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Before I begin, I will briefly summarize the relevant parts of this story, which forms a small part of a greater work, The Gylfaginning.

One day, Thor, his adopted brother Loki and their two servants ðjalfi and Roskva were travelling Eastward on a quest, likely hunting trolls, starting fights with giants or something of the like. Whilst passing through Jöttunheim, land of the giants, they encounter a friendly giant, Skrymir. They speak with Skrymir and begin to journey Eastward with him, the giant carrying their belongings. Skrymir tells the companions he is returning to Utgarð, his home.

When the company makes camp for the night, sleeping in Skrymir’s glove which is big enough for the four of them, Thor is angered by the loud snoring of Skrymir and attempts to rouse him three times.

ðjalfi,Roskva, Thor and Loki trailing behind
the giant Skrymir, also known as Utgarð Loki

Skrymir then gets angry and schemes to establish challenges for the company when they arrive at Utgarð to get back at them, and particularly at Thor.

When they arrive at Utgarð, which is a large castle, Skrymir sits down on a throne among the other Jötunn (giants). Weary, the four other travellers ask Skrymir the giant if he will allow them to stay, to which he replies that the companions may stay if they can each perform an impressive feat for him,

Loki, always the first to pipe up, says he can eat faster than anyone else. Skrymir then pairs Loki against the giant Halogi, and Loki loses.

ðjalfi, the servant boy, says he can run faster than anyone else. Skrymir challenges him to a race against a small man from the castle name Hugi and ðjalfi loses.

Thor, last of all, says he will wrestle against anyone and win. Skrymir calls for his chamber maid, an old woman named Elli, to fight against Thor. Thor, embarrassed and demoralized, loses.

Despite losing, Skrymir considers them to have put on a good show and presents them with a place to stay for the night, treating them well.

In the morning, Skrymir bids the travelers farewell and says to them that “it would be best if a contest of this sort were never held again.” Skrymir then reveals his real name to be Utgarða Loki.

What is it all about then?

On the face of it, the story is simply an interesting fairytale, a few funny scenarios and some jokes to entertain children and childish adults. But if we delve a bit further into the Old Norse, we find a much deeper meaning to the story.

First things first, it is important to understand what the giants, the Jötunn, represent in Norse mythology. The Jötunn all have names synonymous to the destructive forces of nature, such as “flame”, “frost”, “old age”, and so on. The gods and goddesses on the other hand, all have names synonymous to the forces of nature which contribute towards creation, “mother earth”, “sky father”, “sun”, “moon”, and so on. The gods and goddesses in mythology are continuously in conflict with one another, symbolizing the endless battle between the seasons of Summer and Winter.

Among other things, in Norse religion the god Thorr represents the physical life force, his hair is red to symbolize he is active in the root chakra at the base of the spine, where all energy is said to flow from. This is why many Norse pagans both prior to Christianization and now, such as myself, wear the hammer of Thorr, Mjolnir, around our necks, covering our heart chakra. The striking of Mjolnir is the thunder that makes the beating of our hearts.

Thorr, the life force of the body, battles against the old lady, Elli, and loses. In Old Norse, Elli means “old age”. It is inevitable that anyone who tries to fight against old age will be brought down in the end, even the mighty Thorr.

Loki loses in an eating competition against Halogi, meaning “High flames”, for nothing can eat faster than fire.

ðjalfi, the servant of Thorr and Loki, (ðjalfi deriving from ðewa Alfar, meaning “Servant Elf”) loses in a sprint against the giant Hugi. Hugi is Old Norse for “thought”, and nothing travels faster than thought.

Finally, the last thing I wanted to touch upon is the significance of Skrýmir revealing that his real name is “Utgarða Loki”. What does this mean? The word Loki, just like the name of Thorr’s adopted brother, derives from the same root word as the English word “lock”. A lock places a trap on a particular object, impinging its movement, and if my memory serves me correctly the Old Norse word for “spider web” is also Loki. Since the primary role of Loki in Norse mythology is as a trickster figure that tries to trap and confuse other characters, terming him “Loki” is a fitting title which reflects his personality. Skrymir revealing himself as Utgarða Loki, “Loki of the Outyards”, is in my view a way of him saying that he, like Loki, is also a trickster disguised as a friendly host, and it is his job to challenge the travelers.

The story is rather a cautionary tale to men and immortals alike, fight against the forces of nature and you will always lose. Try to stay young forever, you will embarrass yourself; try to eat fast, the high flame of heart burn will strike! 

This is an important belief in paganism, nature should always be put first, it has to be put first. There is no other choice. Fight against nature and eventually nature will come back to fight against you and hit you twice as hard. We are increasingly consuming more than ever before, trying to live longer but more empty lives, we are building higher, chopping down trees, fighting against death, a natural, necessary and beneficial process and what for? Where will it end?

That is a question for you to answer yourself from your own intuition.

I hope you have found this article useful and learnt something. There are always more layers to be uncovered so if I have missed something please do get in touch.

Health and happiness! Heill og saell!

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I want to start a series on Celtic paganism off on a simple note. The concepts of morality, philosophy and spirituality are I believe more elaborately concealed within the fragments of the lore of the Celtic people than any other European culture. Due to a Christianization, and thus perversion of the source material in question, the myths, it is at times difficult to decipher what is original, what is added and what is a mix of both. However, I felt a simple but none the less interesting place to start was with the Celtic concept of a “Salmon of Knowledge” which features in a number of Celtic myths and also the concept of the sacred hazel tree and its fruit.

I hope that you the reader will be understanding when I say that in order to grasp the content of the following article, it will be helpful to have a prior base understanding of mythology and indeed the deeper meaning behind mythology before we delve even further in this article. To summarise, European mythology and indigenous religion is all about enlightenment through rebirth and thus an achievement of eternal life through an enduring Hamingja, historical honour, which echoes down the ages and enables the possessor of honour to live on through the blood of their descendants and the soil of their people.

One notion it is important to understand about the European worldview and the way our ancestors viewed the world is that they believed that knowledge and experience could be gained through the observation of natural phenomena. In the case of a salmon, observing the seasonal movements of the fish tell us an interesting tale of life, courtship, struggle, strife, genetic perfection, death and return.

