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Cool thread. I'm interested in what the big annual celebrations look like for modern heathens. From a quick look on Wikipedia it seems as though there's a fair bit of variety in dates and festivals, but I guess at least most people celebrate something in the winter and around midsummer. I live in Norway where the broadly celebrated Christian/secular Jul incorporates a lot of pre-Christian traditions, and I think eating good food, getting together with loved ones and giving gifts are pretty much universal to celebrations in all cultures. Are there any important rituals or traditions that you have that might be less familiar, either reconstructed or more recently invented? This isn't especially to do with heathenry, but a celebration unique to extreme latitudes that maybe you'll find interesting: when I lived in the far north people got together to celebrate the first sunrise of the year, in late January. It was not really religious or formalised, at least among people I knew, but you'd get together with friends somewhere outdoors where you could watch the sun rise and maybe have some music and food together, perhaps with a little fire in the snow. The sun is only above the horizon for 15 or 20 minutes so you can easily watch it come up and go back down together. Surprisingly moving after a couple months of polar night.
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Sep 27, 2020 16:30
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The archaeology chat got me wondering if you know anything interesting about earlier North Germanic beliefs and their influence on the Norse ones (which I understand to be originating roughly during the first millenium CE). I have a Danish archaeologist friend who is interested in Bronze Age bog bodies, and there is speculation that items found on some of those bodies have religious or magical significance. I guess there are not really contemporary written attestations from earlier periods so it's pretty tough to reconstruct their beliefs. They also told me that Denmark is an unusually good place to be an archaeologist, with plenty of paying work available, because almost any construction is required to have a preliminary archaeological survey just in case there is anything good hidden in the ground. That seems pretty cool if it's correct!
big scary monsters fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Apr 1, 2021 |
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Apr 1, 2021 00:53
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Tias posted:Can they opine on which bog bodies and why? I think they should buy an account, I'd love to talk to them here! On language chat, I've found Norwegian not too bad to pick up as an Anglophone, but I already spoke German and conversational Dutch, which helped a lot. After a few years in Norway reading Danish is pretty easy but the spoken pronunciation is extremely tough. Spoken Swedish is easier to understand but looks weird to me written down. But then there are a million dialects even just in Norwegian so sometimes I meet Norwegians I just flat can't understand as well.
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Apr 3, 2021 21:38
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That's really cool! Quite likely you've seen it, but if not you might find Charles Fréger's Wilder Mann photo series interesting: https://www.charlesfreger.com/portfolio/wilder-mann-fr/ He documents Krampus and similar ritual/festive costumes from all over Europe, really interesting to see the common elements in figures from across the continent.
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Dec 28, 2022 14:37
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No problem. Glad you're back posting again and hope you're doing alright. I'm always happy to see this thread back on the first page of my bookmarks.
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Dec 28, 2022 15:23
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