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Your choice ultimately is not so much about the old gods vs christianity as much as it is deciding between monotheism and polytheism. I suggest you spend some time examining how you think the world really functions and what purpose the gods serve. These are the big questions, and you don't have to answer them right now.
If you're up for a book I'd reccomend https://www.amazon.com/World-Full-Gods-Inquiry-Polytheism/dp/0976568101 John Greer's "A world full of gods". It's biased towards the polytheistic side, but it explains the mindset of having many deities and goes through some of the common arguments posited against theism in general.
Also, don't stress yourself out and get in a rush to pick something. The gods (however many you decide on ;) aren't going anywhere.
The answer to all those is Yes. It's erroneous to pigeonhole any of the gods as a deity of 'X' domain. Just about every major Germanic god has been and can be bidden to for help in any subject. This was especially true in cultic centers whose praxis was approaching henotheism. Freyja was associated with healing, sexuality, fecundity, sorcery, marriage, battle, death, and more.
Unfortunately there's a dearth of knowledge surrounding Freyja's cultic praxis, but I'd recommend The Concept of the Goddess for further reading.
Thor is one of the main gods I give offerings to during Midsummer, as I find it appropriate to ask him to bring cooling rain during a particularly hot and dry summer, or to ask him to give us a break for sun and warmth if it's been raining a lot like it's doing this summer.
I chose Thor in particular because I wanted to honor and give offerings to the gods whom I consider "chieftains" in their own right, Thor being one of them, on the three high holidays and Midsummer. I was inspired after reading an interesting article written by Terry Gunnell titled, "Pantheon? What Pantheon?" In it, he suggests that for some regional communities in ancient Scandinavia, Thor was their "chieftain" god instead of Odin; the same could be said of Freyr elsewhere. So I figured it would be appropriate to honor Thor, Odin, Freyr, and Tyr as the main gods of my Heathen calendar cycle.
Also, for a bit of cute trivia, my Catholic boyfriend likes Thor the most out of all the Germanic gods.
No. No. A thousand times no. Not only is Krasskova an alt-right asshole, she's the one that has popularized the highly problematic UPG that Sigyn >!was a child bride given to Loki.!<
If you're looking for good devotionals that aren't by Krasskova, I recommend vol 2 of the zine Loki's Torch and this upcoming book which looks promising.
Oh hello, is it time for me to flog my favorite translation of my favorite piece of lore ever? YES IT IS! Xander Folmer's <em>Words of the Wanderer (Hávamál)</em> is, IMHO, the absolute best translation there is. Crawford's translation is likely the best linguistically but Folmer is actually a Heathen and doesn't just translate the words but the meanings in a manner that is, IMHO, consistently sympathetic both to the failures and foibles of the Ur-Heathens and the necessities of a modern ~~reader~~ Heathen.
The best part is that you can get it—for free!—with commentary by Folmer from Huginn's Heathen Hof direct to your inbox on a daily basis. This is important because critical reading of a religious text is always important and Heathenry is not a religion of the book. The Hávamál is an important piece of the lore that we base our beliefs on but it is not a bible.
​
EDIT: Please feel free to DM me for my Excel spreadsheet comparing all public domain translations, if you've interest.
I bought a few off Amazon. I currently own the Odin and Thor ones. I'm going to order Freya and Frigga soon. They're actually very nice quality too!
Tafl games are flipping difficult, I've played them a few times. Also there's a pretty good app for android (and iPhone I think) to let you practice against a computer (I did not design this app, just sharing one I like)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fellhuhn.hnefatafl
Oh my gosh! Well, I dunno how you feel about Amazon but here's one that's $10 that seems decent? I hope you find what you're looking for!
I cannot stress what a great and solid resource Simek's Dictionary of Northern Mythology is, so I'm definitely echoing the other recommendation.
Entries for Gods, heroes, skalds, and other important figures (including named animals), named weapons and jewelry and other artifacts, places and more. The entries will summarize stories with the source from the lore (so you can find and read it more in depth later at that source), explorations into the etymology where relevant, information about archaeological finds, and sometimes also folk custom and summations of major scholarly theories. It's the most comprehensive resource I can think of, even though it's by no means complete, plus there hasn't been an update in decades. I've worn out 3 copies already, it's my go to resource that gets me started on any research.
Lindow's book while solid... is to me problematic as he mocks those of us who worship the gods amounting our practice to little more than our rites being an excuse to party with a sausage, in the book no less mentioned. While it's a good overview, I hate giving money to someone like that.
Davidson's scholarship is some of the go to solid work in the field, any book from her is well worth the read: Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe, Road to Hel, etc.
It's a far more dense academic tome, but Dubois' Nordic Religions in the Viking Age is definitely worth a read.
