Written by Dyami Millarson
Kynjamęnn, the singular of which is kynjamaðr, are Magical People. Kynja- is the genitive form of kyn, which means miracle, wonder, that which is unnatural, instance of magic. Męnn is the plural of maðr, which means person, human being, man. Álfar are considered a type of kynjamęnn.
Written by Dyami Millarson
Meinvættir, of which the singular is Meinvættr, are Harmful Spirits. The first element is derived from the Old Norse noun mein, which means harm, crime, misdeed, mischief, disease, ailment, cancer. Mein is found in many Old Norse compounds: dauðamein deadly disease, fótarmein affliction of the feet, meinsęmi disease, meinsęmd disease, andlitsmein facial affliction, höfuðmein head affliction, męginmeingjarn extremely mischievous, kverkamein literally throat disease, by which bronchitis is understood, meinfang trouble, tunglmein literally moon affliction, by which scurvy is understood, meinvargr harmful wolf or beast, meining injury, harm, meinúðigr injurious, harmful, meinfullr injurious, harmful, meinka cause harm, meingöra cause harm, offend, meingörð offence, meinhægr harmless, causing no offence, meineiðr false oath, perjury, meineiða commit perjury, meinsæri perjury, meinlæta chastise, kynjamein miraculous affliction, i.e. disease of which the cause lies in magic, meintręgi affliction, meinbugir taboos, meinbæginn troublesome, meinyrða verbally abuse, meinblandinn poisonous, meinkvikęndi harmful creature, living organism that is dangerous.
The Old Norse noun mein is cognate with Norwegian mein harm, obstacle, Danish men injury, Swedish men handicap, Old Frisian mēn harm, Old English mān wicked act, crime, sin. We can connect the Old Norse term meineiðr with Shire Frisian meineed false oath, perjury, Dutch meineed false oath, perjury and Old English mānāþ false oath, perjury. Oath-breaking is traditionally considered a grave crime among the Germanic peoples (see here, see page 39 of this book, and see page 19 of this document); oath-breakers, along with other criminals, go to Náströnd Beach of Corpses in the afterlife. A perjurer in Old Norse is a meinsærismaðr or meinsvari, the latter of which is cognate with Old English mānswara perjurer, which we can connect with Old English mānswerian swear false oaths, commit perjury. Although Meinvættir are Mean Spirits, mein is actually not cognate with Dutch gemeen nasty, wicked, mean and the English adjective mean.
Keeping in mind the negative meanings of mein in Old Norse, the negative meanings of the Old Norse compounds with mein and the negative meanings of the aforementioned cognates of mein, namely men, mān, meineed, mānāþ, mānswara, mānswerian, we can see how Meinvættir are to be interpreted: they intentionally harm others and are thus, quite unambiguously, deliberately evil beings. While they are such malicious beings, no oaths are possible with them without harmful consequences and therefore prayers to them will not have the intended outcomes whilst their powers cannot be rendered favourable through worship; they will not do mankind any favours, but only cause harm, since that is simply in their nature as malicious consciousnesses. In conclusion, Meinvættir are the very embodiments of evil intentions; they are the Spirits of Crime, Wickedness, Evil, Mischief, Injustice, Perjury, Disease, Affliction, Cruelty, Injury; they are the causes of evil and disease in the world.
Consequently, we can compare Meinvættir to the conception of evil beings in the plural as inherited from the Middle Ages: they are called devils among the English, duivels among the Dutch, duvels among the Shire Frisians, Teufel among the Germans, and djävlar among the Swedes. All of these are perceived as demonic beings, who cause harm, and with whom no pacts without harmful outcomes can be made. The Old Norse equivalent of all these terms is djöflar, and one may say in Old Norse: “Meinvættir eru djöflar.” (Meinvættir are devils.) All the aforementioned cognates are not of Germanic extraction; for they are borrowed from the Latin concept of diabolī. Meinvættir are, by contrast, a generally forgotten indigenous Germanic concept, which came to be replaced by the foreign djöflar due to conceptual overlap. Cleasby and Vigfusson make a similar statement about djöflar in their Old Norse dictionary: “[O]f course in the old Saga time the word was almost unknown; the evil spirits of the [H]eathens were [T]rolls and [G]iants.”
