King Athanaric, King of the Visigoths, ruled his people from 369 CE until he died in 381 CE. Sometimes called the first and greatest King of his people, Athanaric was a staunch Gothic Pagan. Viewing it as his responsibility to foster and promote the faith of his people he went so far as to execute over three hundred Visigoths that had converted to the Christian faith. Their Gothic culture was paramount, and he feared that the advent of Christianity would destroy it.

During his 12-year reign, Athanaric fiercely defended his culture against the advance of the Roman Christian conversion. In the early years he allied with his fellow Visigoth King, Fritigern, to stop the encroachment of the Roman legions into their lands. While the two were allied the Goths managed to stave off the Roman armies. For unknown reasons, however, Fritigern turned his army against Athanaric, causing the Gothic Civil War.
In the early stages Athanaric won every encounter he had with his one ally. This prompted Fritigern to turn and request aid from his former Roman enemy, Emperor Valens. Even so, despite some advances, Fritigern lost the war. The Gothic Civil War took a toll on the land and the Visigoths, however, and when the Huns began to invade shortly after the end of the Civil War Fritigern appealed to Emperor Valen to allow him and his people to cross into Roman land. The appeal was answered, but only for Fritigern, who had since converted to Christianity, and his followers.

The rest of the Visigoths were left to fend for themselves. Despite his best efforts King Athanaric was unable to hold his grounds against the ruthless, and better provisioned Huns. In the face of starvation, Athanaric led his people into the Alutus Valley (modern-day Transylvania) where they settled. In 380 CE Athanaric was deposed and removed himself to none other than Constantinople and the lands of his once upon a time Enemy, the roman empire. The new Emperor, Theodosius I, accepted Athanaric to the empire graciously. Upon his death some two weeks later Athanaric was buried in all state to show Theodisuis’ respect of the Gothic Culture.

Despite all, King Athanaric stood his ground in the face of all. He recognized the importance of maintaining the Culture of his people, recognizing the dangers of conversion for what it was. IN these modern times it is even more important to view Athanaric’s struggles for what they were and to remember that the preservation of our people and our culture is so very paramount. It’s about Roots. It’s about Connections. It’s about coming home.

Let us always strive to make sure we have a Home for our folk to come back to!

Hail King Athanaric!
Hail the Folk!
Hail the Asatru Folk Assembly!

Gythia Catie Erickson

The Runestone: Fall 1984 #49
by Stephen A. McNallen

It is quite acceptable these days to point out that we live in an alienated society. It is also standard to offer the idea of kinship in one form or another as antidote to the loneliness and separation so many of us experience in our lives. Since kinship is often praised among us who follow Asatru, let’s remind ourselves of the reasons we consider it important, and, while we are at it, let us ask ourselves why alienation has triumphed in the first place.

First, what’s so great about identifying with our kin, and working harmoniously with them?

Kinship is efficient. Imagine the effects on the average taxpayer if people turned to family and tribe in hardship, rather than to the government! Welfare, make-work jobs designed solely to redistribute the wealth, food stamps – all could be slashed almost out of existence if there was a supporting network of kin ready to help their own. The clumsy bureaucracy which eats up our resources and hems us in with ever more regulation could be largely dismissed, and we would all benefit by better use of funds and by freedom from the petty bureaucrats who currently oppress us.

Kinship is natural. A need for it is programmed into our genes. Humans evolved under conditions that required an “in group” receiving the loyalty of the individuals comprising it. Nature wired us in such a way that we are happiest and most effective when we have such a kin bond with the people around us. Anything less, and we are not likely to find real satisfaction.

Finally, kinship is an integral part of Asatru. We believe that we are linked to our ancestors and our descendants in a special way that takes priority over lesser relationships, and our traditions tell us that mighty spiritual properties are transmitted down the family line from one generation to the next. These intangible properties are a priceless treasure carrying with them weighty duties, and much of the ethics of Asatru revolve around these obligations.

If kinship is such a fine thing, why do we live in an alienated society? We have been seduced by a universalist ethic that insists we call everyone kin, that we love anything that walks, crawls, or slithers. Nevertheless, we have less genuine experience of natural kinship than at any time in our history as a people. If all are special, none are special. “Universal brotherhood” paradoxically destroys the meaning of kinship by indiscriminately bestowing it on every passer-by. Again, we must ask why we ended up with such an unnatural ideology prevailing over our instinctive needs. The answer lies in one word – CONTROL.

