IDUNNA A JOURNAL of NORTHERN TRADITION Issue

IDUNNA
A JOURNAL of
NORTHERN TRADITION
Issue #96 Summer, 2013 $6
THE TROTH 24 Dixwell Ave. Suite 134 New Haven, CT o6511
then sensibility about the natural
world and immersed in heathen
cosmology. Tauring is not strident
or straining to make a point. Rather,
she expresses a certain experience
of herself in the world informed by
a heathen awareness of nature. Of
all her albums, Nykken & Bear feels
most like a journey of exploration.
This is one reason that Tauring will
not make the Top 40 charts. She
can be an entertainer, who gets her
audience up, moving and laughing with a rip-roaring folk dance.
The opening song on the CD is
one of these: a traditional ballad
reinvented as a catchy number that
gets your body moving. Yet she
performs for more than just entertainment. Tauring’s vision is wellsupported by her accompanying
instrumentalists, creating an album
with a full and complex range of
emotions. After the upbeat opening, Tauring adopts a more intimate
voice on Track 2, “Runarvisa.” The
singer draws close, like a mother
singing a lullaby to her child or a
lover whispering to her beloved in
bed. This quiet mood holds true in
subsequent songs such as the lilting
melody of the “Neckens Polska.”
The “Bear Waltz” is a happy traditional dance tune, while Track 10,
“Fram Dansar ein Haugkall” sets a
bewitching tale to a more modern
folk beat. Tauring ranges from the
mysterious dark reverie of Track 4,
“Heimo og Nykkjen,” to the quirky
fun of Track 9, “Kinderspiel.” She
longs to express a depth and quality of experience that is uniquely
heathen.
Her personal journey is poignantly apparent on the CD’s spoken word tracks. In these poems
we hear the voice of Tauring herself
seeking the deep places where soul
and nature meet. For this is where
Tauring searches, out beyond herself, only to find that those voices
echo within her own being. In
“Nedberge til Nykkenheim,” she
is the listener surrounded by the
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voice of nature, the songs of sea,
mountain, and screaming gulls.
In those sounds, she hears the
“ancient runos raging.” She feels
the ancestral line running back to
time unknown and rebounding
in her own song like the echo off
the mountain. In “Seljefløyte,” she
is the lone meditator sitting out,
aware of the faint sound of distant
water rushing down the face of the
rock and the gentle whisper of the
wind. To hear such voices, one must
be quiet within as well as without.
The poem “Beginnings” shows
Tauring at her most complex: rooted
to the place of her ancestors, seeing
in the landscape the face of Ymir
who is both the primordial giant
and a baby babbling the sounds
of the cosmos. Her sense of herself
finds solid grounding in this experience, yet her identity continues
to shift and evolve as reflected in
the line, “I’m half summed up by
the wholeness of this.” I chuckle,
even while knowing the depth of
her feeling.
This album is not one for headbanging adrenaline or raucous
good times. The traditional instruments and arrangements give the
album the feeling of something
older, rooted in tradition and expressing a reality that has been
passed over by the rush and bluster
of the modern world. Tauring isn’t
asking us to abandon modernity, as
her iPad apps and Kickstarter projects reveal. Yet she is a person who
seeks to draw an ancient wisdom
into her modern context, and she
would like to take us along on her
journey. Nykken & Bear is a chance to
sit with her and listen to the voices
of water and mountain a little more
clearly.
46
Rebellion, A German Power Metal
Band. Review and interview by
Michael Ransom Wilson
Rebellion is a power metal band
from Germany. I discovered them
while searching for new music to
add to a playlist. I immediately fell
in love with them. Their style is
pretty hard, but with audible lyrics.
I know that many Heathens have
been searching for metal music
geared towards Heathens, that has
clear lyrics. . . While other bands
are just as inspirational, Rebellion
vocalist Michael Seifert sets himself
apart from others with his clearsounding vocals.
Rebellion is formed from exmembers of the band Grave Digger. Their first album was based on
Shakespeare’s Macbeth. After that
they started an awesome trilogy of
albums based on Norse mythology.
In 2005 they released Sagas Of
Iceland: The History Of The Vikings.