Written by Dyami Millarson
The Suebī traditionally worship Isis according to Tacitus in his ethnographic work on Germanic-speaking Europe. Which Germanic Goddess does the Roman historian Tacitus mean by Isis in his work dē ōrīgine et sitū Germanōrum?
Isis may be identified with (a) Frigg and Freyja or (b) Frigg or Freyja. The first option supposes, according to arguments laid out below, that Frigg and Freyja are two manifestations of the same Goddess. For our identification of Isis with these both or either of these Goddesses, it does not matter whether or not Freyja and Frigg are ultimately the same (see this document for arguments against the notion that they are ultimately the same), because it cannot be dismissed that They are very similar to each other, and these traits, which make Freyja and Frigg very similar, match with those of Isis.
The most eminent Goddesses in the North Germanic tradition are Frigg and Freyja, whose names alliterate, and whose husbands’ names, namely Óðinn and Óðr, alliterate as well. All these correspond to *ᚠᚱᛁᛞᛃᚨ (*Friddja), *ᚠᚱᚨᚢᛃᛟ (*Fraujō), *ᚹᛟᛞᚨᚾᛊ (*Wōdans), and *ᚹᛟᛞᛊ (*Wōds) which we may reconstruct for Gothic, the Germanic language, of which the words tend to be the most similar to those of Common Germanic, and therefore are usually almost as insightful or even just as insightful as the Common Germanic lexical equivalents.
Why does Old Norse Frigg correspond to Gothic *ᚠᚱᛁᛞᛃᚨ (*Friddja)? The original stem of Frigg is Friggj- as seen in the genitive Friggjar. The Old Norse ggj corresponds to ddj in the Gothic language. If the reader is curious about this, I refer him to this page which offers an explanation of the correspondence between Gothic ddj and Old Norse gg.
We may identify Óðr/*Wōds as an epithet of Óðinn/*Wōdans in earlier times and Freyja/*Fraujō as an epithet of Frigg/*Friddja in earlier times based on the following arguments:
The arguments for matching the Germanic Isis with Freyja/Frigg:
Written by Dyami Millarson
The answer to the question in the title is yes and no. Germanic paganism is more of a cultural thing: the traditional Germanic perspective is to treat Germanic religion as synonymous with Germanic culture (see my previous article on the reason for the Nordic ancestors’ perception of their religion as cultural heritage). Germanic culture and religion are merely two sides of the same coin, because Germanic religion and culture are traditionally indistinguishable; they form one whole which we may artificially separate into religion and culture based on our modern understanding. Germanic paganism is, however, all-encompassing. There is no clear demarcation between where Germanic culture starts and Germanic religion begins. Furthermore, there is no clear distinction between Germanic history and Germanic paganism.
Imagine the Roman army being confronted with a Germanic tribe, which sings songs of praise for their Gods and ancestors according to their tradition; to the Romans, it is evident that like in their own tradition, the Germanic pagans regard such songs as history. In fact, the Germanic paleopagans, holding a firm conviction that their lore is historical and therefore historically accurate from their cultural perspective, have a tradition of perceiving paganism as encompassing both history and culture. Germanic paganism is both a cultural history and a historical culture, i.e., a form of history which pertains to culture and a form of culture which has a firm historical foundation.
Nevertheless, I apply the term religion to Germanic paganism, because it is useful for analysis. However, in doing so, I have had to redefine religion because otherwise the term does not fit the Germanic context. When I use religion to talk about the Germanic peoples, I understand it to be simultaneously cultural and historical as well. Germanic religion is a religio-cultural system which gives a culturally accurate account of Germanic history. Separating Germanic religion from culture is alien to the Germanic tribes; it is really an outsider perspective. The ancient perspective — which is, by the way, not at all limited to the Germanic peoples in Pagan Europe — is that in order to be truly Germanic, one has to culturally assimilate with one of the Germanic peoples, and that assimilation automatically also means adopting the native religion and the native history. Religious conversion is, according to Germanic tradition, an indistinguishable event from cultural assimilation; one has to be culturally Germanic in order to be a Germanic pagan, and vice versa.
