While we were recording our upcoming new album “When Ice crowns the Earth”, we also jammed on a number of songs that were not intended to be on the actual album. We tracked these songs nevertheless and decided to release them as a free digital EP.

Besides the new song “War into the World”, the EP contains a re-recorded version of the song “Terror Cimbricus” (originally featured on the “Cult of Wuotan” album) as well as two covers of the underground band VORT and BATHORY respectively.

Download the free digital EP here, courtesy of our label AURORA AUSTRALIS RECORDS and the Nordic lifestyle company WOTAN KLAN.

Tracklisting:

1. War into the World [edit version]
2. Terror Cimbricus
3. The Raven flies North [VORT cover]
4. For all those who died [BATHORY cover]

Anyway, we hope you haven’t grown all tired with all this waiting for us to get things running. We are getting there, a step at the time. But we rather see that things are done properly instead of in a haste, and we hope that you agree with us. We would also like to thank all those of you who have been standing patiently by our side, and especially those of you who have actually been helping us out in all sorts of matters. You know who you are.

Dangerousness of the Dying Man

A custom that has not been bound to any particular form of execution, but that from time immemorial and right up to our own day has been a constant feature of executions in general, is the binding of the delinquent’s eyes, or covering of his head. The Frisian Hunsigoer law uses the expression thene suarta doc as a term in the formulation of the death penalty. That this ritual feature has been intended to protect the bystanders against the criminal’s evil eye, is a generally held and well-founded explanation that can be confirmed with ancient evidence that cannot be misinterpreted. The Icelandic sagas give direct proof of the existence of this notion, precisely in connection with executions. Particularly dangerous was the look from persons versed in magic. According to a wide spread popular belief it was of importance, vis-á vis such persons, to see them first, i.e. before they had an opportunity to use the dangerous power in their look. Also ghosts were considered to possess a terrible and dangerous power in their look, a power that might have fatal consequences for one who happened to cross its focus.
But if the looks of evil-doers possessed a magical dangerousness already under normal conditions, this power was still further increased in the moment of death. Altogether, the look in the eye of the dying was in an eminent degree dangerous, and this was true not only of human beings, but also animals. It was for this reason that pregnant women were formerly not allowed to be present at a slaughter.
In an Icelandic saga, Hrafnkels saga, there is a description of the way in which a horse is killed, the stallion Freyfaxi, that was dedicated to the god Freyr. The horse is driven to the edge of a precipice and thrust over, after a cloth has been drawn over its head. Throwing over a precipice seems in Norway to have been a common popular method for killing horses, and the precautionary measure of blindfolding the animal seems to have been a regular feature in the procedure. In the documented case of the living burial of a horse in 1842 in Denmark, to stay a cattle-plague, it is mentioned that the animal was blindfolded. The measure is thus a ritual feature that recurs with remarkable consistency.
The magical power of the dying was, however, not restricted to the emanation from his eyes. In olden times it was a wide-spread belief that the power of the human personality grew as death approached, to culminate in magical force in the moment of dying. The latent magical power of a human being was released, actualized and rendered active in the moment of death.
In a penetrating analysis of the myth of Odin’s suicide by hanging, van Hamel plausibly suggest that it is based upon the belief that a martyrdom that takes the subject into a state between life and death, is calculated to bring about an increase in personal magical potency, an increase that in the case of a god must provoke an extraordinarily high potential of creative force. In this connection van Hamel assumes that the idea of a person’s own force and strength (megin, máttr) that we meet within the sources of the transition period is not a product of the scepticism of this period, but has its roots in an ancient pre-deistic belief in the magical power of the individual. Odin’s hanging is thus according to van Hamel not a sacrifice, although sacral elements from the cult of Odin have been combined therewith, it is a martyrdom intended to actualize all the potential magical power of the god in order to overcome a resistance.