Strong special bonds create social units which are harder to control, harder to coerce into conformity with the produce-and-consume system. Alienation, on the other hand, makes us dependent on the present order as it makes us powerless to change it, and encourages us to consume material goods. Any hint of tribal feeling, any stirring of a real social alternative, must be quietly sidetracked into avenues of expression that will not threaten the official ideology or its servants. Much of the counterculture (a very mixed bag indeed) functions as a sort of safety valve or even as a “deep freeze” where changing ideas, good and bad alike, can be rendered harmless. Things have to be kept under control. People mustn’t turn off their televisions or start talking to each other, for goodness sake. The whole artificial mess might come crashing down! While a restoration of kinship sounds fine to us who follow the gods, It’s a pretty threatening thing to some who like the current state of alienation. We, however, must resolutely press forward to make a better world for our people one in which we can be free to experience both the duties and the great benefits of kinship in Asatru.

from The Runestone Summer 1984 #48
by Stephen A. McNallen

If most people had to state the single trait most valued by the Norsemen, the majority would unhesitatingly name “courage”. And rightly so – for once, our stereotype does us justice. Courage was a thing of inestimable value not only to the Norse, but indeed to all the Germanic tribes and the peoples of ancient Europe generally. We are compelled to rank it very highly, or even first, among the values of our faith, Asatru.

Today we live in a world where the anti-hero has won (or rather has been given) a niche of prominence. The hard virtues have softened, and the stern code of courage and it’s fraternal twin, honor, are out of fashion. In modern society at large, people are simply not prepared for the trials soon to be visited upon us by history. All the more reason that we who follow the ways of our noble ancestors should be infused with these powerful traits. Let us begin acquiring courage by first understanding it.

Quite correctly, it is often pointed out that there is a difference between courage and fearlessness. The person who does not feel fear may be able to do great deeds, but only because he or she is insensitive or unimaginative. While this may be useful, it is not especially virtuous. The real accomplishment is to fully experience fear, yet to master it. We who opt for the well-rounded enhancement of all our powers in the desire to transcendence so common to our Folk must choose the latter, for we seek awareness and fulfillment of perception in addition to force and mastery. There is no shame in feeling fear. To know fear is human, and to thoroughly overcome it raises one to the realm of the gods.

Another truism is that courage comes not only in the physical variety, but manifests also as spiritual bravery. Again, some things are truisms because they’re true, and the code of Asatru would agree with this statement. We would take this somewhat superficial analysis a step further, however, and say that there is a substratum which underlies both kinds of courage, and that bedrock is the heroic will. Facing an enemy bayonet charge and facing the threat of losing one’s job because of one’s belief in Asatru have little in common – except that both instances test the individual’s mastery of self through a deliberate and unwavering will to take the honorable course.

In reading the sagas, we see such a willful adherence to this high standard of courage. Revenge for wrongdoing was an absolute necessity, because appearing soft and defenseless meant that one’s family and one’s self became targets for others who sensed an easy prey. However retribution was not exacted instantly, in the heart of passion. Rather, the emotional fury had to subside, so that the avenger could demonstrate self control and so that the deed could stand forth as an imperative of duty, not as an act of rashness. Courageous feats (rather of vengeance or not) were best if done deliberately and with calmness, not impulsively. It is worth noting that among the greatest heroes were men like Beowulf and the semi-legendary Ragnar Lodbrock. Neither died in the brashness of youthful impetuosity, but in the coolness of mature, tempered courage under the mastery of will.

All very well for those of such celestial stature, you may say – but what about those of us who lead ordinary lives yet wish to honor our gods and our ancestors.

A two-fold approach presents itself. First, since a powerful will underlies courage in all its forms, develop that will in not just one but in several, or many, aspects of your life. Self-mastery will bring with it courage. Secondly and more specifically, do the thing that you fear. One man’s successful use of this method is described in the book titled (of course) WILL by G. Gordon Liddy.

Courage, out of fashion or not, is one of the cornerstones of personal behavior for those who follow our gods. We may not all be courageous – or, more likely, we have some measure of courage, but not all we’d like. Whatever our failings or our strengths, it is our duty to try – courageously! – to develop this value so praised by our forebearers.

from The Runestone Winter 1983 #46
by Stephen A. McNallen

The idea that freedom is better than slavery is so commonly accepted that there would seem to be little more we could say. Why restate the obvious? At this point in Odinist literature, most articles about freedom resort to the staple technique of praising the liberty-loving ways of our ancestors, surveying our history for appropriate documentation, and affirming our own determination to maintain that freedom. While that approach is laudable and necessary, let us try to get beyond that stage and really look at the issue of freedom in our society.