It contains several fantastic songs
that are steeped in the lore. First
is a memorandum to Lindisfarne,
which we all know well. That is
followed by a song based on Ynglinga Saga, straight out of Heimskringla. A few other great songs
cover “Ragnhild’s Dream,” The
History Of Halvdan The Black and
his rescue of Sigurd’s daughter
Ragnhild (Heimskringla); ”Harald
Hafager,” Harald Hairfair subduing
all of Norway for Gyda’s hand in
marriage (Heimskringla); “Eric The
ISSUE 96
Red”, the story of Eric the Red’s
voyage; “Freedom,” the Saga of
Gang Hrolf; “Treason”, the betrayal
of Sigurd the Jarl, from The History Of Eric’s Sons (Heimskringla);
followed by my favorite from the
album, “Sword In The Storm” from
the Saga Of Earl Hakon; “Blood
Rains”, the story of the traitorous
Olaf Tryggvasson; “Ruling The
Waves”, about Harold Bluetooth;
“Canute The Great”, the story of
Danish king Canute’s exploits in
England; “Harald Hardrade”, the
story of Harald Hardrade.
Their next album in the trilogy,
released in 2007, Miklagard: The History Of The Vikings Part 2 is equally
impressive. I can’t really pinpoint
any reference to a certain saga.
However, this album covers a lot
of cool subjects, including a song
about the Rus. I especially like the
songs “Kiew” (which I assume is
about the city of Kiev), “God Of
Thunder,” and “Sweden,” which is
about badass Vikings. :)
The last of the trilogy, Arise: From
Ginnungagap to Ragnarök, released
in 2009, is truly amazing. The first
song, “War”, is about Odin,Vili,and
Ve slaying Ymir. The next song on
the album is my all-time favorite
rebellion song, “Arise.” Basically,
this is the Norse cosmology done
in detail, except to metal. Afterwards comes “Asgard,” which tells
of the glories of the realm of gods
and describes it wonerfully. Next
comes “Odin” a very excellent/
descriptive song about Allfather.
The next song goes right into Odin’s
sacrifice,”Runes”. “Bolverk” comes
next (which is also bassist Tomi
Göttlich’s favorite tale) and tales of
Odin’s adventure for the Mead Of
Poetry. Afterwards comes “Thor,”
which is a very intriguing tale about
Thor being sent to the Keepers Of
Lightning by Odin and His mother
Jord, for being unruly as a child.
“Evil” is next. . . This could be a very
controversial track. It deals with the
not so pleasant side of Loki. This
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has always been a very hot topic
for metal artists. I personally do not
equate “evil” with anything from
our beliefs, but then again, it’s just
a song. “Loki,” a very interesting
song here. . . spoken in 1st person
as Loki. I’ll leave you to form your
own opinions on it. “Prelude”
comes next, and describes in great
detail the beginnings of Ragnarok.
This leads up to “Ragnarok”. This
gives a blow for blow account of
Ragnarok, and is another of my favorites by them. The last song of the
album is “Einherjar” which gives
a very detailed account of what it
means to one of those claimed by
Valfather.
Rebellion has several more albums which are very good as well.
In closing, I would like to say that I
am very impressed with the amount
of time they have put into studying
the lore and sagas, and how they
have made an effort to keep true
to the tales of our ancestors. Other
bands may come close, but Rebellion has gone into detail about the
tales from Heimskringla. . . seriously.
. . That book almost gave me an
aneurysm. So I will leave you with
an interview that I was priviledged
to conduct with Rebellion’s bassist
Tomi Göttlich.
Me: Here are a few questions
that most of our members would be interested in
knowing about you guys.
Where are you guys from?
Tomi: We are based around Giessen, which is 40 miles north of
Frankfurt
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Me: Who are your influences?
Tomi: We are all not young anymore, one might say old, fragile,
antique or classical, smile. . . thus
our influences would rather be
found in the 80s, NWoBHM
and also mid to late 80s German
Metal and US Power Metal of
those times, so we are outdated.
. . helplessly. . . we do try to let
some modern influences drip
into our music but we are very
careful, smile. . . seriously speaking, we prefer to play old style
music simply because it is what
we can do best and we like to be
honest and be who we are. . . and
we are old (see above).
Me: Why did you become interested in Norse Mythology?
Tomi: I quit Christian religion about
20 years ago and consequently
officially left the church a few
years later (kind of a difficult
process here in Germany). I have
always felt that religion and belief should be more connected
to nature, to the soil that feeds
us, to the winds, the sun and the
other elements which rule our
lives. Modern technology has
succeeded in taking away much
of that feeling, replacing it by
comfort, but in the end it is still
like that and always will be, for
we live on this planet and since
there is no alternative we should
honour and protect it. I did not
feel that these ideas were very
strong in Christian religion, for it
says in the Bible that we should
go and rule over the earth, which
is exactly what we currently do.
