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Published On: Apr 26, 2006 10:02 PM
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Published On: Apr 26, 2006 10:02 PM
No it's NOT!
I'm feeling awfully argumentative. Be
warned.
So I was wandering around Technorati ,
that service I mentioned before that allows me to search blogs and suchlike
whatnot. I did a quickie search on Asatru, and while there's a lot of good
information around there, I ran into a couple of entries that are just total
crap.
Believe it or not, I try. I really do try! I try to just let things go. I try to accept that people's opinions are going to vary, and that what works for me doesn't work for everyone. Sometimes, though...
Let's start with a minor example. Some pagan-y person, talking about the months of the year, and giving examples throughout the world of festivals and such correlated with that month. What a nice thought, right? Well, yeah. If your information's right in the first place. From The Pagan Left , I quote:
Deireadh Fóómhair or an Damhair, the stag rut, was the Irish name for this month or Gealach a 'bhruic, moon of the badger. Winterfelleth, "winter is coming," was the Anglo-Saxon name. The Franks called October Windurmanoth, "vintage month." Hunting is the Asatru name.
Main issue, of course, is with the last statement. There's no way one can say that October is equal to any month in the old Norse calendar, and therefore it doesn't jive with an Asatru calendar (I'm differentiating modern from ancient here, as there's no ancient evidence of the word "Asatru"). The Northern Europeans used a lunar calendar, which would never match up with the month of October at all, considering it has 31 days to a lunar month's 29.25 days. Ergo, October does not equal "Hunting."
Moreover, in the ancient Icelandic calendar, even if the months DID line up, it would still be wrong. Per The Sagas of Icelanders by Jane Smiley, appendix p. 739, the months that would overlap the period we call October are Harvest-Month (Haustmanuthur) and Slaughtering-Month (Gormanuthur). "Hunting" has no place, except in the minds of people who don't do research.
It's that time of the year, I guess, when people become obsessed with calendars. That's the only explanation I can think of, because my other sore spot of the day also has to do with problematic calendrical ideas. Keep in mind these are articles that came up while I was searching for the word "Asatru," and aren't indicative of blogs I visit regular nor endorse. That said, quoting from Tarot Journal Symbol Dictionary :
Pagan: pagan traditions, including the Druidic, Wiccan, Celtic and Norse (Asatru) paths celebrated the ever-turning wheel of the year in eight festivals. These mark important points in the year: the two solstices and the two equinoxes, and four cross-quarter days between them.
Sigh. Nope. Not even a little bit! We have Yule, yes, but one can hardly consider a festival that lasts 12 days tied to a solstice. Nothing else even comes close -- Winternights occurs, basically, around the middle of October -- that is, at the beginning of Slaughtering Month and the end of Harvest Month. That's basically it for documented holidays, other than things that aren't really holidays at all, like the time for the Althing and Moving Days.
Sigh. I shouldn't get annoyed. After all, just because they're wrong is no reason to despise them. Or at least, that's what I tell myself. Maybe I'm just angry because it's links like these that keep me low on the search results (yeah, right. I'm low on the search results because I have about 5 readers). And to be fair, there's TONS of good Asatru blog entries out there. I was going to post a couple of examples here at the end so I didn't seem TOO crabby, but can't find anything that I totally agree with.
On the other hand, I don't have to agree completely. Here, try out this article at Universal Life Church . I have few problems with this (except for this imaginary Zisa person). Or do a search of The Wildhunt Blog for Asatru, and see what comes up. There's actually some good stuff, in spite of the name.
That's it for today. Not much of an entry, I know. Feel free to argue or disagree in comments. Don't hold back. :)
Believe it or not, I try. I really do try! I try to just let things go. I try to accept that people's opinions are going to vary, and that what works for me doesn't work for everyone. Sometimes, though...
Let's start with a minor example. Some pagan-y person, talking about the months of the year, and giving examples throughout the world of festivals and such correlated with that month. What a nice thought, right? Well, yeah. If your information's right in the first place. From The Pagan Left , I quote:
Deireadh Fóómhair or an Damhair, the stag rut, was the Irish name for this month or Gealach a 'bhruic, moon of the badger. Winterfelleth, "winter is coming," was the Anglo-Saxon name. The Franks called October Windurmanoth, "vintage month." Hunting is the Asatru name.
Main issue, of course, is with the last statement. There's no way one can say that October is equal to any month in the old Norse calendar, and therefore it doesn't jive with an Asatru calendar (I'm differentiating modern from ancient here, as there's no ancient evidence of the word "Asatru"). The Northern Europeans used a lunar calendar, which would never match up with the month of October at all, considering it has 31 days to a lunar month's 29.25 days. Ergo, October does not equal "Hunting."
Moreover, in the ancient Icelandic calendar, even if the months DID line up, it would still be wrong. Per The Sagas of Icelanders by Jane Smiley, appendix p. 739, the months that would overlap the period we call October are Harvest-Month (Haustmanuthur) and Slaughtering-Month (Gormanuthur). "Hunting" has no place, except in the minds of people who don't do research.
It's that time of the year, I guess, when people become obsessed with calendars. That's the only explanation I can think of, because my other sore spot of the day also has to do with problematic calendrical ideas. Keep in mind these are articles that came up while I was searching for the word "Asatru," and aren't indicative of blogs I visit regular nor endorse. That said, quoting from Tarot Journal Symbol Dictionary :
Pagan: pagan traditions, including the Druidic, Wiccan, Celtic and Norse (Asatru) paths celebrated the ever-turning wheel of the year in eight festivals. These mark important points in the year: the two solstices and the two equinoxes, and four cross-quarter days between them.
Sigh. Nope. Not even a little bit! We have Yule, yes, but one can hardly consider a festival that lasts 12 days tied to a solstice. Nothing else even comes close -- Winternights occurs, basically, around the middle of October -- that is, at the beginning of Slaughtering Month and the end of Harvest Month. That's basically it for documented holidays, other than things that aren't really holidays at all, like the time for the Althing and Moving Days.
Sigh. I shouldn't get annoyed. After all, just because they're wrong is no reason to despise them. Or at least, that's what I tell myself. Maybe I'm just angry because it's links like these that keep me low on the search results (yeah, right. I'm low on the search results because I have about 5 readers). And to be fair, there's TONS of good Asatru blog entries out there. I was going to post a couple of examples here at the end so I didn't seem TOO crabby, but can't find anything that I totally agree with.
On the other hand, I don't have to agree completely. Here, try out this article at Universal Life Church . I have few problems with this (except for this imaginary Zisa person). Or do a search of The Wildhunt Blog for Asatru, and see what comes up. There's actually some good stuff, in spite of the name.
That's it for today. Not much of an entry, I know. Feel free to argue or disagree in comments. Don't hold back. :)
Posted: Mon - October 3, 2005 at 09:38 PM