back its original meaning! These are offerings of food (such as home-made bread or cake, perhaps spread with honey, or home-grown or foraged fruit) and\/or drink (home-made fruit liqueur, ale, cider, apple juice, or at Yule, mead.) They\u2019re given out of respect for the fellowship I share with the gods, as you\u2019d do for any guest; it formally acknowledges that bond by the action, and thanks them for their blessings by giving back. As they give to us, so we give to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I work, as I said in my previous post, according to the Anglo-Saxon calendar, which is solar-lunar – i.e. going by lunar months, but in relation to the solar solstices and equinoxes. The four major days of celebration I observe are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) Geol (Yule, in Modern English) which begins with Modraniht (Mothers\u2019 Night) after sunset on the eve of the winter solstice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) Eosturd\u00e6g (Eostre\u2019s Day) the beginning of summer, at the full moon of Eosturmona\u00fe (Eostre\u2019s Month) following the spring equinox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) Midsumord\u00e6g (Midsummer\u2019s Day) at the summer solstice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(4) Winterfylle\u00fe (Winter\u2019s Full Moon) at the full moon of the month of the same name (which sometimes is also called Wintermona\u00fe, Winter\u2019s Month, in order not to confuse.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this way, the holidays are directly linked to the movements of the sun and moon, rather than being allocated fixed dates on the modern calendar. It\u2019s more fiddly to work out, but it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s the subject of magic. Now, magic isn\u2019t central to heathen practice as it is in some other pagan religions, and many heathens don\u2019t feel a need to practise it, but it is there as part of the tradition, in various forms. One of these that I use is \u201cgaldor\u201d, the magic of the spoken, sung or chanted word. A galdor spell is poetic in form and focused on achieving a specific result. Broadly speaking it can be in any poetic style you want as long as it\u2019s \u201cchantable\u201d, but to me it makes obvious sense to stick to the Anglo-Saxon verse form, which has a specific rhythm that lends itself to composing lines in Modern English as well as it does in Old English. There\u2019s also a particular poetic form used in the Old Norse H\u00e1vam\u00e1l specifically for magical incantation, called \u201cgaldralag\u201d (\u201cspell song\u201d – the Old English equivalent would be \u201cgaldorleo\u00f0\u201d) which adapts easily to the Anglo-Saxon meter and is excellent for constructing spells. Of course the best known heathen magical practice (and the one most misunderstood by outsiders) is rune magic. This is such a big subject that it needs its own post, which I\u2019ll write sooner or later; this one\u2019s already more than long enough. But I will say in passing that I do work with runes, both for oracular and practical purposes, that they\u2019re excellent for constructing talismans, and that they lend themselves naturally and powerfully to being used in combination with galdor. Scraped clean of the New Age piffle-bibble that\u2019s got caked to them over the years, they are one of our treasures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll stop there for now. I\u2019ve just re-read through what I\u2019ve written here, and I\u2019m resigned to the realisation that I haven\u2019t even left many fingerprints on the surface of my practice, let alone scratched it. It\u2019s a clich\u00e9, I know, but heathenry is a whole way of looking at life, with so many facets to it. I\u2019m not here to write a book introducing people to the subject, so the philosophical and cosmological aspects – the real meaning of the concept of \u201cwyrd\u201d (usually mistranslated as \u201cfate\u201d), the importance of honourable action, the sacred nature of oaths, the question of other worlds, the way we relate to our ancestors and ancestral land, the very \u201chow\u201d and \u201cwhy\u201d of our tradition – will have to remain unaddressed, at least for now. I\u2019ve told you a bit about what you might call the three cornerstones of how I practise my religion – the gods, the calendar, the use of magic – but without giving you the background that gives context to them, it might seem to you that they float in space, unanchored, rather than making sense, as they do, as part of an integrated whole. I\u2019m sorry about that, but without providing the background to it I guess it\u2019s inevitable. Maybe as you read more of my blog, you\u2019ll pick up bits here and there that might help you get more of a flavour of my heathen tradition as I practise it. I hope so, because it shapes my life and the way I try to live it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To begin with, what do I mean by \u201cheathen\u201d? If you look the word up, the dictionary definition given will be along the lines of \u201csomeone who doesn\u2019t follow an abrahamic religion\u201d. This I reject, because you don\u2019t define a word by explaining it in terms of what it doesn\u2019t mean. To heathens answering to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daddyogg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}