The salmon is one of the most noble fish in the animal kingdom, and has a symbolism that indeed indicates wisdom and is reflective of the European worldview on life, death and loyalty. The salmon is hatched in fresh water, normally in a calm river or stream. They then make their way up into the ocean and return to the exact same spot in which they were born to mate and then die, which is known as the salmon run and represents the cycle of rebirth that a human is also supposed to undertake, but has forgotten for reasons I have explained in other articles.

Salmon, in a manner of sorts, also have their own system of eugenics in which, just as in pre-Christian Europe, only the strongest, around 10% of spawned salmon, survive to adolescence, and even fewer to an age wherein they are mature enough to reproduce when they return from the sea. They are also one of the more homogenous (IE uniform in appearance, lacking any visible variation, speciation and impurity) of animal species. I personally find a beauty in their uniformity which may have not gone unnoticed by the Celtic people. I have included two videos which demonstrate natural selection at work in the salmon’s ecosystem, one which is initiated by their contact with predators, something we can learn from salmon ridiculously, as we have become scared of the prospect of predators and have instead of respecting them decided to remove them from our ecosystem (Wolves and megafauna being a prime example) and secondly a form of natural selection initiated by the salmon itself in the form of a male altercation over territory and mating rights, another trait lost in modern humans. Instead of the strongest or the most intelligent of males being chosen, in humans the most submissive male (IE systemically compliant) male is most commonly selected, at least by those female who have adopted male characteristics due to their own inverted sense of systemic compliance to the perversion of nature.

The noble salmon returns to its native land, at all costs.

Interestingly, salmon will always try to return to the place of their birth, sometimes along a completely different route to the one they left with, which would have been of great curiosity to our ancestors, who also made pilgrimages to the lands of their ancestors in order to recall the memories of their past lives when they were their ancestors. This is an instinct that despite over a millennia of Judeo-Christian conditioning and genocide, which has attempted to teach us that pilgrimage is not necessary and is in actuality irrational, being unnecessary for the purposes of enlightenment or “salvation”, we have never lost and still feel an urge to undergo pilgrimage. Irish American people often revisit the country of their ancestors because it “feels right” to do so, same with Australians, Kiwis and the rest of the European diaspora. Places we never been to but our ancestors have will often feel like home because they present to us a form of residual memory imprinted within the pineal gland in Asgard, the high seat of the soul, which echoes down the ages and waits to be released.

In much the same way, we now know that salmon can find their way back to the place of their birth to spawn the next generation (after one to four years of maturing at sea) due to an exceedingly good sense of smell and the detection of the “smell of home”. So, logically speaking, each generation of salmon will be born in the same place as its ancestors generation after generation after generation, a practice that mirrored that of our ancestors. Through the practice of remembering former lives, it was understood that prior gained honor and experience could be collected in order to create a cumulative spiritual power acquired over countless generations, which would give each person a greater spiritual and mental age and a sense of maturity even when one was physically still a child. This still happens today but to a smaller degree. Have you ever met a child that acted like or even at least wanted to act like an adult or older person or a younger member of the family that reminded you of an older relative, even one that had physically died?

When children are between the ages of around 3 and 10, they go through a phase of selecting role models and heroes that they will imitate; sometimes this is a family member, sometimes it is a character from a story, or, the Gods forbid, it is a degenerative sensationalist celebrity they have discovered over the Jewish-funded media. These heroes, if you will, fill the void left by pre-Christian religion in which an ancestor was chosen to be this hero. This is a practice still employed in some Slavic nations, where on a child’s “Name day” they will choose a name, usually that of an ancestor, to serve alongside their first name and to be employed during certain circumstances and ceremonies, and also to serve as a form of spiritual protection. The age at which a child has their “name day” can be anywhere between 7 and 13. Ironically, name days are probably the origin of the Jewish Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebrations, the age at which a Jew supposedly becomes responsible for their own actions, a phenomena I am yet to see occur.

Salmon in the Celtic mythos and in other European folklore:

In Celtic mythology, a lake at the bottom of the “Otherworld”, the land of the Fomorii (Celtic equivalent of the jötunn) that can only now be accessed by portals in nature, is encircled by 9 hazelnut trees. Within the lake are salmon who eat of the hazelnuts that fall from the 9 sacred trees. Whoever eats these salmon gain perfect knowledge and judgement.

The sanctity of the hazel tree in mythology and post-Christian folklore:

I have already written as well as referenced in depth the religious and metaphysical significance of the tree in article 11: Óðinn’s hanging and the symbolism of Yggdrasil. Briefly summarizing, I discussed that the tree can represent the various ways in which the Óð can branch out and manifest itself in the physical realm; ergo, skill branches out, families and connection branch out into “family trees” and networks, and also the tree can represent enduring power that grows over time. Certain particularly conspicuous trees would have been centerpieces to a community and were the central point around which a lot of naming ceremonies and remembrance rituals were performed, as seeing a familiar tree in this present life may have been a trigger for the recollection of experiences around it in previous lives, which is one of the reasons that trees. as well as other distinctive natural phenomena, were extremely revered along with the possessions of one’s ancestors.

It would be fitting to write an entire tome on the long and lustrous history of the hazel tree and its connection to European, and particularly Celtic identity, I will concede to simply mentioning the reasons for why it has been deemed sacred, which in summary is because of just how widely used it was in the pre Christian world and also for its health benefits and utility.

The sanctity in particular of the hazel tree, though, also comes from its high degree of utility in medicine, as a staple food, and as a building material among other things. The concept of sacred hazel trees is likely to be imbued within the history of the use of hazel wood and the fruit of the tree: the hazel nut. In British and Irish folklore, many traditional folk remedies for headaches, joint pain, adder bites and more which may be considered witchcraft incorporate either the wood of a hazel tree or involve the patient consuming hazel nuts. The hazel was one of three most revered trees to the Celts, a trinity which also included the apple tree for its beauty and the oak for its strength. These trees may have been used also as a kind of shrine known as an Irminsul around which ceremonies were conducted.