Furthermore I strongly believe in
tolerance as a basis of democracy.
I can not find much tolerance in
the Christian religion, nor in the
Muslim or the Hindu religions
(Buddhism being an exception)
so I believe that monotheistic
religions might simply almost
necessarily lead to intolerance
and thus can not be fit to serve
A JOURNAL OF NORTHERN TRADITION
a democracy as it is for example
outlined in the Declaration of
Independence. So with those
ideas in the back of my mind and
a strong interest in the history of
the Germanic tribes (which does
include the Vikings) it seems
logical that I became interested
in Norse Mythology.
Me: What is your favorite story
from Norse Mythology?
Tomi: The story of Odin walking
the earth disguised as the giant
“Bolverk” because Odin makes
love to a giant woman for three
days in a row until she can take
him no more. I guess every man
likes this idea. . . smile. . . We
wrote a song on the album Arise
about that story.
Me: Which is your favorite Saga?
Tomi: I really like “Egil´s Saga”.
There is a specific reason for
that. I was in Iceland and met an
archaeologist there who showed
me the excavations of what he
believed to be Egil´s farm. The
story behind it is that some
young professor from California
had decided to take Egil´s saga
as fully true and accurate. Not
as a saga but a clear description
of how things had happened.
The sagas seem for a great part
to tell stories which have a legal
background describing what
you should do and what not and
how certain misdoings should
be punished, and do thus seem
to be the backbone of lawspeaking, illustrating the laws to the
simple peasant, much as church
windows illustrated the Bible to
illiterate peasants in the Middle
Ages. As the laws themselves,
the sagas were passed on by oral
traditions, so the general opinion
that they are created fairy tales
with maybe a grain of truth (as
the stories in the Bible) seems
logical. On the other hand, one
might also state that certain
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law problems were discussed
and settled when the specific
problem arose for the first time.
It would then make sense to remember the story that led to the
actual settling, the story as it really had happened. The oral passing on of these stories through
generations would of course still
falsify the content, one would
think. But the Vikings were
different from us, they could
not read or write, they had no
electricity, no TV or anything to
do on long winter evenings, and
those are very long in the North.
They would tell stories over and
over again every night in every
winter. And if it was important
stories, like sagas, they would
tell their children to remember
them exactly and pass them on.
It seems possible enough to simply give it a try. At least that was
what the young professor from
California thought. He went to
Iceland and promised he could
locate Egil´s farm. Everybody
in Iceland thought this guy was
crazy, for many archaeologists
had been searching for Egils´s
farm for probably 200 years but
they decided to let the crazy
guy give it a try. He pointed the
exact place where he expected
to find the small church, he dug
for a meter and hit on stone. The
following excavations proved
that it was indeed a church, and
much of what he had predicted
48
by sketches turned out to be
pretty close to the actual findings. The professor had simply
collected all hints in the saga and
put them together and thus had
found the farm. This is just the
brief summary of 4 hours of intense communication on the site
in the rain, I will spare you the
details most of which I might not
remember correctly. These findings should be published within
this year; at least that was what
I was told last summer.This was
a most thrilling and fascinating
meeting and that is the reason
why Egil´s saga is my favourite
saga.
Me: What made you decide to make
a whole CD about the Icelandic
Sagas?
Tomi: The CD is mostly based on
the Icelandic sagas but not only.
The Heimskringla and the other
writings from Iceland are the
largest sources about the history, culture and mythology of
the northern Germanic tribes.
We would know hardly anything about these people if we
did not have these sources. One
can not write about those times
and ignore these sources; thus it
seemed logical to express that by
the title of the CD.
Me: Have you ever heard of Asatru?
Tomi: Yes, I met some Asatru in
Iceland where the religion is
most vital and grows considerably every year. They claim to
be the second largest religion on
Iceland soon.
Me: Have you ever received fan
mail from Asatruar/Heathens?
Tomi: Yes, many of our fans really
read the lyrics. After all, there
are few bands that dedicate so
much work to their lyrics and
there are quite a few people out
there that appreciate this work,
and of course this does at times
ISSUE 96
lead to communication, often via
Facebook.
Me: Have you ever met Heathens/
Asatruar at your shows?
Tomi: I simply do not know because
until now nobody came up to me
and said such. . . smile, it might
be a strange way of introducing
oneself.
