Ulfsverd Kindred - Southern Indiana

05/18/2025

🔥 Announcing the Rise of Ulfsverd 🔥

The winds of change have carried us to a new beginning. Formerly known as Ravengaard Utah, we now stand united as Ulfsverd, rooted in the traditions of Norse honor and kinship. We have forged a new path and now call **Southern Indiana** our stronghold.

🌙 **Who We Are**
Seekers of wisdom, warriors of spirit, protectors of kin. Bound by the ancient ways, strengthened by the legacy of our Ancestors.

⚔️ **Our New Home**
Southern Indiana is now our gathering place, where we honor the gods, uphold our traditions, and build the bonds of true kin.

🔱 **Our Oath**
We stand unwavering in our devotion to our ancestors, and the wisdom of the gods. Honor and unity guide our path.

Join us as we embrace this new chapter.

Hail Ulfsverd!

12/13/2022

REG. (AGAIN…) YULE AND CHRISTMAS
Sorting facts from fantasy (again…)
I have no problem with people extrapolating and reinterpreting the various aspects of the Yule/Christmas celebration. Some of our traditions do indeed have Pre-Christian roots. However, it is important to find the correct ones and not invent connections that are not there. Correlation does not imply causation. It might hint toward causation, but that is a dangerous field to venture into. Here are some main pointers:
1) The church has never claimed to know Jesus’ birthday. It was sort of bundled in with a lot of other holidays in the quiet midwinter season. The reason is also a cryptic line in John 3:30 where John the Baptist says: “He must increase, but I must decrease”. This was in reference to John foreseeing his own death, and the coming of Jesus. It also, symbolically, was linked to the solstices – the diminishing, then increasing days. The church did not “steal” this day. It just lumped it in. No church has Christmas as a birthday. It is a birth celebration.
2) The Norse Yule was in January and was not a solstice celebration. It marked the halfway point of winter. In Scandinavia. winter still runs from mid-October to mid-April, so mid-January is halfway. Around 950, king Håkon the Good (the first Christian king of Norway) made a compromise with the chieftain to move the Yule celebration up two-three weeks to correspond with the Christian celebration.
3) Father Christmas/Santa Claus DID NOT originate in the Norse area. This is a strange but regretfully often repeated meme. But it is not correct. There is no Santa in Scandinavia. There has never been a Santa in Scandinavia. A character like that cannot emerge out of something that does not exist. Santa/Sinterklaas is a German/Swiss/Dutch/English/American invention, whose age we do not know. Yes, the figure of Sinterklaas has elements of pre-Christian origins, but it is very difficult to pinpoint which.
4) The “eight legs of Sleipnir” has got nothing to do with reindeer. Period. Explaining the absurdity of that claim could be done over pages. The sled, reindeer, elves, and whatnot are recent inventions. We have ABSOLUTELY NO record, source material or sensible correlation of anything of the kind. It is modern, and it is American. It is not a European tradition at all. Correlation is not causation. Originally, there was one reindeer. Clement Clarke Moore first expanded this to six, then eight. And the North Pole? Still Clement Clarke Moore in 1823. End the elves? The same. This is a fairly modern and fictional account. It is not based on any source at all. Clement Clarke Moore was a theologian and real estate developer who liked to make up stories for his many children. It is like claiming “A Christmas Carol” by Dickens is some sort of retelling of an ancient (although non-existent) story of “ghosts from Valhalla”. No one would do that.
5) Jólabukk and straw goat is newer tradition in Scandinavia. It is not from Norse times, and it has got nothing to do with Thor. If it is an ancient retelling, it is most likely Slavic and was imported to Scandinavia in the 1600s.
6) Mistletoe is a Celtic thing. It has got nothing to do with Balder. The one mention of mistletoe in our sources is most assuredly a misinterpretation, as the story was written in Iceland – where there has never been any mistletoe. As for that, ‘mistletoe’ is not even the word used.
7) Then the tree… We do not know its origin. It may be Baltic, as that is where it seems to have developed into its modern form. However, the first reference we have is from Portugal in the 1400s. Yes, the English-speaking and Scandinavian world got this from today’s Germany, but the earliest German reference is from the 1500s. There is no reference to this beyond that. To associate this with anything Norse leave a huge gap with nothing at all.
Correlation does not imply causation. As easy as that. It is doing the Norse mythology a disservice to propagate this nonsense. There are people who take an academic and historical interest in these topics, and there are people who find spiritual solace in it. To twist and construct stories based on no evidence at all, is degrading and unnecessary. Let us embrace what is genuinely Norse instead. This “Christmas is Norse” makes no sense at all.-- Håkon B. Vinje