In the middle ages, witches, an early group of pagan reconstructionists who attempted to keep alive traditions which had been highly persecuted, used hazel for the purposes of water divining. In water divining, and indeed divining for other purposes, a Y shaped rod was constructed from hazel which was said to move in the direction of the substance that the individual was trying to detect; though their efficacy is very much debatable, their use is symptomatic of the vague remembrance of  centuries gone by in which hazel was used for true religious purposes. Martin Luther listed divining rods as a violation of the Jewish commandment against witchcraft. If turning water into wine, having a child as a virgin and manifesting food out of thin air isn’t classified as witchcraft, I don’t know what is.

In the medieval era, creating a crucifix out of hazel was also considered to be a way of curing the ails of an adder bite in England, which serves to indicate a vague though incorrect recollection of the true medicinal values of hazel which were known in pre-Christian times. Back when hazel was a staple food source, its consumption was renowned for producing fertility and at weddings in Britain up until a few hundred years ago an old relative would gift the bride with a basket of hazel nuts on her wedding day to bless her with the gift of many babies. The modern science supports the “magical” properties of hazelnut, as well as all nuts, in aiding in fertility. Nuts of all kinds contain essential fatty acids like Omega 3 and 6, which promote regular ovulation and healthy growth of the unborn child.

For this very reason, hazelnuts were carried in pockets, put on window ledges and also worn as jewelry as a talisman of their pro-fertility properties.

As I also previously mentioned, hazel wood is an ideal building material for ornaments (which would often times be religious in the pre-Christian age, before the silly idea that constructing images of one’s role models is evil), protective structures like fences and borders (as remember, the native soil is of spiritual value), and druidic equipment such as wands and staffs, which warrant an article all of their own. A strong mead can also be made from hazelnut and was considered to bestow divine wisdom and poetic inspiration, in much the same vain as the figurative mead Óðroerer in Norse mythology which was so highly sought after by Óðinn, the giants and the dwarves, made from the blood of the wisest of the Gods, Kvasir, who was born of the spit of all of the Gods put together.

A beautiful hazel tree grove. Nature is the true antidepressant; get off your pills, this is the only haze you need! 

The meaning behind the 9 trees:

A beautiful image by Alan Lee of the scene in
the Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the ring
where Gildor Inglorion meets the Hobbits. The
idea of a kind of “Otherworld” that exists within
forests where all manner of supernatural creatures
reside is a highly Celticizied one that eventually
found its way into the traditional British folklore
which undoubtedly inspired Tolkien’s writing more
profoundly than he was willing to admit. Tolkien
once said of Celtic mythology “I do know Celtic
 things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh),
and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their
fundamental unreason.  They have bright colour, but are like a
broken stained glass window reassembled without design.
They are in fact ‘mad’ as your reader says—but I don’t believe I am.”

I believe that the significance of their specifically being 9 trees either may be coincidental or a distant relative of the concept which also spawned that of the 9 realms of the world tree Yggdrasil in Norse mythology, where each realm symbolises an aspect of the conscious or unconscious Óð, or “life force, the word from which the name of the God  also originates. Below is a brief summary of the aspects of Óð which are symbolized by each of the 9 worlds:

  • Svartalfjeim, realm of the dwarves, symbolises avarice, decadence and materialism (not necessarily in a negative sense, by the way),
  • Jotunheim, realm of the giants, symbolizes primal, animalistic power and resilience.
  • Alfheim, realm of the elves, signifies purity, innocence and aesthetic beauty.
  • Asgard, realm of the Aesir family of Gods, symbolizes justice, piety and wisdom.
  • Helheim signifies mortality, sickness and death.
  • Vanaheim, realm of the Vanir Gods, signifies fertility, foresight and excellence in much the same way as Asgard, though the distinction in concept may have been more detectable before scripture was inevitably destroyed and/or forgotten.
  • Muspelheim, realm of fire and land of the fire giants, signifies the positive and productive channelling of fury, strength of construction and creative potential.
  • Nifleheim, realm of the mist, signifies brooding, virility and foresight amongst other things, though the concepts of Muspelheim, Hel and Nifleheim appear to be conflated in the extant texts and may refer to the same realm or aspect of the mind. 


The concept of the salmon of knowledge eating the fruits of the 9 trees of Óð is in some ways reminscent of Óðinn’s learning of the runes which were provided to him by various sources including the dwarves, jotunn, and elves when he “hung from the wind-rocked tree”, a concept I have written a separate article on.

All of these are aspects of the human experience and one may argue that allegorically speaking us human beings ought to, and indeed must eat from the fruits of the many facets of Brahman/the eternal in all of its forms in order to become a complete and fully ascended being.

In Summary:

I believe the mythology is instructing us to be as the salmon: homogenous, loyal and free.

But then again, this is only my personal reconstruction which is ultimately as good as anybody else’s, given that Ireland was one of the earlier parts of Europe to be Christianized and as a result was one of the first cultures to be genocided.

The combination of symbolisms, the holy salmon symbolising the capacity for rebirth and the hazelnut symbolising knowledge, experience and Druidic power, is just one example of the many nuggets left to us by the Celtic people that have existed into the modern day. It is my belief that the symbolism is at a deeper level suggesting that a necessary component of rebirth, and thus eternal life,  is the attainment of the understanding of the process, and an attainment of the fruits of knowledge that ensure that Hamingja, the honour, can reverberate through the ages and is not forgotten. The symbolism instructs us that it is necessary to revisit the places we have been in former lives in order for rebirth to be successful, just like the salmon. There is likely even more depth to the allegory than I personally can deduce, and that’s where you can come in. Branch out from the trunk of the spiritual tree that I have grown for you, and take this as a starting point to learn more and let me know in a comment if you come across any other interesting interpretations so that we can cross-pollinate each others’ tree of knowledge!

I will leave you with some parting verses from one of my favourite Gaelic songs: Óro sé do bheatha bhaile:

Sa Ghaeilge bhunaidh:

Sé do bheatha, a bhean ba léanmhar
do bé ár gcreach tú bheith i ngéibhinn
do dhúiche bhreá i seilbh meirleach
‘s tú díolta leis na Gallaibh.

Óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.

Tá Gráinne Mhaol ag teacht thar sáile
óglaigh armtha léi mar gharda,
Gaeil iad féin is ní Francaigh ná Spáinnigh
‘s cuirfidh siad ruaig ar Ghallaibh.

