Cool, Macho Neo-Pagans
July 29, 2014
A 16th-century depiction of Norse gods by Olaus Magnus; from left to right, Frigg, Thor, and Odin
NEO-PAGANISM is super cool among some traditionalist intellectual types who believe Christianity is effeminate and Norse warriors are real men. Here’s a 2010 discussion at VFR on the phenomenon.
In that entry, the commenter Daniel S. writes: “The past that neo-paganism longs to return to is a[s] mythical and non-existent as the gods of German mythology.”
— Comments —
Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:
On Neo-Paganism and the Vikings:
From the Tenth through the Twelfth Centuries the Scandinavians rejected their old gods in favor of Christianity. A telling example comes from Hrafnkel’s Saga, the events of which occur in Iceland before the coming of Christianity. Hrafnkel is aggressive and brutal; his behavior makes many his enemies and they take revenge on him, killing his favorite horse, setting fire to his private temple, and confiscating his estate. Here, from an online version of the text in English, is an extract from Chapter 16, which records Hrafnkel’s reaction, when he learns of it, to the burning-down of his temple, dedicated to his namesake Frey:
“The news was brought east into Fljótsdalr to Hrafnkel that the sons of Thjóstar had destroyed ‘Freymane’ (Freyfaxi) and burnt the temple. Then said Hrafnkel: ‘I deem it a vain thing to believe in the gods,’ and he vowed that henceforth he would set his trust in them no more. And to this he kept ever afterwards, and never made a sacrifice again.”
Many of the sagas deal with the conversion of Iceland – for example, the two Vinland Sagas and Grettir’s Saga. Abandoning the old gods is almost always, as in the case of Hrafnkel, a reasoned decision; skepticism about the Aesir need not issue in Christian conversion, but Christian conversion naturally entails skepticism about the Aesir. When the saga characters accept Christianity, it is also a reasoned decision. The heathen deities linger only in the days of the week: Moon-Day, Tyr’s Day, Odin’s Day, Thor’s Day, Frey’s Day, and then for some reason English borrows a Latin god, Saturn; but Sun-Day is again Old Norse.
Leif Eriksson, the Norse discoverer of America, which the Icelanders called Vinland, was a Christian.