[…]

Among the old Icelanders we find the notion of the magical dangerousness of the dying or those in the shadow of death as a living belief. Their words had the power to ruin, and the curses they pronounced were fulfilled. When in the Laxdæla saga Hallbjorn is to be executed, he curses his employer, and according to the saga the curse was fulfilled. The slave Gilli and Draumr Þorsteins Sídu-Hallssonar, who had murdered his master, is subjected to torture, and when dying he utters the following words: “Torment me no longer, Yngvildr, or I will pronounce the word that for all time will live in the memory of your posterity and that will be fulfilled”. We find the same theme in several sagas, and in the Edda poem Fáfnismál the notion is given the precise form of the dogma. In an intercalated prose passage in the poem, after Sigurðr has mortally wounded Fáfnir, we read: “Sigurðr concealed his name, for in olden times it was believed that the words of a dying man had great power, if he cursed his enemy and called him by name”. In the Volsung saga the dying Fáfnir says: “I advice you to take your horse and ride away as fast as you can, for it frequently happens that one who is mortally wounded avenges himelf”.

[…]

From Grettis saga it appears that the capacity to set magical powers in action in connection with the “second death” was ascribed to ghosts. In Göngu-Hrólfs saga, in which we, in spite of its fantastic and unhistorical character, may nonetheless still find notes that are of value for social history, it is told how to protect against the magical power of a dying enemy. As a protective measure against feared verbal magic, one is to thrust a piece of wood in his mouth; and in order to obviate the fatal power in his looks one is to lay a shield over his eyes. In another place in the same saga a traitor is hanged and a ginkefli put in his mouth (so that the mouth is propped open). We may remind the reader of a regulation from the Gulating law, quoted in an earlier connection, where it is given as an aggravating circumstance to put a stick in the mouth of the cut-off head of one’s enemy.

[…]

Taking as his point of departure methods of slaughtering animals, and ritual precautionary measures connected therewith, the Swedish writer Ernst Klein has in a couple of essays developed a thesis concerning the ritual of the death penalty, arriving at results that in many respects coincide with those to which my own conclusions have taken me. Klein draws attention to the tendency on the part of the slaughterer, in certain old-fashioned methods for the slaughtering of certain categories of animals, to seem as little active as possible. These methods of slaughter are of ritual nature and have been conceived with reference to the magical dangers that were considered to attach to the procedure of killing. According to Klein, these methods were intended above all to prevent “dass etwas magisch Ansteckendes herausdrang”, for the animals against which they were practiced had of old been regarded as being in possession of a magically dangerous, demoniac nature, and were therefore the objects of taboo notions. Klein now draws a parallel between the methods of animal slaughter referred to, and the ritual forms of execution. In principle they very largely coincide, and exactly the same tendencies and motives converge and determine the ritual development. The forms of the death penalty are to be regarded as taboo forms of death; the ritual is shaped in accordance with the notion of the criminal’s eminently demoniac nature.

By the end of the 8th century, Scandinavia and the last few heathen tribes of northern Europe stood next in turn for being christianized and put under southern European political, cultural and spiritual dominance. The Norse had long been a silent bystander, watching tribe after tribe of their fellow southern Germanic kinsmen being either eradicated or forced to submission.

A key player of the Christian invasion forces were Charlemagne, a Frankish king and later even emperor of the Romans. From year 772 and onwards, his preoccupation became converting the Saxons north-east of his borders to Christianity, and put them under the rule of his empire. That same year the Saxons most holy site with the Irminsul was destroyed, and the Irminsul was cut down. In 779, the Saxon leader Widukind was defeated and Saxony fell under Charlemagne’s rule. The resistance didn’t end there, but was kept up by autonomous groups under less influential chieftains and warlords.
In 782, Charlemagne captured, force baptized and then executed 4 500 Saxons nobles and chieftains by the river Aller near Verden. This didn’t end the Saxon resistance either, and Charlemagne tried other methods to force them to submission. Among other things he forcibly resettled over 7 000 Saxons, probably much because he wanted to drain them of manpower, so that he could carry on his mission with less disturbance. Two more force resettling campaigns were carried out a couple of years later, but the Saxon resistance was still not completely broken.
The reason why the Norse eventually decided to get involved in these ongoing conflicts becomes even more obvious, given the fact that the Saxon leader Widukind was married to Geva of Westfold, who was the daughter of King Goimo of Denmark, and sister of the Danish kings Ragnar and Siegfried. In these times, that alone could have sparked a war – as it became a family matter, at least for the Danes.