In English:

Hail, oh woman, who was so afflicted,
It was our ruin that you were in chains,
Our fine land in the possession of thieves…
While you were sold to the foreigners!

Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Now that summer’s coming!

Gráinne Mhaol is coming over the sea,
Armed warriors as her guard,
Only Gaels are they, not French nor Spanish…
and they will rout the foreigners!

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In Havamal, a poem recounted within Snorri Sturluson’s Poetic Edda, Óðinn tells that he stabbed himself with a spear and hung on a tree for nine nights, not eating or drinking, in order to attain the knowledge of the runes which are
gifted to him by various characters from the races of men, elves, dwarves and Jottun.

This is a passage that originally caused me great confusion and cost a great amount of Óð, energy, to decode. This expenditure of effort is not at all, however, a bad thing as the staff attainment of knowledge tastes most sweet when it feels deserved and an individual who cannot decode knowledge independently is not capable of any more than imitation of what came before. In saying this, and in the spirit of the philosophy “seek and your shall find”, I believe it appropriate to bolster the limited resources available for decoding the mythology and elaborating on scant information I have found elsewhere, compiling it into something more readable and cohesive, and to help you to help yourself.

“Wait, is that a picture of Gan…”
No, it isn’t, its a picture of  Óðinn, but pagan mythology
heavily inspired the writings of Mr Tolkien. Nearly all of the
characters in Tolkien’s books have similair names to those found
in pagan religion somewhere or another.

There are many different views over such a short passage, ranging from one extreme to another and encompassing a variety of topics; I have read interpretations of this text in which Óðinn is referred to as a kind of pagan ascetic who tortures himself purposefully to come closer to death and thus have a kind of “near death experience”. As much as I admire the creativity of such an interpretation, I believe this interpretation to be no more than coincidental in regards to the original meaning of the text. I will here present my own view, which is subject to change if I find another alternative to be more likely.

So, what is Óðinn’s ‘hanging really all about? Here is an extract from the relevant text in Old Norse and then modern English:

Snorri’s Poetic Edda, Havamal 137-138:

Old Norse:

Veit ec at ec hecc vindga meiði anetr allar nío,geiri vndaþr oc gefinn Oðni,sialfr sialfom mer,a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn.Við hleifi mic seldo ne viþ hornigi,nysta ec niþr,nam ec vp rvnar,opandi nam,fell ec aptr þaðan.

English:

I understand that I hung on the windy tree, Hung there for a full nine nights; With the spear I was wounded, and offered I was, to Óðinn, myself to myself, On the tree that none may know what root beneath it runs. None made me happy with a loaf or horn,And there below I looked;I took up the runes, shrieking I took them, And forthwith back I fell.

Beginning with etymology:

As I will make abundantly clear in every article I write which focuses on mythology and religion, I want to ensure that you the reader have a substantial understanding of the etymology, the origin of the terms used within our religion, before we begin to piece together the myths themselves, as without the correct tools, one cannot possibly build the structure that they wish to. Here are a lit of etymologies of terms we will need in this article:

Óðinn: Willpower/Spirit, or more accurately “will in action/will in movement”. The word Óð means the soul.

Yggdrasil: Yggr (deathly/sleepy), drosull (steed).
Dwarf: From proto-Germanic *dweurg, meaning “deceiver”.
Elf: from proto Indo European *althaz, meaning “pure”.
Jotunn: From proto Indo European *etunaz, meaning “of large appetite”.
Asgard: From As, meaning “spirit”, and Gard, meaning “home”
Dvalin: Idleness, lack of action

Daïn: Death or deep sleep
Bölþorn: meaning “thorn of misfortune” is the maternal grandfather of Óðinn.
Asviđr: From As, meaning spirit, and vidr, meaning “forest”, “tree” or “woodland”.

The main message behind Óðinn’s hanging:

The tree of life represents the female placenta, the organ that grows within a woman during pregnancy which has veins that spread out in the shape of an Oak. Óðinn represents the spirit, the life force, the enduring energy which permeates all of humanity and is actualized through will; it is similar to the Hindu concept of Prana. The word Óð even means the energy of the self. Ergo, in the poem Havamal, the spirit recounts its torture on the tree, the placenta, on which it hangs for nine long days, the nine months of pregnancy.

“Myself to myself” of course refers to the sense of circular time within pre-Christian theology and central Heathen tenet of reincarnation. Óðinn, or the figure who manifests as him and writes this poem (acting almost as a Messiah figure) is recounting the events of his former life, and how the will of Spirit, translated as Óðinn, is spent in each life on Yggdrasil, the spiritual tree, before it returns
again.

Óðinn also recounts that he has been here before, that he will learn the runes, drink from Oðroerir (the “soul stirrer” symbolised by a cup of mead but likely representing breast milk) and then he will slip back again into darkness, a continual process that extends as far as we know. Odinn was hanging on the tree, the placenta, for nine nights. Notice that it does not say “days and nights”? This is because in the darkness of the womb there is nothing but night, and a healthy pregnancy lasts for a full nine months on the tree.

The spear represents the umbilical chord which is “stabbed” through the unborn child while it is on the tree. During pregnancy, a child does not consume food or drink, and hence is “not provided with a loaf or horn”. Shrieking into life, the newly born child takes the runes (Rune translating into English loosely as “spell” or “secret”) as they learn throughout their life.

Finally, the stanza ends by saying “forthwith back, I fell” to symbolise that once the runes (life skills and wisdom) are learnt, Óðinn, the spirit, returns back to the womb and the process begins again.

Snorri’s Poetic Edda, Havamal, 139-142:

The placenta, tree of life, Yggdrasil.
Complete with Gungnir spear (umbilical chord)

Nine mighty songs I learned from the great
son of Bölþorn, Bestla’s father;
I drank a measure of the wondrous mead,
with the Soulstirrer’s drops I was showered.

Ere long I bare fruit, and throve full well,
I grew and waxed in wisdom;
word following word, I found me words,
deed following deed, I wrought deeds.

Hidden Runes shalt thou seek and interpreted signs,
many symbols of might and power,
by the great Singer painted, by the high Powers fashioned,
graved by the Utterer of gods.