For the fact is, we are not free. The stark liberty of our forebearers is – for almost all of us – is dead. We have the illusion of living in a free society because we continually confuse the FACT of control with the MEANS by which control is maintained. To see things as they are, we must learn to make that distinction.

First let us consider control itself. Odinists believe that there is an inherent human nature, an inborn set of tentacles which shape our values, motives, and actions. Left to develop organically, in accordance with our nature as a people, we would evolve a social system that would tend not to make us act contrary to our natures or impel us to do things we would not do if left to ourselves. In short we would be free members of the Folk. A controlled, “unfree” society is one where people are made to do things which do run contrary to their own nature. This conditioning constitutes the kind of slavery referred to in the title of this article, and is antithetical to freedom as we define it. Slavery, or non-freedom is an evil in itself, regardless of the conditions which bring it about or the means used to enforce it.

Those means are traditionally secret police, rigged elections, and slave labor camps. Such methods are crude and ugly, but they are not the essence of totalitarianism they are simply the instruments which sustain it. Slavery maintained by any other means is still slavery. The most pleasant tools of social control do not change the real nature of the totalitarian system, nor do they make it more morally justified.

Today in the so-called “Free World”, we are continually manipulated in violation of our own natures, to ends not consistent with our own innate tendencies or our ultimate best interests. This control permeates our society and is in many ways as absolute as any formal dictatorship. The means of control, however, are subtle and even sweet. While openly totalitarian systems use harsh and obvious devices such as torture and labor camps to influence behavior, the trick in the industrialized West is to shape the values, attitudes, desires and tastes from which behavior springs – thus forming invisible bonds which control humans as surely as the crueler ones, but with less chance of revolt, for the chains are comfortable. Our “needs” are shaped by media and advertising. When the system meets these contrived needs we feel grateful, and thus remain loyal to the whole set-up. We are effectively drugged by superfluous consumer goods and pacifying, bovine philosophy. Real choice – that in accordance with our healthy, life-and folk affirming instincts – is strongly suppressed. True freedom of choice becomes an illusion that the consumerist/universalist state fosters to hide the fact that we are wearing chains. It is all-important to remember that the fact of totalitarianism is not changed by the superficially human means of control. By our earlier definition we are slaves.

This doesn’t mean I’d just as soon live in China or Soviet Russia. To trot the love-it-or-leave-it argument is to miss the point. Life is better here, and few of us would trade places with anyone in the Gulag. But that doesn’t mean we are really free here, or that we live in a healthy society, it just means the methods of control are more bearable.

With each T.V. commercial urging us to eat junk food or to purchase gadgets for which artificial appetite has been created, we are being exploited. With each news story slanted to bolster a suicidal foreign policy, our slavery is made manifest. Every time we walk into a store where Muzak makes us more receptive to buying, we are being brainwashed. Every magazine article, or every governmental decree that lessens the will of our people to resist their continued dispossession, is a totalitarian act. In each case, a life-affirming instinct of our Folk is being purposely and deliberately denied – not by physical force, though that option is used when other methods fail – but by pressure of conformity, or the reassurance of buzz words, or by clever subliminal techniques.

So how do we get free?

First, we have to realize we are unfree. Once that fact sinks in, we see through the social mirage and perceive the mechanisms which keep us enthralled. We see television commercials and T.V. programming for what they are and pull the plug. We realize that Macy’s and the automobile companies and countless other establishments are artificially creating needs so they can sell their stuff, and we quit buying it. We analyze the newspapers enough to know how the media masters want us to react, and we fail to respond as they’d like. But all of this represents only the first tottering steps toward personal freedom. Ultimately, we must fashion a new and better society, one in keeping with the inborn aspirations and Truest instincts of our Folk.

By Stephen A. McNallen
from The Runestone: Winter 1982 #42

One of the most important accomplishments of the Althing Three was the selection of the Raido rune, as the official symbol of the Asatru Free Assembly. When used by us in this role, it will be portrayed as a blood-red rune on a black background.

After Althing Two, a committee had been set up to select such a logo for the A.F.A. Many designs were submitted – a wide array spanning sunwheels, swastikas, runes, Thor’s Hammers, and many others. All were considered carefully, but the final choice was between the Raido and another design (ah excellent glyph which henceforth will be used to represent I.R.S.A., the Institute of Runic Studies, Asatru). The ultimate design was made by a vote of those attending Althing Three.