This is still how it works today with many indigenous minorities. When I immerse myself in the language of a minority, such as that of the Hindeloopen Frisians, it is expected that I also immerse myself in their culture, history, and folklore; it would otherwise not be considered a complete immersion, and therefore it would definitely be rejected as inauthentic.
Integration with traditional communities entails so much more than the analytical components alone; a community is not just a language, a culture, a history, a folklore, but they are everything at once and that is what you have to learn to master if you wish to interact with that community on a native level. The traditional communities I work with represent complete ways of life. Likewise, one cannot be native to the confederation of ancient Germanic communities unless one immerses oneself with, for example, the Old Norse language, Old Norse religion, the Old Norse account of history, and Old Norse culture as one whole; one has to adopt the Mōs Majōrum Way of the Elders of the Old Norse speakers — the Viking way.
In order to drink from the well of wisdom, one has to build such a profound connection with the community of Old Norse ancestral spirits, which can be invoked for guidance by absorbing old words, poems and sagas. Instead of being an outsider, one has to become an insider in order to unlock the essence of what it means to be Germanic in the most ancient sense; in order to achieve the level of knowledge an insider possesses, one has to study diligently.
Written by Dyami Millarson
Cultural heritage is a modern term. However, the Nordic ancestors did have the inherited concept of siðr at their disposal to describe their religion. Siðr may be translated as custom, habit, and may therefore be compared to Latin mōs. The Romans conceived of their religion as Mōs Majōrum, which translates to Custom of the Elders. Not unlike the Roman polytheists, the Nordic polytheists certainly viewed their siðr/mōs as inherited from their ancestors. Likewise, the Frisian polytheist King Radbōdus regarded the native religion as connected with the ancestors, motivating him to stay loyal to the native religion. Since siðr/mōs is viewed as inherited in this context, either of the terms may be interpreted as heritage. In Dutch, we have an old expression zeden en gebruiken, which, in the context of talking about volkeren peoples, is used to signify culture. Siðr/mōs may likewise be interpreted as meaning culture. The paleopagans, therefore, saw their religion as a cultural phenomenon and since they recognised that their religious culture was inherited, we can say they certainly viewed it as cultural heritage. The Nordic paleopagans must have regarded their siðr as divinely inspired. Consequently, their religion may be described as Ása Siðr Culture of the Nordic Gods or Ása ok Álfa Siðr Culture of the Nordic Gods and Ancestors. One may also freely render the aforementioned locutions as Way of the Nordic Gods and Way of the Nordic Gods and Ancestors.
Written by Dyami Millarson
Not unlike other polytheists of the Northern Hemisphere, the Greenlanders traditionally bring blood sacrifices — sometimes offerings of other appropriate items — to the Gods. Fridtjof Janssen says on page 292 of Eskimo Life (1894):
Offerings to the supernatural powers are very infrequent among the Greenlanders. The most common form of offering is made to the inie of the sea, the so-called kungusutarissat (the plural of kungusutariak). They are fond of foxes' flesh abd foxes' tails, which are, therefore, offered to them whenever a fox is caught, that they may make the fishing successful. In travelling, too, the Eskimos will make offerings to certain headlands, glaciers, and the like, which they regard as dangerous, in order to get past them unharmed. The offering is as a rule thrown overboard into the sea; it often consists of food, but may also take the form of beads or other things which they value.
Instead of interpreting the sacrifices as infrequent or limited, it is better to interpret them as situational: when the situation lends itself or when the situation necessitates it, a blood sacrifice is made. It depends on the situation. This is not unlike how it works among other paleopagans: they are not making blood sacrifices every single day, but they do it when they feel it fits the circumstances. Therefore, one should expect the polytheists to make blood sacrifices every single day for no particular reason; they make sacrifices to mark occasions, solve problems and foster a bond with the Divine. A blood sacrifice is costly by its very nature, and so it has to be done with intent. Not overdoing blood sacrifice makes perfect sense, but that does not mean they are necessarily infrequent; it just means it is a situational affair, while the circumstances have to align for it.