A fully natural response to this sort of ethnic cleansing and cultural imperialism, was what we have later come to call “The Viking Age”, which starts with the attack by a viking fleet in Lindisfarne at the 8′th of June in 793. Many historians argue on the reasons behind the viking campaigns, and say overpopulation is the likely explanation – which is a rather strange conclusion, since there were about 1-2 individuals per square kilometer in Scandinavia by that time, and really no lack of new land to clear. Others mention poverty as the main reason, which also would seem rather strange, given that the vikings attacked primarily and almost exclusively Christian sites (which indeed had a lot of riches), and killed everyone and destroyed these sites completely; had their interest laid in raiding for profit alone, it would have been a lot more rewarding to just loot these places, let them recover and return for more much earlier than they could if they put the place in ruins and killed everyone.
There are several historians who have realized the lack of logic here, and put the viking reaction into a bigger picture, taking into account what was going on among fellow Germanic tribes on the continent at the same time. Among them are Rudolf Simek, Bruno Dumézil (cousin of Georges Dumézil), amateur historian Östen Kjellman and professor Robert Ferguson. The later of these have written an excellent book on the subject, called The Hammer and The Cross which is highly recommended for those who wish to learn more on this subject. For those speaking Swedish, Östen Kjellman’s two volume book Den forna seden, contains a lot of valuable information.

As the degree of tension caused by Charlemagne’s activities increased, so too, in accordance with a familiar anthropological response to outside threat, did the intensity with which the Scandinavians began to mark their artifacts, as a way of asserting their cultural identity. Norse ornamentation experienced a grand boom during this time, religion became more organized, and Scandinavians started building hofs (religious practices were almost exclusively held outdoors earlier) and decorating them with riches in gold and silver. Nordic architecture, clothing & hairstyles, jewelry and poetry experienced a boost too during this period of time. And this is the time when the Thor’s hammer jewelry starts to appear as well. Obviously as a Norse/heathen counterpart to the Christians carrying their crosses – as a symbol of Norse identity, and as a symbol of resistance towards alien oppression.

By this time, the by far most honored Norse deity among the largest group of people was Þór (Thor), and thus he became the first and foremost symbol of the Norse uprising, and their struggle for independence and freedom. The myths tells us that Thor’s hammer became so small that he could carry it around his neck as an amulet when he didn’t need to use it, which is another explanation to why the hammer became the symbol of choice.
Before the Thor’s hammer became popular, there was another similar piece of jewelry around, also related to Thor – namely the” Thor’s Club”, or the Donarskeule. It was most common in the southern Germanic territories, among the Alemanni and their neighbors. It seems however, that it was mostly women who carried these miniature clubs (while hammers were carried by both men and women), and it was clearly inspired by similar jewelry called Hercules’ Club, or the Herkuleskeule from Roman territories.

Hallowed be thy name

The name of Thor’s hammer is Mjolnir, or Mjölnir/Mjolnir/Mjollnir (myol-neer), which derives from ON (Old Norse) mala (to grind) and molva (crush), which is etymologically related to words such as Slavic molnija and Welsh mellt which both means lightning.

Studying the myths surrounding Thor, it’s obvious that he often acts as a kind of ritual officiant, and that his hammer functions as a sort of ritual object. This provides us with a glimpse into the ritual system of the Norse world.
In the Prose Edda, we learn that Thor and Loki seeks shelter for the night at a farmer’s home on their way to Útgarða-Lóki. After butchering his goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr for an evening meal, he lays the bones of his goats inside their hides, and blesses them with the hammer – a ritual act that resurrects them back to life. In another myth, at the funeral of Odin’s son Balder, Thor blesses the funeral pyre with his hammer. In Trymskviða, when Thor’s hammer have been stolen and held hidden by the giant Trym, Thor impersonates Freya (Trym demanded Freya as his wife, for returning the hammer) wearing a bridal dress, eagerly waiting through the humiliation for the moment where the hammer will be laid in the “brides” lap – in this case with a quite devastating result for the blackmailer giant Trym. Apparently this describes an actual ceremonial act, as there are both earlier and later sources, involving wedding couples and hammers as well.
Part of these customs have survived well into later documented history. It has been a custom in Scandinavia and elsewhere in northern Europe well into the medieval ages, to put a hammer under the bed of a newly wed couple , to bless them, grant them fertility and to protect them from the envy of others. There are also several rock carving from the Bronze Age, that seems to depict a unification of a man and a woman (or more precisely – Hieros gamos – the holy unification of the masculine and the feminine elements), with a third bystanding person holding a hammer or an axe, in what seems to be a sort of hallowing gesture.
In Germany, a hammer or an axe was laid at the kitchen table even until the 1800′s on Christi Himmelsfahrt (a time popular for weddings even today, which is also always a Thursday – Thor’s day!), a holiday known to be related to Thor in earlier days, and the myth of Trymskviða and the fetching of Thor’s hammer more specifically.