For the Æsier engraved Óđinn, for elves engraved Daïn,
Dvalin the dawdler for dwarfs,Ásviðr for Jötunns, and I myself,
engraved some for the sons of men.

Some “scholars” have suggested that the the brother of Bestla whom Ódinn learns from is Mimir, Odinn’s bodyless uncle who lives at the bottom of Yggdrasil. However, the idea that the brother of Bestla whom Óðinn learns from could be Mimir is ridiculous when a basic study of the genealogy is employed. Mimir is the brother of Borr, Óðinn’s father, and thus is Óðinn’s uncle on his father’s side, so how then could he also be Óðinn’s uncle on his mother’s side? This hypothesis is completely nonsensical.

Though subject to change, it is my personal hypothesis that since the name Bestla comes from the word “bark” and that the bark is the daughter of the thorn, Óðinn (the spirit) learns nine important lessons from nature itself, and also drinks the mead known as Óðroerir, “soul stirrer”, which I hypothesise to refer to breast milk drank in the younger years when the spirit returns to life.

Throughout his life, the speaker bears spiritual fruit and blossoms like the tree that he learnt from, symbolised by Bölþorn. All human beings, at least in pagan times, were encourage to think of themselves as a tree, continually growing and branching out into new direction and bearing fruit for the nourishment of others. “Word following word”, IE learning from the words of others, the speaker wrought words of his own, “deed following deed”, IE learning from the actions of others, the speaker learns action.

Stanza 141 commands the reader to seek out secrets and hidden signs in order to improve their knowledge throughout life. 

In Stanza 142, as I will continually keep making extremely clear, utilisation of the etymology to find the root concepts behind the scripture again becomes extremely important, as well as a prior readjng of the material I wrote in article 10 about the chakras, Kundalini and Yggdrasil. 
One of the words for dwarf in Norse is svartalf, meaning dark elf. They live in Svartalfheimr near the bottom of Yggdrasil, meaning at a basic level of human consciousness, unlike the white elves, the dark elves/dwarves are ugly, swarthy and decrepid and are continually fixated with riches; the proto-Germanic root word *dweurg is hypothesises to mean “deceivers” and indeed sleep disturbances in the middle ages were often attributed to the behaviours of dwarves.

Freyja with the dwarves, the astral Untermenschen.
In Norse mythology, dwarves are nearly always
portrayed negatively, the idea of dwarves as having
overly positive characteristics was more or less invented
by J.R.R. Tolkien, who although portraying them as
stubborn and rude, portrayed them as reliable, strong
and courageous, traits not attributed in the original
myths.

I don’t wish to elaborate on the racialist aspects of heathenry in this article but will cover it in depth in future as it will become tangential.

So, as understanding the different realms on Yggdrasil/in life not merely as the placenta but as realms of consciousness, the dwarves symbolise those who live on a lower level of self actualisation, with the elves and Vanir displaying good levels of righteousness, and the Æsir being completely righteous living in Asgard/enlightenment.
The runes (synonymous with the Gunas, spiritual properties in Hinduism) that the soul learns are taken from each of the realms of consciousness or from each race of beings, symbolising that throughout life we acquire both virtues and weaknesses. From the dwarves, the metaphysical Untermenschen, comes Dvalin, which translates as an inability or unwillingness to act, an aimless inactivity. Although the runes/skill provided by inactivity/Dvalin are not in of themselves negative, they are of a much poorer spiritual quality than the others but are still gifts. From the elves, who are mostly virtuous, Óđinn is granted runes by Daïn, which translates as restfulness/sleep or even death, or at the very must subtle it ought to mean a state in which one feels dead but is not. 
The gift of sleep is considered good, and why should it not be? Have you ever had a dream that gave you new ideas, jnspiration or expanded the way that you think, IE your consciousness? We all have and so did our ancestors who wrote Havamal. 
Finally, the Jötunn Ásviðr provides Óðinn with knowledge; it is quite possibly the same giant that is Bestla’s uncle from earlier in the poem whom Óðinn learns songs from. Again, we must delve into the etymology. Ás, singular of God or spirit, and viðr, which means forest. The greatest gifts of knowledge that the soul received were the gifts of the spirit of the forest, which is interesting, as Jotunheimir, the realm of the giants, is to be found on the same level of Yggdrasil as Svartalfheim, which may warrant a deeper dissection of the metaphysics in later articles. 
To finish, the author grants that he has in his life carved runes of his own for the sons of men, which we all should,and I hope I am doing now.

Additional subliminal meanings (to be expanded in later articles):

As we touched upon in Article 9, the tree Yggdrasil is likely also, as well as symbolising the placenta, an elegant metaphor for the Kundalini, the electromagnetic system that dictates human thought and emotion. One can be said to move further up the tree (tree of knowledge) as one approaches enlightenment and purity (the word Elf coming from *altaz, meaning white or pure).

Logically speaking, for an individual to hang themselves from a tree they must first reach the top of this tree, IE complete enlightenment and purity, which is symbolised through Asgard. To complete the process of reaching the very top of the tree, Odin, the will and power of the spirit must be sacrificed, meaning symbolically that enlightenment is attained through the death of the spirit or the Óð.

Óðinn is more or less synonymous with the Hindu concept of Prana, and the Germanic word for willpower and life force was Óð.

The World Tree in other religious traditions:

Norse paganism is not the only pre-Christian tradition to utilise the symbolism of the world tree as a representation of planes of consciousness within the Universe/Brahman. It is also found within Hinduism as the holy fig tree Asvattha:

Yama while instructing Naciketa describes the eternal Asvattha tree with its root upwards and branches downwards, which is the pure immortal Brahman, in which all these worlds are situated, and beyond which there is nothing else (Katha Upanishad Verse II.vi.1):

Katha Upanishad, sixth Valli, verse 1:



This ancient Aswattha tree has its root above and branches below. That is pure, That is Brahman, That alone is called the Immortal. All the worlds rest in That. None goes beyond That. This verily is That. This verse indicates the origin of the tree of creation (the Samsara–Vriksha), which is rooted above in Brahman, the Supreme, and sends its branches downward into the phenomenal world. Heat and cold, pleasure and pain, birth and death, and all the shifting conditions of the mortal realm–these are the branches; but the origin of the tree, the Brahman, is eternally pure, unchanging, free and deathless. From the highest angelic form to the minutest atom, all created things have their origin in Him. He is the foundation of the universe. There is nothing beyond Him.