She's mentioned in Gylfaginning, and Skáldskaparmál.
You might also want to consider investing in a copy of Simek's Dictionary of Northern Mythology. There's entries for gods, other named supernatural beings, objects, places, etc. Each entry has a summation with reference to the source, and where relevant summarizes as well archaeological discoveries, major scholarly theories, etymology, kennings/heiti, folktales and more. We learn more all the time, so it's not 100% complete, but it's very comprehensive and a great place to start.
Skaldic Hearth Kin's Winter Wassail Album
Website Odin's Gift has a repository or music resources (links to albums, or with permission hosts content too). If you go to the "Songbook Section" there's a category just for winter and yule music.
God of Asgard by Erik Evensen is a great graphic novel that retells the Norse stories. It's suitable for older kids (maybe 8 and up) and has great art that really captures the spirit of the myths:
Craft tins come in a ton of sizes. From tiny like an altoids tin, to large like 7" x 4". Some are circular, some rectangular, some square. Some are magnetic, have clear windows, slide open, or hinge.
You can also get wooden trinket boxes, in a variety of sizes from small, to over 9" x 12". or get an old fashioned book cover converted to a trinket box, or a hinged shrine. Really skies the limit, you know best what size you're wanting.
Instead of Amino, I recommend reading the actual Gesta Danorum. I also recommend the page about Baldur on Norse Mythology for Smart People and checking out the resources at the bottom.
[Recovering Catholic, here,] I'm a huge fan of the Hávamál. It isn't the Heathen Gospel or ten commandments, but I do enjoy it. My favorite translation is Xander Folmer's. It is also available for free with a daily discussion of its meaning from Huginn's Heathen Hof, which does an excellent job of putting some of the more problematic stanzas into a modern context.
I haven't heard of Layman's Havamal; seems like a reasonable introduction to the material.
This is also a very accessible translation, albeit not the most accurate one out there, but probably more in keeping with the historical text:
Glad to hear you found something that resonates with you.
Are you familiar with the Free Galdrastafir Project? Downloadable PDfs of all the source manuscripts, plus image gallery of various staves (including the 14 versions of the helm of awe across the various manuscripts). Alas it doesn't have translations of those manuscripts. In fact I don't think most of the sources are available in English. So while not a perfect fit for what you're seeking, there may be some things there that are helpful. There's a facebook group I think they run, no ide how helpful, or not that is.
Only English translation I know of is the Flowers translation of Galdrabok, which is now published by the AFA... so not helpful.
Rudolf Simek's Dictionary of Northern mythology
- summarizes the stories, tells you the source of the story (so you can track down the story and read it for yourself)
- discusses etymological analysis
- where known, shares kennings, heiti, or epithets
- summarizes major academic theories (name of scholar, and the paper/article/book the info is from, this does have some cross comparison within the Germanic/Norse umbrella or the greater Proto-Indo-European umbrella)
- lists things like place names
- references archaeological evidence
- references folk practice too
- covers Germanic tribes through to the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon cultures through the time of conversion (and a bit after)
- covers any named thing, not just Deities.
We're learning new things all the time, so it may not cover every iota of information, but it's the most comprehensive I've ever found.
Not sure which one ur talking about cuz there are a ton available. The one I use almost daily is this one
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.evansir.runicformulas
I liked it enough to pay to get rid of ads
Look at the start of the name, "HEL" is there.
Etymological Hel is the literal earth, i.e. where the dead are buried. The underworld from surface living dwellers. It roots to meanings like to cover or conceal (as dirt would cover the body).
To my thinking, all the various halls that play host to the dead are within Hel itself (Valhalla, Vingolf, Sessrumnir, etc.). So by extension Helgafell is merely a place within Hel in that context. If you haven't already, HREDavidson's Road to Hell is the best academic examination of Hel. That being said as an academic and not a believer her treatise is mainly hell is only a personification of the burial grave/earth, not so much a Goddess.
But if you look at the big picture we see in the stories of draugr, aptrgangr. haugbui, ketta... we see a concept of the living dead (and the importance I suspect in valueing the dead sothey don't plague you).
We know helgafell was a holy mountain, there were several such mountains that seemed to end up with this place name across Northern Europe. (And I echo the thought from u/HappyYetConfused that it was just a localized version of living folk religion/belief around death). One of the more famous is in Iceland. Eyrbyggja saga tells us there was a Temple to Thor built upon it. In the archaeological record we've found cairns on top of the mountain (and similar other mountains), and it looks like they were used to help determine time calendars based on how the sun hit it and cast it's shadows. It's also mentioned in Laxaela saga, as where Gudrun lived, and was later buried.
