Heathenry
Beliefs
Norse paganism is kind of hard to delinate around beliefs. It's one of those "we do things rather than theorize about it" type religions, but I guess the main feature is that it's based on the worship of pre-Christian gods from Scandinavia or Germanic areas. Marvel adaptations are unfortunately corrupting legitimate information (including unverified personal gnosis) -- unsurprisingly, shitty movie/comic franchise is not very historically accurate.
Ancestor worship and animism (worship of spirits of nature) are important in Heathenry. I don't have Heathen ancestors, so I am mostly interested in the latter, and Seidr, Galdr, Utiseta and other Nordic shamanic (for lack of a better word) practices.
Unfortunately, Heathenry is plagued by fascists. I am firmly antifascist and support Declaration 127, an anti-Asatru Folk Assembly and anti-racist declaration created by Heathens in 2016. While the website has since gone offline, you can read more about it on the Troth's page.
Resources
Websites
- On Black Wings: Website with courses and divination services offered by the Fellowship of Fire and Ice.
- Urglaawe: Pennsylvania German Heathenry, last updated 2023.
- The Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies
- The Grimmdex: An Greatly Expanded Table of Contents for Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie as Translated by James Stallybrass
- Anglesdottir Arts: YouTube channel for one of my favorite Heathen artists.
- Jackson Crawford: Scholar of Norse language and myth. Not a Heathen himself, please stop bothering him about that.
- The Norse Witch: Beautiful videos on various Heathen and witchcraft topics.
- The Longship: A beginner's guide to Heathenry.
- The Troth: A sizable inclusive Heathen organization. Not my favorite, but not bad either.
Books
Books about individual deities are listed on their respective pages.- The Way of Fire and Ice: The Living Tradition of Norse Paganism by Ryan Smith
- Spinning Wyrd by Ryan Smith
- Asatru by Erin Lale: I recommend this one less than Smith's books, but it isn't bad.
- Taking Up the Runes by Diana Paxson (see above)