Raido is a rune of weighty significance. In ancient times, it stood for the religion of Asatru itself. Today, it is, as Edred puts it, “a symbol of the way back to right, through the conscious efforts of asatruar to recover the essence of the primal order.” A better description of the role of the A.F.A. would be hard to find.

This rune possesses a great Idea of what David James terms “density” – that is, a great many other runes are contained within its form. One of the obvious ones is Wunjo , a wunjo, which carries meanings of fellowship, binding, the clan or tribe, and the relation­ships of beings descended from a common source. Another is Ansuz , ansuz. Associated with this rune is the idea of the receiver – container/transformer – expression of spiritual power and knowledge. It also is the magical ancestral might handed down genetically from one generation to the next. Finally, it is the rune of the god Odin himself.

If we superimpose Wunjo and Ansuz, laying them neatly one over the other, we get Raido with all its intense meaning. While there are other runes contained in Raido, this fact alone would weigh heavily in its favor as a choice for our symbol.

Still another way of looking at it is to consider that if Wunjo is the idea of the clan and togetherness – a rune representing -our Folk or people – then Raido is a “walking” or dynamic form of that rune. In other words, the Folk is on the march!

A raido banner was made and Formally presented at the Althing. Others are being presented to all kindreds of the A.F.A., and we will be making this logo available in various forms to our members and supporters. 

from The Runestone Spring 1982 #39

Only in a world as rotten and degenerate as the one
in-which we live would it be necessary to state the obvious. Yet there are those who say that it is better to be weak than to be strong, even those who say that to be’strong is to be evil and that to be weak, somehow, is to be virtuous.  Odinists are not counted among that number! 

The prophets of weakness are not always forthright in proclaiming their message. It may be hidden beneath banners
of pacifism or in the curbing of even normal childhood aggressions or in the smirking pride that some few actually take in their lack of physical capability. In its muted form the worship of weakness finds its purest expression in personalities who seek to pull down all greatness, all strength, all the exceptional elite who would rise above the herd. The sickness does not discriminate on the basis of sex; “traditional” women who, unlike their sisters in the sagas, are told that they are weak and incapable, carry it in their breasts. Likewise men who use the “it’s okay to cry” cop-out and who eschew anything remotely related to classical male strengths are also badly contaminated by the virus . The philosophy of weakness naturally thrives in a decaying social body; after all, it’s easy to be weak – until you have to compete with the strong.

Where did all this start? There have always been the weak. But weakness as a virtue seems to be strongly linked with the coming of Christianity. Obviously. not all who profess Christianity are, or were, weak. Christ may or may not have been the pallid peace-monger modern liberals worship, but he does seem
to have had a touch of masochism. Anyone who could make the famous statement about turning the other cheek is – far from being some enlightened guru – a person badly out of touch with their own instincts and hence cut off form wisdom, Many modern Christians seem to suffer from the same lack of wholeness. The Spiritually lifeless wights who forgive monsters who have murdered and mutilated their own sons and daughters, and who do so in the name of Jesus, are an extreme example. More common are stalwarts in their daily lives, but who excuse their lack; of action at times of crisis by appealing to Christian love,
or Christian charity or Christian tolerance.

Noted Christian writer Malcolm Muggeridge was expressing
a many-leveled opinion when he said that:
“We are henceforth_(since the crucifixion) to worship defeat, not victory; failure, not success; surrender, not defiance; deprivation, not satiety; weakness, not strength.”

More to our liking were the fiery Crusaders who; for all their faults and follies, were still untamed. The primal instincts of the Northern European soul lived. in them despite, not because of their Christianity.They were still Nietzsche’s
“blond beasts”, their lips called out to Jesus but Odin had their hearts. 

But why settle for such a compromise? Odinists can look back on a long line of heroes and warriors who were proud of their strength, not ashamed of it. Feats of physical strength abound in the old sagas • the fantastic was the ideal which the common man sought to emulate in real life. Spiritual strength was honored every bit. as much as might of limb. Perseverance, power of will, total control and coolness in the face of danger and death · all of these virtues were praised, and all exemplify a kind of strength. 