One has to consider what is a sustainable model: if we know blood sacrifices are expensive — though not prohitively so — to the community, then can we also make a guess that the community, in order to preserve itself, will only give as much to the Gods as it can reasonably be expected to sustain. Blood sacrifice is meant to assist the community in its survival efforts; it is, therefore, contrary to sacrificial tradition to expect communities to make an excessive amount of sacrifices. Each paleopagan comminity will make sacrifices within their means; that is the basic economics of sacrifice. In conclusion, blood sacrifice is not meant to bankrupt a community or to make it commit collective suicide by causing a food shortage.
Consistent with the analysis of blood sacrifice as a sustainable economic model, Othin says in stanza 144 of the Hávamál in Oliver Bray’s Elder Edda:
Betra er óbeðit
en sé ofblótit,
ey sér til gildis gjöf;
betra er ósent
en sé ofsóit.
(See page 104 of Oliver Bray's Elder Edda. Another version of the full text in Old Norse is also available here.)
Better ask for too little than offer too much,
like the gift should be the boon;
better not to send than to overspend.
(Translation by Oliver Bray: see page 104 of his version of the Elder Edda.)
Thus are the workings of blood sacrifice; it is not practical — not wise — to overspend. Heeding Othin’s wise counsel, the Greenlanders traditionally make offers within their means. I say about sacrificial moderation in my 2020 article on Germanic cultural religion: “It is not like Germanic peoples would slaughter animals every single day. A community could live off the meat of a slaughter animal for a long time and so there was no need for excessive slaughter. Sacrifice was done in moderation. This is highly understandable because the Germanic peoples had to be careful with their scarce resources. It is even recommended in the Poetic Edda that one should not sacrifice too much. The sacrificial cycles that occurred in the Germanic religion were entirely related to the cycles of food and slaughter.”
The concepts of Silla, Sillakangilak and Sillarsoak are described on pages 343-344 of the English edition of David Cranz’ History of Greenland, to which correspond pages 324-326 of the 1770 German edition of David Cranz’ History of Greenland. Silla is Týr’s name among the Greenlanders (see here also).
Sillagik Sartok is a powerful Goð Deity, who causes storms and dwells in the ice (see here).
It has been claimed that about half of the Greenlanders still practise Greenlandic folk religion (see here).
Written by Dyami Millarson
The paleopagans from Eurasia, such as the Mari, the Ostyaks and the Germanic peoples to name a few, have traditionally in common that they bring blood sacrifices to the Gods. Why do they do so? Why is blood traditionally considered such an all-important gift to the Gods? What are the implications of the fact that the paleopagans of Eurasia offer blood sacrifices to the Gods? What ultimately motivates pagan traditionalists, across time and space, to consider blood sacrifice an appropriate gift to the Gods? I will attempt to provide an answer to these questions in this article; I believe the answer which I will provide is going to be relatively simple and straightforward as an analytic reference to modern lore helps us understand the Gods, and the timeless motivation for the traditional practice of blood sacrifice, which is called blót in Old Norse and blōt in Anglo-Saxon.
We may look for an explanation by analysing the Gods as vampires; for we know from the lore about vampires that they need blood. The term vampire may be new, but the concept itself is as old as time; while the words we use may change over the centuries and may vary accross cultures, the concept of a being that drinks blood is really nothing new under the sun. So vampire is already a very old concept. Since we are focused on Eurasian paleopaganism in this article, it ought to be mentioned that blood-drinking creatures feature not only in European lore, but also Asian lore. Therefore, I would argue that the term vampire represents a concept that transcends time and space, and I propose that the concepts of vampire and Deity may be of equal antiquity; given that the Gods are vampires since ancient times, the ancient word for vampire is basically God.
