My anthropologist fiancee has long ago convinced me that a burial mound is the only way to go, but should you want to be burned, urned, and get yourself in what is likely the only ship-outline burial to be put up in about 1000 years, Norway’s Aasatrufellowship Bifrost may have what you are looking for.
At least when it’s Vikings versus Saxons, I sometimes falter. As you can tell, I’m fond of Anglo Saxon literature and language, but I really pull for the Scandinavians. That said, a title like “51 Headless Vikings Found in English Execution Pit?” does draw me in.
As stated in the article, you might night be able to tell these men apart in their war gear, and hence my Germanic-language group culture-loving dilemma, but apparently that wasn’t a problem for the poor vikings in the pit. Pretty darn cold of the Saxons to strip them before hewing off their heads, I say. Maybe I should change the title of my blog . . .
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090728-headless-viking-execution-pit.html
Kormak’s Saga and Grettir’s Saga are currently available in nicely-formatted HTML and Plucker versions from the Gutenberg Project.
Kormak’s Saga is great for any reader interested in Skaldic poetry. It can be found here: Kormak’s Saga.
The classic Grettir’s Saga requires no further description. The story of the great warrior and outlaw can be found here: Grettir’s Saga
If you use and enjoy the materials at Project Gutenberg, please give a thought to clicking that unobtrusive donation button on the lower left. They have created an amazing resource and deserve the support in return.
Anyone who has seen me at more than a few meetings with my local Ásatrú group will have noticed the frequent presence my copy of Olive Bray’s Edda Saemundar (Elder Edda). While it may not be the most up-to-date reference material, it was one of my first translations and was the first time I had seen facing-page Old Norse and English in my young heathen life. It has inspired jealousy in many of the heathens at the meetings due to its rarity, and though it may take the shine off of my ownership of the print version, I’m glad to say it is now online, searchable, and fully scanned for that dead-tree-style read.
Go to openlibrary.org to view the Bray at the following link:
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL7250638M
The link at the left goes to the main page at archive.org, but the view link at the right brings you to their page-flipping interface, should you prefer. It does have a useful and interesting search feature, despite the slowness of the interface on some platforms.
As of last night, I’m back at UNM again for another semester. Though I’m long, long overdue for graduation ceremonies, I’m still chugging along while I maintain my full time position as an embroidery digitizer/designer, backup graphic artist, IT guy, Web master, web designer, and ‘e-commerce wizard’ over at Black Duck. On the heathen front, or at the very least on the Germanic studies front, I’ve managed to seat myself next to my beloved Celeste in a medieval archeology course that should prove to entertain my humanities-based approach as well as attend to her anthropological needs. Seeing that 2 of the 3 texts consist of The Goths, and The Franks, I feel pretty well assured of getting my early medieval Germanic culture fix. The professor is a good-humored and well read individual who seems rather inspired and taken by the material, though with a somewhat distracting effect on his lectures. Never before have I seen a professor gawk and marvel at a good book like I do, let alone during a lecture. Here’s hoping this helps to kick me into gear for more research and writing in the coming months.
Podictionary.com host Charles Hodgson may not have the best Old English pronunciation in the world, but for a few minutes a day his podcast will take you through the etymology of an English word, exploring interesting twists and turns of linguistic causality that lead us to the frequently mistunderstood usages of the present day. Frequent references from the OED provide the scholarly meat of the podcast meal, but the personal commentary and literary references ranging from Shakespeare and Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary to UrbanDictionary.com will provide plenty enough fun and fluff for a diction-enhancing dessert.
While paging through Olof Sundqvist’s Freyr’s Offspring, I came upon his method for validating historiographic and sagaic sources that describe possible practices and views of the ancient Svea society. Seeing as Ásatrú is constantly deciding exactly how much credence to lend to sources in “the Lore” the method he applies struck me as something worthy of discussion, especially as this led me to some observations about modern heathens and our search for validity.
Read more…