Thor’s role as a blessing deity is furthermore well documented in preserved runic inscriptions, such as Thur uiki, meaning Thor bless or May Thor hallow. Even today, the marrying of a bridal couple is referred to as att viga in modern day Sweden.
Another evidence of the idea of the protective nature of Thor’s hammer, is that there have been several Iron Age houses found, where a Stone Age axe have been buried under the floor (sometimes decorated with Iron Age ornamentation, even though the axe itself is several thousand years older). When farmers and land clearing woodcutters found Stone Age axes in the ground, they believed that these were Åskviggar or Torviggar, i.e. lightning bolts, a secondary weapon of choice for Thor. According to tradition, he threw these bolts after trolls when he were out hunting them, and they were thus buried in the ground as they hit the ground. The reason why these were put beneath the house is actually quite logic and simple, namely that the thunder is said to never strikes twice at the same place. Burying one beneath the house was a sort of insurance from having the house struck by lightning. As late as the 1800′s, people still placed Stone Age axes under their doorsteps, probably not only to prevent the lightning from striking their house, but also to make sure trolls would not dare to step into the house (Thor is their worst enemy).
The belief of the magical properties of the Stone Age axes survived all the way into the 1900′s, in the field of folk medicine at the countryside. It was a usual part of healing potions, to scrape such Stone Age axes – “Torviggar” – with a steel object, to generate dust with healing or maybe even protective properties.

Silver cures all evils

As one of the most obvious aspects of Thor is in his role as chief protector of Midgard, he is known as Alda bergr (defender of mankind), Véurr (hallower), Vinr Verlidha (the friend of man), Veorr Midgards (warder of earth) and so forth. Thus naturally, it is also quite probable that Thor’s hammer pendants where regarded as protective amulets (even though most symbols are wrongfully labeled as symbols for “fertility” and “protection”, as an easy explanation where there’s an obvious lack of better interpretations). As a matter of fact, this conception does indeed have some support in the field of science, at least when pendants are made of silver – because silver is actually a powerful antiseptic and antibacterial agent. More specifically, this function is dependent of the silver ion (Ag+), which is also known as colloidal silver. It has the capability to kill not only spores, bacteria, fungus and amoeba – unlike modern antibiotics it is also effective against viruses.
Ever since antiquity – and prior to the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940′ies – silver has been used for food containers to prevent spoiling, and as late as in the field hospitals of WWI for treating of the wounded. As another example, it’s also a widely spread folk remedy to put a silver coin in a bucket of fresh milk, in order to prevent it from going sour. It is doubtful that the people who were doing so knew why this was working, they only knew that it did (as is often the case with folk remedies).
During the plague, it’s said that the nobility and silversmiths made through it better, and a part of the explanation (apart from higher living standards and a better hygiene) might be that they were in daily contact with silver; where the nobility were using silver tableware etc., and because the silversmiths naturally came in contact with a lot of silver. The traditions surrounding werewolves and vampires (which transfer their state of being on to others through an “infectious bite”) and their intolerance to silver, might very well be based on an naive understanding of the protective properties silver have against the “forces of evil”.

Those eyes

Anyone who are familiar with different traditional designs of the Thor’s hammers that have been unearthed in archaeological excavations, must have noticed that these hammers often have depictions of eyes, or something which resembles eyes. And there is indeed something about Thor and those eyes of his, maybe not that obvious – but right there beneath the surface, there are often references to Thor and his eyes, or him and eyes in general.
To mention a couple of examples: According to the Eddic poem Hárbarðsljóð, Thor threw the eyes of the giant Thiazi into the sky, where they became stars. In the aforementioned myth Trymskviða, we are told that Trym gets terrified and retreats to the other side of the hall, when he tries to unveil the face of Thor posing as Freya, and looks into his flashing eyes. Trym says: “Why are so fearful, the eyes of Freyja? Fire, methinks, from her eyes burns forth”.
Likewise in the Prose Edda, we learn that the father of Tjalfi (Tjalfi, who – by the trickery of Loki – broke a bone on one of Thor’s goats, even though Thor expressly forbid anyone to harm the bones) almost faints out of fear when he looks into the eyes of the raging Thor. In the later of these instances, we are told that the eyebrows of Thor “sunk down over his eyes”. It might be interesting to know, that the eyes of the great scald and berserk Egil Skallagrimsson are described in a similar fashion when he is about to go berserk, where he raises one eyebrow while simultaneously lowering the other, giving him a ferocious appearance.