Me: How often do you tour the US?
Tomi: Not at all, I am afraid. Find
me someone that will pay our
tickets and cover the cost and
we will most gladly do that, but
until now it has not happened.
Me: Got any new projects?
Tomi: Of course, but none of these
are ready to be announced in
public, sorry.
So, listen to Rebellion. . . become
fans. . . help get those guys to the
US. We need bands like this over
here! Seriously, though: these guys
put enough effort and research
into their music to make even the
most recon Heathen a fan. I personally love Manowar; Hel, they
are the guys that helped me find
Heathenry. However, Rebellion has
brought something to the music
that Manowar hasn’t—a realistic
approach to the lore. I still love
Manowar, but Rebellion has replaced them. They are to Manowar,
as Penguin is to Llewellyn.
SUMMER 2013
Ibn Fadlān (Paul Lunde and Carolyn Stone, transl.) Ibn Fadlān and
the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North. London:
Penguin Books, 2012. ISBN 9780140455076. £12.99 / $16.00.
Reviewed by Ben Waggoner
In the year 921, the Caliph alMuqtadir sent the scholar Ibn
Fadlān on a diplomatic mission
from Baghdad to Bulghar, the
winter encampment of the seminomadic Volga Bulghars (distant
cousins of the Bulghars who migrated south and ended up lending their name to Bulgaria). Their
ruler, Almish ibn Yiltawār, had to
pay tribute to his adversaries the
Khazars, and had asked for aid
from the powerful Caliphate, in
exchange for instruction in Islam.
It was in Bulghar, where the Volga
River joins the Kama River near
the modern city of Kazan, that Ibn
Fadlān encountered a party of Rūs.
There’s been some controversy over
exactly who these Rūs were, but it’s
widely accepted now that they were
traders from eastern Scandinavia,
albeit with some influence from
Slavic and Turkic peoples.
Most Heathens have read or
heard of Ibn Fadlān’s account of the
Rūs; it’s the oldest substantial written source for the religious practices
of the Viking-era Norse. (It inspired
Michael Crichton’s novel Eaters of
the Dead, whose first chapter is a
nearly direct translation of it. The
book, of course, was made into the
movie The 13th Warrior, whose famous prayer, “Lo, there do I see my
father. . .” is a romanticized reworking of an actual prayer recorded by
Ibn Fadlān.) But Ibn Fadlān’s whole
account is well worth a read, and
the first section of Ibn Fadlān and the
Land of Darkness is a very clear and
readable English translation of the
entire text. Ibn Fadlān was a careful
observer who (mostly) refrained
49
from moralizing and from trying
to dazzle his audience with exotic
marvels. He describes what he saw,
as he understood it, even when he
is clearly repulsed by it, or when it
shows him in a bad light. His notes
on the Bulghars, Khazars, Ghuzz
Turks, and other peoples along
his way are one of the few reliable
sources for the history of a littleknown part of the world when it
was a center of international trade
and cultural exchange, and they set
his account of the Rūs into context.
Having Ibn Fadlān’s travels
would be good enough, but Ibn
Fadlān and the Land of Darkness also
includes the travelogue of Abū
Hāmid al-Gharnātī, also known
as al-Andalusī, who rambled from
Baghdad to Bulghar, then as far
as Hungary and all the way to
Mecca, between 1130 and 1155. AlAndalusī doesn’t have much on the
Norse folk proper—by his time, the
Rūs were pretty much Christianized and Slavicized—but he does
discuss the Saqāliba (Slavs) and
other peoples along his route. What
I personally found most interesting
was his account of the nomadic,
fur-hunting peoples far to the north
of Bulghar, the Wīsū (probably the
Vepsians) and the Yūra (probably
the Manti or Voguls). Among other
things, he provides one of the oldest
surviving descriptions of skis.
The third section of this book
is a collection of briefer accounts
of northern Europe and central
Asia by other Islamic travellers
(plus one by Marco Polo) between
the ninth and fifteenth centuries.
You’ll find some nifty nuggets of
Viking history: Ibn Hayyān’s account of a Viking attack on Seville
in the year 844, and Mas‘ūdī’s and
Miskawayh’s stories of Viking
raids on the Caspian Sea coast in
913 and 943, remind us just how
far the Vikings would go—both in
geographic distance and in bloodsoaked atrocities—in search of loot.
You also get Ibrāhīm ibn Ya‘qūb’s
A JOURNAL OF NORTHERN TRADITION