There's a paper written here with academic sources that looks into the bigger picture of the mountain and beliefs from Pagan to Christianity you may find interesting to read.
In Germanic folkloric sources the Goddesses were depicted with dogs, accompanied by a "Hilfstier" or helping animal:
- Walpurga (depicted with dogs and grain where her iconography survives in Christian chapels), folk custom that to speak her name was to calm mad dogs
- three Norns said to be accompanied by grey-hounds
- Frau Frick (aka Frigga)
- Frau Harke
- Frau Gode
- Frau Berchte (aka Berchta) was called 'poodle mother'
- Nehalennia (dogs on her altar and votive stones)
There is folklore of a windhound or nourishment hound that needed to be fed in Spring, as a symbol of good luck and fertility at the end of the Wild Hunt season.
Source for all this comes out of folklorist E. L. Rochholz's "Drei Gaugöttinen: Walburg, Verena und Gertrud, als deutsche Kirchenheilige. Sittenbilder aus germanischen Frauenleben."
A lot of Germanic stuff is found by examining the archaeological remains of the votive stones in the Rhineland (one book on it: The Cult of the Matronae in the Roman Rhineland), and various Roman texts like Tacitus, Pliny, Sidonius, Julius Caesar, etc. The Merseburg Charms are the only examples of Germanic pagan belief recorded in the Germanic language. And then we have Jacob Grimm's Teutonic Mythology (4 volumes) collection of folk custom. While this is of course recorded centuries after conversion, folk practice has a way of carrying over some cultic traditions and praxis. Grimm tries to connect Germanic to Norse at times. And as others have suggested, sometimes there's very specific texts related to specific tribes too.
While not what you are specifically requesting, I think you might appreciate Rudolf Simek's Dictionary of Northern Mythology. It has a listing for people (including Deities, Giants, Dwarves, etc.), places, objects: each listing summarizes information we know about them. Typically any textual sources period sources, sometimes corroborating examples from archaeology, summarizes some of the major older scholarly theories, etymology, etc. It lists Germanic deities, and those in Norse sources. But it does not have a direct compare/contrast.
The only one that I have come across is Egil's Saga. It is available on Kindle or Audible. I haven't listened to it yet to see what ages it would be appropriate for though.
https://www.amazon.com/Egils-Saga-Story-Egil-Skallagrimsson/dp/B08F8MH4PS/
I would suggest the Mayfield translation. It’s done by a Heathen scholar with the intent on providing a better understanding than the existing translations by secular or Christian scholars. It has over 900 footnotes to the poems for people who want that better understanding. It’s also available in hardcover in addition to paperback and kindle, so you can have a copy that will hold up to use better. Poetic Edda: A Heathen Study Edition: Mythological Poems https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099TVLQ5M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_J32X1YZEKKMZZFRPX5S9
I think Larrington's is the most academically rigorous of the translations. If you can only buy just one, then get it. If you can afford multiple, I would also get Hollander's Edda.
Also there is a great talk with Larrington here
I have one which I have written, but there is also Steven Dillon's ontological argument in <em>Walking the Worlds</em> Vol 2 Issue 2.
My version of the argument goes like this:
1) The Ontological Argument
1) We can think of a being greater than which nothing can be conceived. 2) It is greater to exist in reality than solely in thought. 3) Therefore the being greater than which nothing can be conceived must exist in reality (otherwise a greater being could be conceived which contradicts 1).
2) That Polytheism is a Necessary consequence of the ontological argument:
1) There exists a being greater than which nothing can be conceived. 2) It is greater to exist in multiple forms/persons than in one form/person. 3) Therefore the being greater than which nothing can be conceived exists in multiple forms/persons (if it existed only in one form/person, a greater being could be conceived which contradicts 1).
There is a porism which follows from Proof 2, that an infinite number of forms or persons would be greater than a finite number. So this is the view of monist polytheism - the impersonal One which necessarily exists must exist in infinite persons.
I am actually working on a similar project. Birthday candles will absolutely fit in an Altoid tin. I found these that have a little adhesive base meant for the plastic lid on a cake for sanitary reasons.
You have to look a little further back if you want to find Paganism proper in Iberia. The Iberians, Celtiberians, Lusitanians, Vettones (who were possibly a Celtic-speaking people), Phoenecians, Basques, Tartessians and Romans were all there at some point practicing polytheism of one kind or another. The Vandals, Alans and Suebi were also pagan, though it was short lived as they were converted to Christianity by the Visigoths in 466CE.
How about some Neil Gaiman and Stephen Fry? British household names, could be stealthy.