Nowhere are we being told of the hammer Mjolnir itself having a head or even eyes (or even having anthropomorphic traits or characteristics at all), but eyes are still often depicted on the amulets that have been found. A reasonable explanation is that this is simply a part of the symbolism associated with Thor; just as there have been several hammers found that have heads resembling goats heads (there’s a striking goatlike similarity worth mentioning, between the hammer found in Kabbarp in Skåne/Sweden, and the upper parts of the amulets found in the Hiddensee treasure). Goats are – as you should know – animals intimately associated with Thor, and therefore a part of his symbolism too.

Comparsion of the Kabbarp and Hiddensee amulets.

Do you carry your hammer?

These days we are swarmed with cheap mass produced base metal jewelry from Asia and elsewhere, sometimes inspired by traditional designs that have been unearthed in various parts of Europe, sometimes more or less repulsive modern inventions, with heavy influences of either fantasy imagery, or otherwise Celtic ornamentation – or a mishmash between all the three of these.
Some people carrying these hammers, probably don’t even know what they are wearing, or may know very little of it, but not the fundamental principle of why it was originally worn historically. Just as some people watching the Marvel Comics movie Thor (released by Paramount Pictures in May 2011) probably thinks that Marvel Comics made up Thor, along with The Hulk, Captain America and the Spider Man.

An increasing number of people however, are wearing their hammers fully aware of the underlying historical background, and does it out of the same reason as their ancestors did over a thousand years ago.

Besides that sort of early guerrilla warfare, war in the early days was not so much about hiding from the enemy, as it was about intimidating him with a ferocious appearance. There’s a quote by Julius Caesar in Commentarii de Bello Gallico where he stated that:

Pliny in his Historia Naturalis wrote about the use of glastum as bodypaint for the women of the British isles, in certain religious ceremonies. According to most sources, these words are supposed to mean woad, the biennal plant Isatis tinctoria, native to Northern Europe and the British isles. It can be used for (blue) coloring and dyeing, after a special fermentation process.
It should be made clear, that the word vitro doesn’t actually mean woad per se, it’s referring to a roman type of glass which ranges from blue-greenish to clear blue. Glastum on the other hand does mean woad specifically (even though it’s a matter of debate among some few). In Welsh, Gaelic, Manx, Cornish and other tongues, glas or glass means blue, obviously referring to the Roman type of glassware, and/or the coloring abilities of the plant. And the other way around, places like Glastonbury in Somerset for example, are supposed to mean something like “place where the woad grows“ – which thus more or less confirms the thesis.

Whether or not the tribes of Britain painted themselves with woad specifically – or something else – is not known. But the claim that “celts/picts did not paint themselves with woad” has anyhow become the “vikings-did-not-have-horned-helmets”-mantra of the celt/pict besserwisser community. Besides the claim that there’s no factual evidence whatsoever for this (besides what is mentioned earlier), which is indeed correct – they also claim that is not possible to use woad for bodypaint. This however is not true at all, and anyone who still don’t believe it can turn to the excellent works of Catherine Cartwright-Jones for reference. She have gone through with some serious investigations and experiments with woad and indigo, and clearly shown that it is fully possible to use woad for bodypaint – despite the stubborn claims of the contrary from many others.