The Gods, whom the paleopagans of Eurasia traditionally worship, become reinvigorated with blood chiefly, and therefore blood sacrifice is necessary according to the various pagan traditions of Eurasia. While vampires are closely associated with blood-drinking, they are also closely associated with the undead and longevity. Vampires live unnaturally long lives. The Gods likewise exhibit traits which we typically associate with vampires, such as being connected with the undead, living very long lives, and the fact that the Gods apparently drink blood as that is what sacrificers give them to consume. The motif of the blood-drinking Gods is, according to my analysis, an inescapable fact of paleopagan blood sacrifice. Man’s fascination with blood is ancient, and likewise is his habit of eating meat ancient; blood sacrifice suggests that both this old fascination and this old habit bring him closer to the Divine. The sacrificial relationship between men who eat meat and Gods who drink blood is neither a match made in Heaven nor on Earth nor in Hell; for the relationship between the human carnivores and the Divine Vampires is a match from the beginning of time. Blood sacrifice, which magically binds men and Gods, is consequently the primordial link between Earth, Heaven and the Underworld, which are called Jörð, Himinn and Hel in Old Norse.
We may say in Dutch: “De levenskracht van een wezen zit in het bloed.” (The life force of an organism resides in the blood.) Therefore, when one consumes blood, one consumes the life force or spiritual essence of another being; by drinking the blood of a being, the soul-energy of one being is transferred to another. We have a saying in Dutch: “Ik kan je bloed wel drinken.” (I can drink your blood.) This is a way of saying you really feel wronged by someone, and therefore you wish to exact revenge by consuming their life energy. One who sucks blood is called bloedzuiger bloodsucker in Dutch, of which the Shire Frisian equivalent is bloedsûger, the German equivalent is Blutsauger and the Latin equivalent is sanguisūga. This is usually understood as a leech, an insect that drinks blood, but it may also be applied to persons: “Hij is een bloedzuiger.” (He is a bloodsucker.) This is said of a person who drains your energy or takes something valuable from you. Bloedzuiger, bloedsûger, Blutsauger and sanguisūga are concepts that may be used to describe a vampire. Synonyms in Latin are strīx and strīga.
Giving a scientific Latin name to the phenomenon of the Gods having vampiric traits, one may say the Old Gods are Vampȳrī Diī Vampire-Deities or Vampȳricī Diī Vampiric Deities — the plural of Deus God, by the way, may be Deī, Dīī or Dī in Latin, so feel free to exchange Diī with any of the other plural forms. Regarding the term Vampȳrī Diī, please note that I used two nouns in the same grammatical case just like one may do for rendering philosopher-king and mother Earth in Latin: philosophus rēx and Terra māter. Another appropriate Latin term for the phenomenon of blood-drinking Gods may be Sanguisūgae Diī Vampire-Gods or if one wishes to coin a verb based on sanguisūga, one may say Sanguisūgantēs Diī Blood-Drinking Gods. The latter may be compared with homo necans killing man, which is a concept put forth in an eponymous book by Walter Burkert. After all, the Sanguisūgantēs Diī are just the other side of a two-sided relationship which homo necans has: man is the killer who eats meat and feeds blood to the Divine Powers and expects a favour in return for doing such a favour to the Divine Powers, which he knows are vampiric. The Gods thus play an essential role in man’s thirst for blood and hunger for meat; the Gods expect blood because They want to drink, humans likewise expect favours and also want to eat. Man, while he kills animals for food, therefore understands that the Gods want Their share; he gives to the Gods what belongs to the Gods — for the record, giving everybody their fair share is authentically pagan — and thereby he creates a strong social bond with the Gods.
The paleopagan relationship between mankind and Godkind is based around the social contract that man will give blood and Gods will give favours in return. Based on the existence of such a contract between hominēs necantēs men who kill and Diī Sanguisūgantēs Gods who drink blood, we have to assume that men and Gods are interdependent and complementary, i.e. men and Gods have a symbiotic relationship. After all, like men crave meat, Gods crave blood; men and the Gods are a match made in nature, while both components they need are conveniently derived from the same source, namely living organisms, which they can, then, divide fairly. The Gods fulfill hopes and wishes for mankind, which mankind can otherwise not achieve; men for their part give the life force of creatures to the Gods so that their power and longevity increases. Mankind plays an active role in the increasing power and longevity of the Gods; a similar theme may be seen in stories where humans befriend vampires, become accomplices in the lifestyle of the vampires, and thus help the vampires on their heroic — though morally ambivalent — journey, increasing their power and pethaps even positively influencing their longevity.