Look at the very gods of Odinism, Not_one is a weakling. Mighty Thor is especially a god of strength. His sheer physical prowess is an inspiration to all who would reject weakness. Odin epitomizes another sort of strength, that of the will and the spirit.
Likewise, modern Odinists know that strength is never out dated. Most people accept the illusion that there is something out there called”civilization” • that the police will protect us from all harm · that physical strength and the spiritual strength to wield it are no longer necessary. But ask anyone who has been mugged or raped. Some victims can’t reply;they’re dead.
Odinists know that strength is better than weakness.
Strength doesn’t mean arrogance or crudity, in fact, only the strong can really afford to be gentle. Strength means life and health. Strength means fulfillment of our potential, individually and collectively. To be strong is to be vibrant, wholly alive, on the very cutting edge of life. Why settle for less?
Let the Malcolm Muggeridges of the world worship weakness and hate all that is healthy and life•giving. Odinists, true to .themselves, their ancestors, and their own instincts ,will respond to life’s challenges and wax from strength to strength. We know that, in truth, the strong will inherit the Earth – we, and our descendants, will be strong!

I am excited to announce Michael Foley of Louisiana has stepped up to folkbuild for the AFA’s South Central region. This region has a ton of potential and we are very eager to watch our South Central family grow and thrive. Thank you Michael for stepping up, I am sure great things are in store.

Hail AFA South Central!
Hail Michael Foley!

Matthew D. Flavel
Alsherjargothi,
Asatru Folk Assembly

This month, we raise a horn to the Folkmother Else Christensen. As a young girl growing up in Denmark, she felt the call of our ancient ways. As a young woman, she became interested in the future of her folk.  Else worked to lay the groundwork for a society that she believed would act in the best interest of her people.  This would lead to many hardships while living in Europe during the early 20th century.  Else found herself, her husband, and many peers under harsh scrutiny.  This scrutiny then lead to personal hardship, including arrests.

Else carried her goals and dreams for her people across the ocean when she and her husband left Europe for Canada.  There she encountered the works of Alexander Rudd Mills.  From these works, she began to focus on the return of the Germanic pantheon to the hearts of the European peoples. She found further inspiration in the works of Francis Yockey and Oswald Spengler.  While she agreed with their consensus that the European folk-soul was in a state of disrepair and decline, Else also believed that there was hope to be found.   This hope was in the practice of Odinism.  The very roots of this faith, she believed, were nestled with the spiritual DNA of the people themselves, and were part of their natural state.

In 1969, this vision blossomed into the founding of the Odinist Fellowship. This organization began to connect more and more followers of the old ways together, building a network across the globe. Else reached out to those in prison, and provided them with the materials to build themselves. She is a vital part of what we have built ourselves up to today.  It would be difficult to imagine what we would be left to work with if not for her unrelenting perseverance.

Else died in 2005, working to build the Folk until the very end. Her legacy is in the communities that we have, the networks, and the Folk.

Hail Else Christensen!

Gythia Anna Funk

From The Runestone Winter 1980

WHY YOU SHOULD CONTRIBUTE TO THE AFA LAND FUND ••••••

We Northern Europeans are a practical bunch. We can handle abstractions with ease, but we are most at home in the material world, the world of doing

as well as of thinking–hence our strong sense of history, which deals in things and places as well as in ideas.

Asatru, in this country as elsewhere, has ideas. We have people who accept those ideas. But now we need a place–the boden to match our blut, so to speak. In a broader sense we have our local regions and our European homelands, but we need something more specific, something more identifiable–a concrete locus in space-time.

We need a modern-day equivalent to the ancient holy site of Uppsala. Not a carefully preserved monument, rifled by archaeologists and powdered with the dust from the tourists’ clumsy feet, but rather a living, vital religious center –Uppsala as it was a thousand years ago, not as it is today.

We can have it, with your help.

A proper parcel of land could serve all of us as a special center for Asatru. On it we could hold all our future Althings, as well as lesser seminars and meetings. We can teach our children there, in summer camps where they can escape the physical. and spiritual poison of the city. Both the Varangian Guard and People of the Lord and Lady would have the special places they need for their members. The uses of this land could be manifold, extending our capabilities, broadening our horizons, and enriching our faith.

With .each and every issue we have shown that we mean business. The Runestone grows longer and more professional in appearance. Subscriptions continue to climb. People from. all around the-country write us, wanting to form kindreds of the AFA. Make no mistake, we are here to stay! Your trust placed in us will not be disappointed. This is an important project–for you, for Asatru. Let’s all pull together to make it work.