The word woad itself is of Germanic origin, namely Proto-Germanic *waidán and *waidáz, deriving from Proto-Indo-European *wAit-, and is called vejde in Swedish, wede in Dutch, waid in German and so on. It is not clear whether or not any Germanic tribes used any warpaint as well, except for the example of the Harii – who are said to have painted themselves black prior to their nocturnal attacks (or more specifically nigra scuta, tincta corpora, meaning black shields, colored bodies – i.e. the mentioning of the bodypaint is not color specific). But given the close relations between continental Celtic tribes and the Germanic tribes, it isn’t at all impossible. These two groups got along pretty well, intermingled, and exchanged and shared a lot of cultural elements between the two of them, even though they largely still remained two distinctive cultural groups.
What we do know, is that the Germanic people at least clearly used woad for coloring of textiles, and even the cape of Odin himself is said to be dark blue. Blue is traditionally also a color of nobility, hence the name “Royal Blue” which is still widely used today. Blue was and have thus been a color of war and nobility – two sides of the same coin – among northern Europeans all through the ages, practically until the introduction of the idea of camouflage on the battlefield, and the downward spiral of importance of the nobility in the modern society.
In Sweden during the 1700′s, the soldiers under Karl XI and Karl XII were called Karoliner, and their uniforms were yellow and blue – woad blue (vejdeblå in Swedish). Traditionally, the blue parts of the Swedish flag is also the blue of woad. From the 13′th to 16′th century, growing woad was a valuable source of income for Thuringian farmers, dyers, cloth makers and weavers. The Prussian army had large demands on woad dyed fabric, until the introduction of indigo (imported from India), which was chemically identical, but much cheaper. Import and use of indigo was initially prohibited, to protect the interests of the German woad industry. But eventually indigo prevailed anyway, as woad could not compete with the much cheaper indigo from the east in the long run. Indigo itself was later defeated by synthesizes woad dye, introduced by BASF in 1878. Today garments dyed with organic woad are considered a luxury, and often appear in lines of more exclusive jeans from well renowed fashion designers.

Ground woad pigment

The process of dyeing with woad and indigo is similar. Leaves are crushed and fermented with human urine for a couple of weeks to produce a vat. The vat in turn, can be further processed into crystals or a powder. It was discovered that alcohol improves the strength of the color. Even urine deriving from alcohol consumption gives a somewhat better result – which gave the woad dyers back in the days a good excuse to drink lots and lots of alcohol (of course instead of adding clean alcohol to the urine, even though it had given a better result, but why waste a good drink?). Even today, the German terms “Blau machen” – literally making blue – refers to a form of absenteeism on “blue Mondays”, typically caused by excessive drinking or partying through the weekend.

In the quest of putting together the bits and pieces of our Northern European past, and in the hope that the woaden blue shall once again be known it its true context, we proudly display it along with our own Wotan Klan™ brand.

Due to the upcoming Yule celebrations, we are about to take a closer look at some aspects of it. First and foremost, it’s not all certain when this festival starts, or when it ends either for that sake. The sources are all but clear, and part of the explanation might be that there are variations over time and geographic locations all over Northern Europe (as is the case with many other pre-christian festivals).

For Scandinavia, which will be used in our example, we can take a look at the illustration below:

Primstav - or runstav - found in Telemark

This illustration dating from 1707, comes from a carved wooden calendar called primstav or runstav, found in Telemark in Norway. It provides us with a little insight: The hand to the left is the mark for “Tomasnatten” (or, probably, in older times Höknatten – the exact date of Höknatten is however a matter of debate), the night before the Midwinter Solstice. The solar symbol to the right is the mark for Midwinter Solstice itself, later followed by the Yule Day (“Christmas eve”) in the form of a drinking horn, the building to the right of the horn is New Year’s Eve. These are the traditional Twelve Days of Yule.

Oskorei – The Wild Hunt

The Twelve Days of Yule is the time for The Wild Hunt (Der Wilde Jagd, Odens Jakt/Den Vilda Jakten, Oskoreia, Ghost Riders, Wutanes Heer etc. – are all name variations of the same phenomenon). The folklore of The Wild Hunt, have survived all the way into the 1900′s in some locations. However, the story has become a bit different over time.

