What Do Heathens Believe?

Perhaps a more significant question is, “How does a Heathen act?” for every Heathen believes “we are our deeds” (n.) and by this means that a man's (or woman's) worth can be better measured by how he lives his life than by who/what he believes in. It is, after all, a human's actions that are our only real sign of what one truly believes. If a man claims to believe in truth, yet lies pathologically, his deeds tell us what he believes and we need no longer listen to his “beliefs”.

            There are a set of upright qualities that many Heathens try to live up to and almost every Heathen has at least heard of. Collectively the set is often referred to as the Nine Noble Virtues (Pr. n.) and (usually) includes courage, truth, honor, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, industriousness, self-reliance, and perseverance. The Nine Noble Virtues (sometimes abbreviated NNV) is a modern term but is believed to embody the qualities the ancient Germanic people revered above others and is promoted in the Lore.

            The Lore (Pr. n.) is the body of medieval writings (among these are The Prose Edda, The Poetic Edda, Heimskringla, and many sagas) composed shortly after the Conversion by Germanic folk about their spiritual and cultural past. The Lore is not considered a “Heathen Bible” as many of the scribes who wrote down the Lore were Christian monks and so it was subject to their interpretation/manipulation. Furthermore, most Heathens are natural skeptics and do not believe anything written is infallible. The Lore is, however, a priceless source for studying the culture in which the Folkway flourished. Ultimately, like most ancient tribal cultures, the indigenous folklore was passed through oral tradition (n.) from generation to generation by poetic storytelling and elaborate memorization. The written Lore is but a shadow of the spoken Lore that once echoed from father to son and mother to daughter in ages past. One should also keep in mind that when Heathens refer to myth (n.) they are not referring to the recent popular definition of “an unfounded or false notion” but rather something that is archetypal and transcends time in a “traditional story . . . that serves to unfold part of a worldview”.

            Indispendable to understanding the beliefs of Germanic Heathenry is the complex Law of Reciprocity (n.). In simple allegorical terms it is the concept that the seeds you plant are the fruits you harvest. It is largely due to the Law of Reciprocity that Heathens find the concept of salvation/damnation to be unacceptable. All past action is woven into a great, interconnected tapestry known as wyrd (n., OE “that which has become”, derived from IE *wert- “to turn”) and contributes to future consequences. Although some Heathens are fatalists (n.) in which no one can escape predestination, most are not. The three Nornir (n., sing. Norn) are powerful Goddesses often mistranslated as “Fates” but are usually viewed as spiritual entities that contribute to, rather than control, a person’s destiny. Many Heathens are actually fairly transcendental (adj.) in their self-empowering view that all people are masters of their destiny, yet are realists (n.) in their understanding that all things are finite and subject to outside forces. The idea of past action laying out the state of the present and contributing to the course of the future is pivotal to understanding orlog (n., ON “primal layers/law”). No person is born a blank slate but is rather the present state of one’s ancestors’ deeds. All people are born into a particular social condition, in a particular environment, with specific genetic gifts and malformities. Man is born into the deeds (or lack thereof) of his ancestors and continues to contribute to the orlog of both the individual and the collective. Because of the reciprocal nature of wyrd and orlog they are often used in the same way “karma” is used in popular culture. Heathens will often use wyrd in the pun, “That’s wyrd”, to imply a strange event or circumstance that is simpy too strange to be a coincidence. Significantly, wyrd is the linguistic grandsire of the modern English, “weird”.

            Germanic Heathenry is a polytheistic (adj.) faith system. Heathens believe in the existence of many gods (but loyal to a select few) yet in many ways also practice animism (n.) since the entire natural world is seen as a spiritual entity with many “lesser” spiritual entities inhabiting it. The word god (n.) itself is Germanic, gender neutral, a title not a name, and implies polytheism within its very roots. Many Heathens will refer to their own gods with the proper noun, Gods, while delegating the common, lower case “g” to all others. The Heathen Gods are composed of two tribes, the Aesir (n., sing. As) and Vanir (n., sing. Van). The Aesir are led by Odin (n.) and are generally courageous, war-like seekers of justice, order, and knowledge. By contrast the Vanir are more often associated with natural laws and natural phenomenon that are favorable to mankind (e.g. a calm sea for voyaging). These rather confining definitions, however, are not carved in stone as most Vanir are warriors and most Aesir have some function of nature associated with them. For example, Frey (n.) is a Vanic (adj.) deity who presides over fertility and prosperity, yet is also a great warrior who will fight in the final battle, the ragnarok (n., ON “doom of the gods/powers”). Likewise, Thor (n.) is one of the greatest warrior Aesir ever to be and he is also the God of thunderstorms. While thunderstorms may be unfavorable to someone at a picnic or standing under a tree, the reality is that they are vital to life – water feeds the photosynthetic world as lightning enriches the soil with nitrogen. Some believe this melding of traits occurred due to the truce and bond built between the two tribes of Gods after the first war when they pitted themselves against one another. However, the peace-bringing Vanir were obviously already war-like enough to bring that war to a stalemate. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is “si vis pacem, para bellum” (L. “If you wish for peace, prepare for war”).

            [There will be more on the subject of godly function and crossover, particularly with Dumezil (Pr. n.) and tripartite (n.), in the future.]

(Due to continued technological abominations, this bibliography is not in alphabetical order)
Wódening, Eric. We Are Our Deeds: The Elder Heathenry - Its Ethic and Thew. Watertown: Theod, 1998. Print.
          This profound work by the Theodish author Eric Wodening popularized the phrase “We are our deeds”. Unfortunately 
           the book is currently out of print and very hard to find copies of.
Hollander, Lee M., trans. The Poetic Edda. Austin: University of Texas, 1990. Print.
          This primary source is a prime example of the Lore of Heathenry.
Snorri, Sturluson. Edda. Anthony Faulkes, trans. London: Dent, 1987. Print.
           This primary source is another prime example of the Lore of Heathenry.

Asatru for Beginners. Dir. Varangianguard01. YouTube. Web. 12 Apr. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e1NkDAFYoo>.

           A link to this video can be found by clicking on the heading of this post. This Youtube expands the 
          basic understanding of Asatru (and much of Germanic Heathenry). There are some things that 
          should probably be modified to make the video a bit more accurate but the overall message is pretty 
          solid and it serves as a good introduction.

"Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-
          Webster Online. Merriam-Webster, Inc. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. <http://www.merriam-
          webster.com/dictionary/myth>.

During the discussion of myth, the M-W Dictionary is used to show both the used and unused form 
                of the word by Heathens.