Krishna tells us that the Asvattha tree having neither end nor beginning nor stationariness whatsoever has its roots upwards and branches downwards whose branches are nourished by the Gunas and whose infinite roots spread in the form of action in the human world which though strong are to be cut off by the forceful weapon of detachment to seek the celestial abode from which there is no return:

Bhagavad Gita, chapter 15, verse 1 to 4:


In the original Sanskrit:

çrî bhagavån uvåca –
ürdhva-mülam adha˙ çåkham açvatthaµ pråhur avyayam
chandåµsi yasya par√åni yas taµ veda sa vedavit

adhaç cordhvaµ pras®tås tasya çåkhå
gu√a-prav®ddhå vißaya-pravålå˙
adhaç ca mülåny-anusantatåni
karmånubandhîni manußya-loke

na rüpam asyeha tathopalabhyate
nånto na cådir na ca samprati߆hå
açvattham enaµ suvirü∂ha-mülaµ
asa∫ga-çastre√a d®∂hena chittvå
tata˙ padaµ tat parimårgitavyaµ
yasmin gatå na nivartanti bhüya˙
tam eva cådyaµ purußaµ prapadye
yata˙ prav®tti˙ pras®tå purå√î

English:

Bhagavan Shri Krishna said: It has been told that there is an imperishable banyan tree that has its roots above, its branches below and its leaves are the Vedic mantras. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.

Some branches of this tree spread upwards and others grow downwards, nourished by the modes of nature. The twigs on the tree are the sense-objects, and the roots that extend downwards reach the human plane and are the cause of the binding activities of human society. [IE Nifelheim/Hel are not places, but facets of the unconscious mind and /or the c
onsciousness]

The form of this tree cannot be perceived in this world. Indeed, none can fully comprehend where the tree begins, where it ends, or where its foundation lies. One must cut down this strong-rooted banyan tree with the weapon of detachment and search out that place from which, once having gone, one never returns. One must take shelter of the Supreme Person, from whom all things have originated from time immemorial.

Hungarian religion:

In Hungarian shamanism, the tree Égig érő fa. The Égig érő fa is the tree which contains nine realms which can only be accessed by the shamans

The Hungarian religion is also the foundation of the “Princess in the Tower” fairy-tale stories that all European children have grown up on. In the original tales, which were devised thousands of years ago, the princess was in actuality held captive by a dragon in a tree, not a tower. As we understand from comparative mythology, the symbolism of the snake or dragon is found all over, including in the Jewish myth of the Garden of Eden, in which Eve is also tempted by a dragon/snake in a tree.

Therefore, it is easy to see that the dragon that lives within the world tree and kidnaps the princess is symbolic of unrighteousness and sin, and that the world tree can represent the various ways in which that human spirit can express itself and branch out in numerous directions.

The Tree within paganism: Infinite interpretation and significance

If one fails to understand the significance of a symbolic interpretation of pre-Christian religion, that person has failed to attain any knowledge from the myths, runes and texts. By all means, you can continue to believe either that Odin is not real in that his essence is insignificant, or that Odin is real, in that he physically exists or even that he exists as a distinctive consciousness; both of these conclusions are incorrect, and herein lies the wisdom of paganism, which lies within the subtlety of interpretation and understanding, and within a careful study of the riddles set forward by our ancestors in the distant past.

There is so much significance behind the tree itself that it warrants the writing of an entire tome, something I intend to do when time and sufficient understanding permits me to do so. The symbolism of the tree can be found everywhere in nature, from the branched-shaped veins which carry the life fluid (blood) around our vessel of consciousness to the “family tree” which for each of us comprises our origin and history, and the lives (genes) that have lived before in the body of our ancestors, which ties in with the philosophy of Oðalism advocated by the venerable Varg Vikernes, who I owe much to in my personal journey.

For an excellent and thorough article purely on the significance of the tree itself, and anything and everything the tree religiously symbolizes, please take the time to read this excellent article on Jungian Genealogy: https://jungiangenealogy.weebly.com/cosmic-tree.html

If you have an interesting and unique interpretatation of the significance of Yggdrasil within paganism or in fact any trees, I would be fascinated to hear from you in the comments below. I will continue writing if you continue reading.

Stay strong, stay righteous, stay holy, stay Óðinn.

Óðinn á yðr alla! Sieg heil zum Óðinn!



by on

All this talk of living a traditional life. I like my sofa, my junk food and my “No strings attached” relationships. Why should I listen to this bullshit? We’ve moved on from that, man.

Its a fair question, and it has a very fair and very reasonable answer. I start my answer on the assumption that you hope to stay alive to a healthy age and that you wish to see your descendants have a happy and healthy life.

The problems we face and are going to face in this world or on any other world we seek to infest are enormous and will not go away with further “innovation” and “advancement”. We need to begin living within our means and that demands having a strong will, a strong body, a strong mind and a strong soul.

The major threats we face: 

No, they’re not Muslims and Jews, sorry to disappoint. Don’t worry though, I haven’t forgotten about them and will return to that topic.

A graph demonstrating the last four ice ages and our current state,
essentially a glacial minimum

Not just Europe, but the entire world faces a catastrophic destruction within the next 2000 years. We know that within this time there will be another ice age which will destroy the current political economic and social structure as we know it. This has occurred on many occasions before, and is a natural phenomenon that occurs when the amount of fuel the sun burns changes, as it is not always consistent. During the Ice Age, most of Europe northern Asia, South and North America and Australia will be covered in Ice, and the average global temperature will be -15c in most places. The graph above and right demonstrates the temperature variations over the last millennia.

This current world as we know it has 2000 years if we’re being extremely optimistic, but it is much more likely we have decades.The currently unsustainable banking systems, political systems and energy reserves mean it is almost inevitable shit will hit the fan more likely when the oil runs out (approximately 2050) or when the central banks collapse. Either that or the crisis of industrialization and the inability to mass produce goods sending the Western world into a destabilizing spiral will force us to reevaluate the way we live our lives, if Google hasn’t plugged us into its servers and turned us into a program on a computer by then.