The most primeval version, is probably (as the name suggests) the idea that Odin leads a pack of hunting dogs and a horde of undead through the skies. According to some sources they are made out of a band or dead kings, thieves and murderers (the symbolism here might be worth thinking of), or simply the Einherjar. In later times, for example in Sweden, Odin instead hunts a naked “skogsrå” (siren of the woods) or troll woman through the woods. In other later versions yet, The Wild Hunt is simply the Devil, along with a band of evil spirits or restless souls. In Northern America, The Wild Hunt was brought along with Northern European immigrants, in the form of the Ghost Riders, which became a sort of cowboy legend. It’s in short terms about a band of cursed cowboys, forever “trying to catch the Devil’s herd across the endless skies”.
All the way into somewhat modern times (1800-1900′s) at the Scandinavian countryside, it was not considered to be a good idea to wander along outside during these nights. Crosses were drawn at doors and sometimes on food containers and barrels of beer, to keep the evil spirits out, even though people also – in what might seem like a contradiction – put out a sheaf of hay at the top of high poles, to provide the horses of The Wild Hunt with something to eat.
These twelve nights was also the time of various Yule parades, partly with their roots in ancient customs. One such tradition is the “Staffansritten”. A fine example of an originally purely heathen tradition, that has survived through the ages, and absorbed various Christian elements. Worth mentioning, is that the Swedish song Staffan var en stalledräng, is probably one of the oldest Scandinavian folk tunes preserved to our date. Besides a sort of semi-ceremonial horseback racing, there were also parades similar to the Perchtenlauf etc. (which takes place around Easter). Young men dressed up in various costumes (often with a demonic appearance), and rode around through the villages, visiting each and every farm and sang songs, preformed dances and in return demanded food, and probably first and foremost alcoholic beverages. In some locations, there’s also an element of “trick or treat” involved in these parades: If the household refused to reward them for their performances, they could suddenly find their front door nailed shut, their chimney clogged with hay, or see a dozen of young men (a very usual number, which is a reminiscence of berserks and ulvhedins that usually appeared in numbers of twelve) urinating in their farm well – or in some extreme cases even having the roof of their house torn off.

To “Drink Yule”, a religious duty

In close association to the Yule feast and the jólablót (Yule blot), the ceremonial toasts of “drinking Yule” is an important custom. These toasts are called “full” – simply meaning full – and alludes to the full horn (or other vessel) being emptied. The first full is for Jólnir (the common heiti – or name – of Odin during the Yule celebrations) for coming victories and success in politics and war. The second full is for Frey and Njord – for the comings years harvest (not only in an agrarian sense) and well being (til árs ok friðar). It was also customary for anyone who felt for it, to call out Bragi’s full – made for any special promise or vow they wished to make in front of the attending crowd, to be accomplish during the following year. A last toast – minni – (minni means memory) is called out for the remembrance and honour of deceased comrades or family members.
In older times, all the way up to medieval times, it was even compulsory by law, to brew beer for Yule; and even earlier it seems to have been a a religious duty to preform the specific ceremonial toasts when drinking Yule. The ceremonial toasts survived up through medieval times, but of course with a modified Christian appearance. Despite this fact, the church tried to suppress these customs, due to their heathen roots.

These are just a few examples of the interesting elements of our rich heritage around Yule, and there is a lot more to discover for those who wish to explore it further. With these closing words, we wish you a Merry Yule and a fruitful New Year.

It must have been a chilling series of discoveries: Heaps of bleached bones and splintered weapons. On surrounding tree trunks the skulls of Roman prisoners had been nailed as a ferocious warning that Arminius, Cherusci chieftain, still dominated the forest. Survivors of the butchery pointed out the forest altars upon which captured tribunes and centurions have had their throats slit, in sacrifice to the northern Gods of War.

Today, the 9′th of September, it is 2000 years since Varus and his troops had crossed the Rhine and entered what they believed to be friendly territory, on their way to putting down an uprising. This guarantee was given by Arminius (the name Arminius is a Latin form of his Germanic name, but the original name is probably Erminameraz, or just Ermin – rather than the later form Hermann), a young chieftain of the Cherusci, who had served with the Romans on several expeditions, and been granted citizenship. Arminius, however, was a deceiver and wished to crush the governor Varus, for hastily trying to impose Roman laws and taxes upon his people.