Vampires are considered magical beings; for they are capable of supernatural things. The close association between vampire and magician may, for instance, be observed in the Latin concept of strīx, which may mean witch or vampire. In the traditional pagan worldview, the Gods are capable of granting the wishes of their worshippers precisely because They are Sorcerer-Vampires, i.e. blood-drinking beings endowed with magical or supernatural powers. Vanpires are not only beings of otherworldly magic, but also of wrath and revenge and all that these powerful human qualities entail. Not unlike what the Dutch saying “ik kan je bloed wel drinken” implies, there is an element of wrath and revenge in blood sacrifice; it is a way of bringing about justice and order.
While the vampire is the symbol of wrath, revenge, death, and the resulting sense of justice and order, Othin derives His power from His fury as He is the very embodiment of wrath, He is connected with the undead called the Einhęrjar and in this role, He is known as the Father of the Slain, and we must also not forget He is the father of revenge, namely in the form of His sons called Váli and Víðarr who shall avenge Baldr, Othin’s son, and Othin Himself respectively at the end of time; Othin may consequently be analysed as the Vampire-God par excellence, whilst He embodies very typical symbolic traits of vampires, and having gained this insight, we may analyse the All-Father, the Rēx Deōrum King of the Gods, as the Lord of Vampire-Gods. Wrath, revenge, death, which are traditionally expected to result in justice and order, are ritualised in the form of blood sacrifice, which is called blót in Old Norse and blōt in Anglo-Saxon. The blót/blōt-accepting Gods are therefore associated with wrath, revenge, death, justice and order. The blood-sacrificing relationship with the Gods is thus about maintaining the order of the universe, and thereby maintaining order in human society, lest it descend into total chaos and depravity.
In conclusion, the Eurasians, including the Germanic peoples, traditionally worship Divine Sorcerer-Vampires or Sorcerer-Vampire-Gods, and therefore they naturally turn to offering blood to the Divine. During sacrificial rites, they are transferring to the Gods what we call libbenskrêft in Shire Frisian, levenskracht in Dutch and Lebenskraft in German and in return for this magnificent favour, they expect the fulfillment of their wishes. The Germanic blót/blōt is, not unlike its other Eurasian counterparts, a traditionally bloody affair; it is a natural exchange between Vampire-Gods and men. Gift-giving is a Germanic tradition for building friendship, as suggested by Othin in stanza 42 of Havamal in the Elder Edda, and what more appropriate gift is there than to give blood to a Divine Being that drinks blood? Will man not wish to give blood to a Divine Being when he knows that the Divine Being with superhuman and magical powers is a vampire and that the aforementioned Being can fulfill man’s most intimate desires? Since paleopagans know the Gods intimately, they give gifts which are appropriate for the Gods; it is implicitly assumed that the Gods consume blood, and the paleopagans do not need to call their Gods vampires in order to know this, but we may use that concept in order to analyse what is going on and understand why blood is required for the proper worship of the Forn Goð Ancient Gods.
Written by Dyami Millarson
This encyclopedia defines worldview as follows: “World view is one of a number of concepts in cultural anthropology used in the holistic characterization and comparison of cultures. It deals with the sum of ideas which an individual within a group and/or that group have of the universe in and around them.” Ancient peoples made their cultural contributions by bringing their own unique collectively agreed up thoughts to the table, which were inherited from the ancestors and dutifully transmitted; the Romans provided their own perspective known as interpretātiō Rōmāna, the Greeks their own perspective known as interpretātiō Graeca, and likewise the Germanic-speaking population had their own perspective, which we may call interpretātiō Germānica.
When comparing religions, it is an art to see things the Germanic polytheist way. I regard it, therefore, as an artistic endeavour to compare, for example, Greco-Roman folk religion, Ostyak folk religion, Surinamese folk religion, Nenets folk religion, Yoruba folk religion, Kartvelian folk religion, Hawaiian folk religion, and so on with Germanic folk religion. In other words, interpretātiō Germānica Germanic interpretation, which is a Germanic folk religious characterisation and comparison of religions, is an art; Germanic interpretation is itself an ancient method of analysis, which may be compared to how Mircea Eliade makes sense of shamanism — as seen in his magnum opus on that topic — by comparing it with Germanic paganism. After all, the Germanic ancestors must have made sense of the unfamiliar through the familiar: when they were presented with new information, they would have sought to fit it inside their worldview.