The people making all the money at the minute don’t seem to care about any of these issues, or if they do they certainly don’t admit it outright. The only person who has come close to addressing it properly is the CEO of Tesla Elon Musk, who thinks that sending humans into space is the solution. Great idea, Elon. Pollute another planet with the filth that is modern humanity rather than deal with the root cause of the problem: our greed, attitude and unwillingness to integrate into nature. If we consign to space travel, we will merely become space gypsies raping the resources of every planet we come across and turning them into a hellhole like we are doing to this one. Not on my watch Elon.

Elon Musk: Excellent goy. More money than chromosomes. 

The need for us to organise into small communities becomes greater as the challenged we face become more dire. Of course, on the face of it this sounds similar to the open borders globalist nonsense that we hear but the reality is that not everyone can work with everyone, we must work with those in our immediate tight knit circles with whom we share a heritage, culture and language.

A link to Pier San Gorgio’s/Varg Vikernes’ video on this:

The Prophecy of Ragnarök:

“Brothers will fight and kill each other, sisters’ children will defile kinship. It is harsh in the world, whoredom rife —an axe age, a sword age —shields are riven— a wind age, a wolf age— before the world goes headlong. No man will have mercy on another.”

Thor mowing down the Jotunn

Doesn’t sound dissimilar to modernity, does it? Wars, white upon white, have defiled Europe in the last century like never before, brother upon brother. People are rejecting their heritage, their “kin” like never before and marrying people from other ethnic groups. However, according to the prophecy, the world will not go down the pan until the climate begins to change (at the ice age/wind age?) and the wolves return to Europe in numbers.

Throughout Ragnarök, many of the Gods (the Earthly forces and powers) will be destroyed in a catastrophic battle with the Jötunn, the trolls who personify winter. The only two “humans” to survive are Lif and Lífþrasir.

The words Lif and Lífþrasir comes from the Old Norse meaning “Life and Body”, meaning that although the forces of nature and the world are defiled the body and its essence still survive, and that the Earth will then be repopulated as has happened countless times before.

The significance of most of the Gods dying in Ragnarok is that it means the continuous struggle between good and evil for which Othinn and his brethren fight has come to an end and evil (the forces that work against nature, symbolised by the Jötunn) has been finally destroyed. In the fresh, new world that will emerge after the next Ice Age, as has done many times before, there will be no evil, only nature which was viewed by our forefathers as completely good. Even the Abrahamic tradition will testify to that.

The Gods that do survive are Oðinn’s brother Hœnir, Oðinn’s sons Víðarr and Váli, and Thor’s sons Modi and Magni. Another of Odin’s sons, Balder, was revived from the dead after the battle.

So from the death of the Gods, a new generation of Gods (forces of nature) is born and the cycle of toing and froing between the natural and the unnatural continues. Hœnir is one of the creator Gods, allowing creation to continue, and Víðarr is a God symbolising space itself.

The fate of the Gods after Ragnarok:

“The runes told them of a heaven that was above Asgard, of Gimle, that was untouched by Surtur’s fire. Vili and Ve, Will and Holiness, ruled in it. Baldur and Hödur came from Hela’s habitation, and the Gods sat on the peak together and held speech with each other, calling to mind the secrets and the happenings they had known before Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods.”

And so it will continue that after the next Ice Age the same forces that shape the world around us will persist, just in a different form. According to paganism, nothing can be destroyed only changed.

What it is important to understand is that unlike Abrahamic religions, paganism is not a dogma (set of rules and behaviors) but a set of traditions and philosophies. The Gods are not in of themselves omnipotent, omniscient or even infinite, as the story of Ragnarök makes clear. What paganism seeks to do is pass down knowledge and inform the generations to come of observable physical events and also of observable metaphysical realities such as a life after death.

We are facing a Ragnarök again, make absolutely no mistake about that. The Earth goes through a cycle of ice ages every 12’000 years, and the next one is due to arrive in the next 1500 years, we must be prepared.

Final Notes, and the Kali Yuga:

There are nearly countless variations on the Ragnarök story that have survived at least since the last ice age ended (10’500 years ago) and probably much longer, including the Sumerian Flood myth mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the story of Noah’s ark. It is my personal view that “Noah” is actually a personification of all the survivors of the flood that ensued after the last ice age ended when the glaciers melted who had been chosen by God/the Gods (the metaphysical forces that instill nature with force) to survive.

The Jotunn (Trolls) riding into Midgard to fight with the Gods

I’ll briefly close though by mentioning the most intact version of this tradition, the Kali Yuga (age of Kali or “Strife”) in Hinduism. According to Hinduism, the Earth passes through four cycles during which the behaviors of people and the laws that dictate them drastically change and human urges and lusts reach their equinox in the Kali Yuga, the last stage of the cycle before the cycle reverts to the Satya Yuga. Each stage of the cycle is based on the position of the planets and last between 432’000 and 1.7 million years. According to Hinduism (which it is forgotten is also a branch of the pagan religious tradition) we entered the Kali Yuga around 5000 years ago. During the Kali Yuga, people are comprised 1/4 of virtue and 3/4 the will of sin. Here is an outline of the prophesies that determined how the Kali Yuga could be identified; sound familiar?

  • Rulers will become unreasonable: they will levy taxes unfairly.
  • Rulers will no longer see it as their duty to promote spirituality, or to protect their subjects: they will become a danger to the world.
  • People will start migrating, seeking countries where wheat and barley form the staple food source.
  • Avarice and wrath will be common. Humans will openly display animosity towards each other. Ignorance of dharma will occur.
  • Lust will be viewed as socially acceptable and sexual intercourse will be seen as the central recreation of life.
  • Sin will increase exponentially, while virtue will fade and cease to flourish.
  • People will become addicted to intoxicating drinks and drugs.
  • Gurus will no longer be respected and their students will attempt to injure them. Their teachings will be insulted, and followers of Kama will wrest control of the mind from all human beings.
  • Brahmins will not be learned or honored, Kshatriyas will not be brave, Vaishyas will not be just in their dealings, and the varna system will be abolished.

By choice or by necessity? 