The secret forest paths proved insufficient, and trees were felled and undergrowth cleared. Heavy rainfall made the ground slippery and treacherous. Ravines and marshland had to be bridged. As Varus advanced deeper into the dismal woods, Arminius excused himself from the main force, and secretly joined his gathering warriors. With the Roman soldiers scattered across amongst wagons and pack animals, and bogged down into a sludge of roots and mud – the Cherusci went into guerilla style action.
Howling and screaming, the Cherusci pounced upon the isolated groups of legionaries. At first, spears were hurled from the thickets. But then, as the Romans fell back in disarray, the tribesmen closed in and used the same spears as stabbing weapons. The dense forest and the shock of ambush prevented the Romans from assuming their usual battle formations, and allowed the Germans to catch legionaries by themselves. In close combat, the physical presence of the Germans undoubtedly proved intimidating to those recruits from Mediterranean countries. Of a notably larger build, with an alien pale skin and reddish hair, the Germans frequently fought semi-naked, with chests adorned only with scars or tattoos, or wrapped in animal skins. Other wild sights confronted the Romans too: Some young tribesmen, having let their hair and beards grow long so as to cover their face in accordance with a vow of manhood, now stood over a slain enemy and slashed at their hair. At last, through this blood of their foe, they had become worthy of their parents and their homeland, and could proudly show their face. Exposed to such dreadful attacks in a chaotic four-day running battle of relentless ambush, it is little wonder that few survivors of those original three legions emerged from the Teutoburgian forests. Varus killed himself before capture, by falling on his own sword – so did also a large number of other high ranking legion officers. Varus head was cut off and sent to Roman leaders south of the Rhine, as an example to what other people with similar intentions could expect, when moving into Germanic territories. A number of Romans were also held hostage – among them 14 military tribunes – and were later released for a high ransom. The golden eagles of the three legions also fell into Germanic possession, a terrible disgrace for the entire Roman state, and something which by Roman standards might have been seen as among the worst losses beside the legions themselves.

Of course, the Romans could not leave this humiliation as it stood, and over the next years conducted many retaliatory campaigns across the Rhine, not least of them the expedition of Germanicus. But essentially the German tribes remained unconquered. Some Roman “victory parades” were organized through the years, a number of them with previously bought Germanic slaves, posing as prisoners of war before the cheering masses along the streets of Rome.

Hermanns Denkmal – the monument

The nearly 54 meters tall monument, was unveiled on August 16′th in 1875, in the small village of Detmold. The completion of the monument took the constructor Ernst von Bandel 37 years of hard physical labour. With a workforce of 15 men, Bandel was always the first to arrive for work at 5 o’clock in the morning, and the last to leave – despite the hour long walk he had to undertake in order to get there. For periods of time Bandel even lived in a small simple shed at the site, just to be able of spending more time working on the monument.
During the whole time, there was always close to a shortage of funds to keep the work running properly, even though there were financial contributors even from New York, Baltimore, Rio de Janeiro and Havana, aside from the ones of the German homeland. Some notable foreign donors were the King of Greece, and Prince Albert of Great Britain. In Germany, about 300 grammar schools showed their youthful idealism, by collecting and donating money for the completion of the monument; 10 000 talers, about as much as donated by the German Reichstag itself. The building costs were about 90 000 talers in total, but would probably have been a lot higher if it were not for the kindness of material providers and others involved.
The raising the sword against alien tyranny, was the basis of the idea von Bandel had in mind for his monument. The inscription on the sword reads: “Deutsche Einigkeit, meine Stärke – meine Stärke, Deutschlands Macht” (German unity, my strength – my strength, Germany’s might), while the shield reads: “Treufest” (Steadfast). The forming of Germanic unity, was the basis of the strength, through which Germania was able to stay free from Roman overlordship – which is also symbolized by the eagle and the fasces trampled under Hermann’s left foot.

The Hermanns Denkmal has got a baby brother as well, standing proud and strong in New Ulm, Minnesota in USA. The over 31 meters high monument was built by the architect Julius Berndt, and unveiled on September 25′th in 1897, through the initiative of the Order of Sons of Hermann. The monument is cared for by The Hermann Monument Society, who also celebrates the 2000 year anniversary of the victory in the Teutoburger Battle.

Many poets and historians alike have told the story of Arminius, the liberator of Germania; however, very few have told the story of his wife, Thusnelda, and his son, Thumelicus. Thusnelda married Arminius against the will of her father, the Cheruscan prince Segestes. Segestes sought the aid of Germanicus, who led eight legions into Germania in order to restore Roman rule. Thusnelda, then pregnant with the son of Arminius, was captured and handed over to Germanicus. She was shamefully dragged around during Germanicus’ victory parade in Rome, while Segestes watched as an esteemed spectator. The son of Arminius – Thumelicus – was taken to Ravenna and trained as a gladiator; there he was able to meet his end with a sword clenched tightly in his fist.