The Germanic ancestors must have looked at the Gods and rites of other ancient peoples, and thought to themselves: they are just like us, they are worshipping our Gods with different names and they are ostensibly giving blood sacrifices to our Gods. One way of studying Germanic religion is providing a Germanic perspective on other religions; for that helps to reveal what Germanic religion is essentially equal to or separate from. From a Germanic polytheist perspective, many peoples around the world are essentially practising Germanic folk religion or what istensibly looks like Germanic folk religion; for it is important to find out what the religions look look like when interpreting them through a Germanic folk religious lens.
Of course, there are also practices that incompatible with Germanic religion. It is also useful to identify those. Yet, what matters for the Germanic paleopagan perspective is finding in what ways religions are essentially the same as Germanic paleopaganism; what elements in religions which can be studied prove the universality of the core tenets in Germanic folk religion? What articles of religion show that the truths of Germanic religion are universal?
These are questions old pagan thinkers would certainly have concerned themselves with in interactions with foreign religions, and trying to answer those questions will help unravel paleopagan logic as well as explain Germanic religion as it relates to other religions in the world; for, from a Germanic paleopagan point of view, all primordial religions are ultimately Germanic religion.
Written by Dyami Millarson
I first learned about the Ostyaks/Ostiaks from Mircea Elade’s monumental work on shamanism and volume IV of The Mythology of All Races.
The Khanty or Ostyaks (formerly spelled Ostiaks) live traditionally in the central part of the West Siberian plain, a region once known as Yugra and nowadays as the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, and their ancient religion may be called paganism, animism-polytheism, folk religion, nature religion, indigenous religion, etc. The quintessence of their religion is not unlike that of the religion of the Vikings; for the worship of the Gods is the quintessence of Ostyak or Khanty folk religion, and the ancient method of worship among the Khanty folk religionists is the blót blood sacrifice, which corresponds with all forms of Germanic paganism throughout the ages.
The Ostyak or Khanty Gods are, furthermore, not unlike the Tívar, the Germanic Gods; for, while the human eye wishes to be satisfied with something it can see and while human art fulfills this primordial need, the Khanty Gods are traditionally visualised as sacred wooden images by folk artists, whose spontaneous creations based on nature revelations, which are obtained from using whatever suitable materials nature provides for the creation of traditional sacred images, are artistic representations of the Oerfoarmen (Proto-Forms) which were sacrificed to (see information here about idols and fetishes). Since the Germanic and Ostyak peoples are sacrificers to the Oerfoarmen, more similarities are bound to be found, as seen in various — both old and contemporary — reports of the Ostyak or Khanty folk religion.
Page 328 of Panorama of Nations, Or, Journeys Among the Families of Men says: “The Ostiaks are pagans and idolaters of the most uncompromising description. They have four [G]ods, who are represented by their idols as creatures without legs, one of them having especial charge of the healing arts.”
The worship traditions of Deities and the worship traditions of Ancestors overlap; for there is correspondence between Gods and ancestors. See page 282 of this book: “The Ostyak has a wooden image of his deceased father in his hut , offers food to fit and worships it.” Page 111 of this work says: “Among the Ostyaks of Eastern Siberia, there is found a still more instructive case, in which we see the transition from the image of the dead man to the actual idol. When a man dies, they set up a rude wooden image of him.”
This work quotes from another relevant work as follows: “The idol was carved of wood, attired in green clothes, the evil looking face was covered with white iron, a black fox skin was placed on its head; the whole sanctuary, especially his site which was higher than anywhere else, was decorated with purple broadcloth. Other smaller idols nearby which where placed lower were called the servants of the real idol. I think there were many other things in front of him – caftans, squirrel skins, etc.”