Neil Gaiman Norse Mythology (Bloomsbury Publishing)
By Stephen Fry Mythos The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths) Paperback – 26 July 2018
I won't beat deadhorses, but as a current service member, I just wanted to add to the discussion. As of 2017, the Department of Defense recognized Heathen, Pagan, Wiccan etc. religions within the forces. You can now have that religous affiliation on your records, dog tags, etc.
As far as practicing your religion while in training, you will have to ask once you get to your training location if/when they offer Pagan/Heathen services. The military has to provide you with opportunities to worship as you wish within the confines of mission requirements. Religion will not always get you out of training or mandatory mission requirements, etc.
Be prepared to answer the hard questions, as the Heathen faith is not nearly as prevalent in the main stream forces as the other religions. You may be met with some skepticism by the powers that be, unfortunately. Just stand your ground, be respectful, and ask to worship as you desire.
The Altoids tin altar idea was mentioned earlier, and that could be a good starting point for you, but just know as a trainee you will be subject to the rules enforced by your instructors and what is considered contraband in the training environment. If you go that route, get a battery operated tea light candle (with spare batteries) as open flame will for sure be a no go in military barracks or buildings.
Lastly, be very cognizant of wearing religious emblems while in uniform. You have to be within standards of wear and appearance at all times (for example, in the Army we have AR 670-1 standards, Wear and Appearance of the Army Uniform) and it generally prohibits any jewelry, accessories, etc. For male soldiers outside of dog tags. I have seen Crosses, Stars of David, etc that are AR 670-1 compliant. I have found a compliant Mjolnir necklace here on Amazon.
Good luck in your training! Serve well, and be proud of your commitment to country.
I'm coming fron an LDS upbringing and studying Norse paganism. Reading a book called Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, which connects Joseph Smith to English folk magic. It's helping me process my upbringing a lot, and ground it in experiences with friends and family.
Also, if you are looking to refresh yourself on the myths but need pictures, may I recommend this volume: https://www.amazon.com/Norse-Myths-Tales-Odin-Thor/dp/0763695009
That was an impressive read. I am definitely having a strong reaction, as i have spent a lot of time learning the elder futhark. I have found https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Up-Runes-Complete-Divination/dp/1578633257 to be incredibly helpful, as the author provides the rune poems whenever possible. I don't like to be a person that searches out 'the most authentic, accurate version of things' but tries to find the way to make things work for me. Any suggestions on how to implement rune work into my practice. Is it generally accepted that the Elder is no good? I am drawn to Heathenry because I got the sense that for many people, the right way to practice, is they way you choose to practice.
Suprised that no one mentioned Middle Earth. It's super short super simply worded and a great way to get your feet wet. Here's a Amazon link.
Travels Through Middle Earth: The Path of a Saxon Pagan https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738715360/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Ek.9Cb3RWPNC8
Since the symbol appears on the Fries book written in 1997, I figured Crowley himself had nothing to do with it.
I don't welcome any symbol in my practice that might have been inspired by Crowley's philosophy. But you do you.
And glancing at the book's description on Amazon I see keywords that tell me the two probably are not independent of each other: https://www.amazon.com/Helrunar-Manual-Magick-Jan-Fries/dp/1869928903
Dremel 689-01 11-Piece Rotary Tool Carving and Engraving Kit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000L9T4C0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_SS8GDb59D42FQ
This is the exact set I'm using currently. 107 and 7103 were the two I used most. Did a bit of finishing/leveling with 7134.
(NOTE: The part numbers I'm referring to are on the second image on the listing.)
One of his books is no-joke going for $100 on Amazon. Paper-back. Also same book, but this one is somehow $1,745.80. I wouldn't pay that much for a book, much less paperback.
Also Norse Magic and Herbal Healing which is a translation of a post Christian Manuscript by Ben Waggoner, and recommended by me
Norse Magical and Herbal Healing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578092700/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ACTaBbWFA36Y4
Local variations and cults for different gods sprung up in different spots, but for the most part, Anglo-Saxon Heathenry is very much like the heathenry of mainland Europe, or Norse heathenry (of the Eddas). Many of the gods and their attributes carry straight over, then there are others that have completely different gods for things. (Say, Njordr was the Norse god of the sea, and Wade was the English god/giant of the sea.)
You can get a feel for how alike many of the personalities and tropes are by comparing something more contemporary, like Jacobs' collection of English Fairy Tales to the brothers Grimm collection of Fairy Tales.
~~This gives a good short list: https://ealdrice.org/texts/the-gods-of-anglo-saxon-heathendom/~~
~~From there you should be able to find info online on most of the gods/figures and how they work together.~~
Edit: /u/Wodgar-Inguing’s website looks like a much better resource!
If you want to truly dive into the details, get yourself a copy of The Elder Gods by Stephen Pollingon.