“If we don’t take action now, then we’ll settle for nothing later…
 Read my writing on the wall, no one’s here to catch us when we fall… Caught between   my culture, and the system. GENOCIDE… If ignorance is bliss then wipe this smile off   my face.” Zack De La Rocha

 Those words are taken from a song called “Settle for Nothing” by Rage Against the Machine. It is originally about the prison system and cyclical nature of a criminal mind, but I feel the lyrics suit the European situation and cause rather well. The line about wiping the smile off of my face is, in my opinion pure genius. I always smile at the people that think I’m either mental or under their control.

When combined with the other religious traditions that successfully prophesied the age we are currently entering into, it becomes eminent that now more than ever it is important that we cling to the tools of survival (our knowledge, tradition, evolutionary tools such as race) ever more tightly, not allow them to loosen further than they already have.

The Sami people who live in Lapland, the Northernmost region
of Finland, still live mostly in the traditional way

If we don’t face a global Ragnarök from financial collapse, energy shortage, food shortage, overpopulation or genetically induced degeneracy first, we will certainly face one here in Europe and many other places when the ice age arrives in a millennia and a half. The system we currently utilize can not and will not be sustained.

We need to begin to rediscover just how fine of a thread we hang on by and, going back to what I wrote in Article 3: Recognizing European enemy number one, that this attitude that we are indestructible and above nature must come to an end or nature will put us to an end. The way we are going, nature giving us a kick up the arse would do us some good, but you must consider whether you want to live traditionally (meaning simply, using minimal resources, having a large family and keeping fit) by choice or whether you want you or your descendants to be forced into it, resulting in the deaths of billions.

Final, final note for now. So what should you do about it?

I think I’ll write several articles purely for this topic as well as this short summary. Whatever the specific difficulty is that we as humans (particularly white humans) face in the next centuries, the absolute guarantee is that we will only be using that which we can hunt, grow or barter ourselves. No unemployment benefit, no Oxfam, no UNICEF, it will be dog eat dog for sure. Therefore you and your descendants need to be mentally and physically up to scratch to survive. I will do a separate article on the more in depth reasons as to why, but it is best to live within a small concentration of your close family so as to be able to pool resources and help each other. You should research agriculture and learn to grow your own food if you have the space to do so. As I touched on in Article 4, men, women and children all need to be in good physical shape. These will either be lawless times or times in which the law will have little effect over how people behave.

This child’s bones are bent from poor nutrition
and/or inadequate sunlight. Don’t do this to
 your descendants

Most importantly for the fate of your descendants is never, ever, EVER race mix. Race mixing is quite simply the most degenerative and retarded behaviour imaginable and is an absolutely surefire way to ensure that your descendants are genetically inferior. Whether you are black or white is irrelevant, but a person must be adapted to the environment they have to survive in and being dark skinned makes it completely impossible to absorb vitamin D from European sunlight. It is unnatural for them to be here or for blacks and whites to be sullying each other’s gene pool. Having dark skin is totally fine, if you live in a climate in which it is advantageous. Here it absolutely is not. If a black person cannot get sufficient Vitamin D from their diet and does not access the right level of sunlight, Rickets Disease
occurs, an example of which is displayed on the right.

Is that what you want for your descendants? Bandy legs which will ultimately, unfortunately, lead to their death? It is more kind to not create this problem in the first place. If you want to have black descendants, do it in Africa where it is healthy to do so and isn’t going to cause misery later down the line. This is just one of many reasons why race mixing is plain wrong and sad.

I’ll leave it here for now. But I’ll definitely be blogging more, aiming to write at least a couple of articles a week at the moment.

Heil the end of times and a new beginning! Awaken the Ragnarökkr! Onto the fields of Midgard for Odinn!

by on

“Traditionalism is the way, the truth and the life. No one will see glory but through the wisdom of Odinn.”

A little twist on the words of Yehoshua bin Yoseph, latinized as Jesus. Probably one of the nicer Jews if you ask me.
What Jesus was saying was pretty much right. Regardless of what your path is, the most important thing is to stick on it and pursue the truth in order to become divine, even in a secular sense. 
We do not have to believe in a God to know that God exists. God can be whatever you want God to be. If God is truth and vice versa then a pursuit of truth is a Godly endeavour in its own right and truth seekers are God seekers by definition. 
Another piece of wisdom from Jesus (or Yehoshua if we wish to be precise) was that by the fruits of a teaching shall we know whether it is good. It does not take a genius then, to disavow Islam as garbage when one sees the fruits it produces: War, misogyny, pedophilia, totalitarianism and animal cruelty to name a few.
No war in the entirety of human history was fought over paganism. Our ancestors never knew of divorce. They were happy to live and die at the drop of a hat for the greater good of their people.

They believed in the excellence of self, first and foremost, and then the safety of the family and the tribe.

No ideology in the entirety of human history has come close to impersonating the perfection of tight-knit family and community life, and the further we depart from time honoured tradition the further we descend down a rabbit hole of misery.

Clinical studies repeatedly show women are more happy with children, yet European women are having fewer. They have shown that men are happiest when productive, yet they have never done less. Home schooled children or children taught in smaller classes have repeatedly shown to perform better than those in conventional schools, yet class sizes in the West are exploding despite lowering birth rates. *cough* immigration *cough*.

Don’t even get me started on the transvestite suicide rates or the documented academic and psychological problems of race mixed young people.


Such a happy lifestyle

The solution is to every day aim to become a better version of yourself, enrich your tribe, be a force against evil, seek a wonderful spouse of the opposite sex that shares your values (so you can have descendants and by extension eternal life), plan for the future and have fun doing it! Seemed to work perfectly well for at least 70’000 years.

The problems we face and are yet to face, depression, anxiety, DPD, “gender identity disorder”, homosexuality and more have occurred more prominently during the last century than in any time in history and, what a coincidence, the cause is that we are in the death throws of conventional Abrahamic religion, killed off in no short measure by Darwinism and Carbon dating.

Traditionalism is an impenetrable armour of logic that serves to fill this vacuum: never changing but always vigilant.

By the fruits of our mighty European tradition you will learn it is the way, the truth and the life.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

Heil Wotanaz! Heil Freyja! Heil Europa and a brighter day!