Page 351 of The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man says: “The Ostyaks when they kill an animal rub some of the blood on the mouths of their idols.” The same point is repeated word for word on page 475 of volume III of The Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia and on page 34 of volume V of Progress. The smearing of blood on images of the Gods is also a Germanic tradition.
The Khanty or Ostyaks, not unlike the Germanic peoples, worship nature traditionally. Page 192 of this work says there is a tree worship tradition among the Khanty. Pages 118 and 120 of this work mention the respective Khanty terms for sacrificial trees and sacred trees. Page 120 of this book says that the Khanty have sacred trees, mountains and sticks; which is another point of comparison with Germanic tradition. The earliest mention of pole worship — or one might say totem pole worship — I could find thus far is here on page 165. The worship of poles is apparently an ancient Ostyak tradition.
While the Germanic peoples hung up hides on trees of sacrificial sites, the Ostyaks or Khanty also have such sacrificial hides which they hang up for the Gods (see page 187 of this work).
There is a vé tradition among the Khanty or Ostyaks, i.e. a tradition of sacred spaces. In other words, the Khanty or Ostyaks observe ritual taboo in order to preserve the sacred natural peace — or friðr if you will — of certain places (see page 110 of this work). Such environments of natural peace are also found around Tin Hau temples in Hong Kong, for example; they are locations of peace which separates them from the hustle and bustle of the city.
The Khanty Gods are not nameless beings, and therefore there is, like in the Germanic tradition, a close association between names and Gods (see page 558 of this work, page 226 of this work, page 446 of this work; see this work; pages 153-154 of this work; see page 48 of this work for the Gods). The worship of Deities is essentially the worship of names, and it is also the worship of idols. The three-way sacrificial relationship between those three basic concepts is apparently circular: Gods — names — idols. One might make a cycle diagram to visualise that relationship, but I do not have time for that right now. Given that the Gods are name-bearing like in Germanic tradition, it is relevant for sacrificers to learn their names. The Gods may also have epithets or nicknames, which the sacrificers ought to know.
The Khanty Gods are divided between Ljóssálfar and Svartálfar, between Tívar and Þursar. Page 22 of Landscape and Gods Among the Khanty says: “According to Khanty belief, the world is divided vertically into several layers. Good, [W]hite [G]ods rule the Upper World; the [b]lack [G]ods of diseases and death inhabit the Lower World.”
Num-Tūrem, also called Torom, Tarom, Turom, Numi Torum in different works, is the Khanty Rēx Deōrum King of the Gods who lives in the heavenly forest (see here; see page 22 of this work; the word for Deity can be found on page 382 of this work; see page 53 of this work for Torom). An epithet of Tūrem is Num-Iləm (see here). Tūrem is functionally comparable to Othin, Týr, Thor, Heimdallr, and Ullr at the same time; for He is a King God, Sky/Heaven God, Weather God, White/Light/Bright God, and Glorious God. Bear worship may be brought into connection with Thor, and bear worship is likewise associated with Tūrem (see here for information about bear worship).
Page 297 of this downloadable book says: “The management of mundane affairs is in the hands of a host of inferior deities, good and bad: the kuls, water-spirits, who are persistently hostile to man; the menks, forest spirits, who, though habitually ill-disposed toward man, can be brought to terms of friendship by sacrifices and offerings; and the fonxes, friendly mountain spirits.”
Written by Dyami Millarson
This article is a supplement to my recent article on Germanic Village Deities, where I quoted a passage on the Volga Vikings and that passage mentions a large wooden figure which I identified with Freyr. Since Freyr is involved, may the passage be reflective of Old East Norse rather than Old West Norse religion? Although the worship of Freyr is one of the circumstances that leads to this interpretation of the passage, it is not the sole circumstance that leads to this interpretation of the passage:
I have thus made a case for why the account of the Volga Vikings, which I quoted in the article on the Village Gods, may indeed be reflective of Old East Norse religion, although it must be borne in mind that there has always been a great deal of linguistic, cultural and religious overlap between the speakers of Old East Norse and Old West Norse; my interest is, nevertheless, in these local peculiarities, as they teach us a whole lot.
Viking Religion 