Nordic Heathenry A/T: My date was a huge antropomorphic moth, as is custom

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Nordic Heathenry A/T: My date was a huge antropomorphic moth, as is custom

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

This is probably a dumb question, and I'm probably going to phrase it awfully, so please understand I mean this well :

You say large chunks of the religion is reconstructed and some of it is just kind of filled in. Could you elaborate on this more and how those interact? I'm very curious about a religion that also ties directly into historical scholarship and I'd love to hear more about it. To give a toy example, imagine you had some rite that you did the best guess on what it was like historically, but then it turns out new evidence came to light and it was something totally different : what does one as a member of the community do with this information? Especially if it's been being practiced for a long while.

I hope I'm not being offensive ; I'm honestly just interested academically and think it's really cool. Usually I'd wait to buy you 3 beers before this kind of conversation.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2020 08:41

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 04:28

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Uh...

I would get you started. I don't know what half of those words mean and would like to.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 07:33

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Yeah I'm immediately thinking of things like Candomble and Voudon and wondering about parallels/differences.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 18:45

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Please very much keep posting cause this is all cool and good, but just a minor point of clarification : many syncretic beliefs in South-America and the Caribbean are (nominally) still part of the Catholic Church. Enough so when, for example, the Pope visits Haiti he changes outfits and terminology. Just a really minor nitpick. According to the Vatican Voudon is still Catholicism (except when it's not).

# ¿ Feb 27, 2020 03:18

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Oof, you're right. Once I started looking for sources I realized my lazy memory massively over-simplified things.

Apparently after Jean Paul II they softened and now they're more flexible but he was the first Pope to actually acknowledge local customs and it's still complicated. Now they'll sometimes give some rites and they aren't gung-ho about stamping it out, but it is still not technically Catholic.

I stand corrected. Don't know how I got that idea in my head.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2020 03:28

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Tias posted:

I was sworn to secrecy about a particular persons journey into heathenism and so can't go into detail, but suffice to say that there are a nonzero number of heathens who started out as candombl� devotees who realized they had devoted themselves to an aesir or vanir or an aspect of said god and grew from there.

I know just enough about this kind of thing to be respectful of how people want it to be secret so I'm not expecting anything. But if you feel comfortable (and think your sources would too) in giving any broad generalities I'd be fascinated. I know it's a touchy topic so if the answer is, "Nah, I can't without being a dick", I totally understand.

Also can I ask what your shiny new av and text are about? I can read exactly enough of the text to come up with what are probably some very wrong guesses. The part I can definitely tell is whatever wood they're working with in the pic is great, and assuming the picture's a bit off and it's level/flush, they did a really good job.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2020 09:41

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

That's a drat good quote.

And I assumed it was taken at a Dutch angle rather than the structure just happening to be perfectly off from true. Does the building have ritual or religious significance? I'm assuming it's not just a really boss looking roof which is all I'm getting from my ignorant perspective.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2020 11:53

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Bhurak posted:

Divination told me we are on our own and that the social distance was needful. A friend of mine had a chat with one-hand and he told her to suck it up, sacrifice is supposed to hurt.

Could you go into this? Not being lovely, I'm actually interested in what this kind of process it nvolves. I'd really love to know the internal working.

Tias posted:

Jǫtnar / Jotunn / Frost Giants - Evil demons or part of the family?

The beings known as jǫtnar are an often mentioned part of norse mythology, and when we hear about them in the modern parlance, they often look like clear-cut 'bad guys' because of their opposition to the aesir and vanir. But, as we shall see below, they're often cozy with the gods, and some of the gods we recognize as aesir and vanir are actual fifty or even a hundred percent jotnar by blood!

At the creation of the world, these beings were shed from the world-being Ymirs body, in some kind of asexual reproduction. They survived his dismemberment by Odin, Vile and Ve by surfing the rivers made by his blood. The jǫtnar live in Jotunheimm, one of the nine worlds. In later scandinavian folklore, a greater ambiguity surrounded them, in no small part because of christians likening them to devils, and they became terrifying entities who often worked against humans.

The name Jotunn comes from the proto-germanic *etunaz and means "devourer". The Old English e�ten is a cognate (it means the same thing and comes from the same Proto-Germanic word). �urs, or Thurse, another name for giant-like creatures, is derived from the Proto-Germanic *�urisaz and means something like “powerful and injurious one” with a secondary connotation of “thorn-like.” The Old English �yrs and Old High German duris are cognates.

If we look at the inside/outside divide often applied in heathenry, Jǫtnar are 100% 'outside the fence'. They represent untamed nature, the anti-thesis of safety, civilization and formal culture - and this isn't the same as evil, but they do act against the efforts of heathens to codify, understand and protect the land. The devourers constantly try to pull the world back to it's state of primordial chaos, and the gods try to pull up the plane instead. Still, what about the gods?

Well, Odin is half Jotunn, on his mothers side - and Thor, the chaos-destroyer and slayer of Jotunn? 75%. In principle, Jotunn, like Aesir and Vanir, is often a title conferred through kinship, rather than a specific measurement of blood or parentage. When the full-blood Jotunn Ska�i marries the powerful vane Njord, she becomes an �ss (sing. of aesir). In reality, we don't know the origins of deities like Odin and Thor, central and important deities though they be in the aesir pantheon - and their latest recorded iteration are as the enemies of the jǫtnar and lords of the aesir, so that's what we're going with.

Jotunnheim (also known as "Udg�rd" or "outside the clearing", signifying their status as devourers) is the home of the Jǫtnar. It is where they menace Asg�rd from, separated from this realm by the river Ilfing. In here lies Mimir's well, where Odin placed his eye to gain wisdom, and the gods have gone there on many adventures. For an abridged list, check the wiki page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6tunheimr

Cool!

Can I get some sources on these etymologies? The English-language sources I have give slightly different but largely parallel answers. (I can hack my way through some Danish if it comes to it, if that matters. Not that I'm looking forward to it, but I'm German and I know some Swedish and Old English and I'm used to just kind of figuring thing out.)

# ¿ Apr 2, 2020 04:58

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 04:28

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

I know that "casting*" I'd be so interested in just talking to you about this process and learning about it just for my own learning if your cool with it.

*Is that the right word? It's what it is as translated in the old poo poo I'm used to reading is, but I don't mean to offend to offend anyone and I know we're talking beyond a language barrier. I mean no offense and would honestly appreciate a more full break down from the brief versions I got in two weeks of undergrad classes.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2020 06:41

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