05/10/2022

04/27/2022

Why do so many celebrate a holy day named after a saint who persecuted Heathenry, burnt down sacred groves and built churches in their place, and even was in favor of military expeditions killing Heathens who did not convert? There is so much mis-information on the www in every subject, from COVID vaccines to bird flu to religion. So how is it today so many people celebrate Walpurga, a person who dedicated her life to destroying Heathenry in favor of a monotheistic faith?
Dr. Andreas E. Zautner: “If we browse the internet for holidays of the Germanic people, we mainly find pages presenting an octopartite year circle, the so-called ‘eight-spoked wheel of the year’ based on the solstices, the equinoxes, and four moon feasts in between. This year circle has absolutely no historical basis. Although it is very popular in neopagan circles, especially within Wicca and eclectic Asatru, there is no verified evidence for such a year circle as basis for the seasonal festivities. The same is true for the Celtic feasts within the year circle, because the Gauls too, used a lunisolar calendar as we know for the examples of Coligny and Villards d’Heria (Olmstedt, 1992). If one has internalized such ideas, one should get rid of them immediately!” [Dr. Andreas E Zautner, “The Lunisolar Calendar of the Germanic Peoples”, P.83]

Why do so many celebrate a holy day named after a saint who persecuted Heathenry? Background: Richard the Pilgrim is also known as “St. Richard of Wessex." Richard married Winna, the sister of Saint Boniface. Saint Boniface is famous for cutting down Thor’s Oak, the holy place of the Chatti, whi...

01/16/2022

Let's learn a word today. Today's word is Níðing (Nithing) a Nithing was a term for a social stigma implying the loss of honour and the status of a villain. Acts of Severe misdeeds were perjury deeds, especially if they had been committed insidiously and in secret. Such perpetrators were Nithings, despicable beings. Their perjury deeds included: Murder, theft, nightly arson, as well as any deeds that harmed the kinship's legally protected rights (treason, deserting, deserting from the army, resisting to fight in a war, and perversion). Furthermore these deeds included any crimes offending the deities, such as breaking a special peace treaty (for example thing peace, armistice, security of the ceremony places and buildings, or a special festivity peace), trespass, defilement of graves, sorcery, finally all perjury deeds indicating moral degeneration, such as Oathbreaking, and acts of cowardness.

04/26/2021

There are three major blots a year in the Historical Heathen Calendar. The next major blot is April 26th at sundown, called “Sigrblot.” This blot was done historically on the full moon of Goamanuthr on the pre-christian Heathen Calendar. For those Old Ways Heathens keeping the historical Heathen Holidays, I hope you have an amazing Sigrblot.

There are several saga passages that discuss the three major blots a year. Here are my two favorite, followed by the saga reference to the Goa Full Moon, followed by one of my research articles on Sigrblot:

“Odin established the same law in his land that had been in force in Asaland… On winter day (first day of winter) there should be blot for a good year, and in the middle of winter for a good crop; and the third blot should be on summer day, a Victory-blot.” (Ynglinga Saga, ch 8)

"As long as heathendom lasted he was wont to hold three blood offerings: one on Winter Nights, a second at mid-Winter, and the third at the start of summer. But when he became a Christian he kept up in the same way with the feasts: In the autumn he had a great feast of friends, then in winter a Yule Feast, when he bade many men come to him again, and the third he had at P***a, when he had also a great crowd of guests." (Saga of St. Olav, ch 117).

Heimskringla Olaf’s Saga Helga 77 “In Sweden there was an age-old custom whilst they were still heathen that there should be a blot in Upsala during Goa moon. Then they would blot for peace and victory for their king. People from all over Sweden were to resort there.”

(PS- Sigurblot means “victory blot.”)

Today I “googled” the term “sigurblot”. Four of the first seven links were links to my own blogs or my own published books on Google Books. Three of the other seven are about Ásatrúarfélagið, which is Iceland’s Asatru organization. If I were to google the term “Ostara” the dis-info...

04/22/2021

Posting this again, because now its true.

04/20/2021

UNPOPULAR TOPIC BUT IT NEEDS TO DISCUSSED

ILL-THOUGHT RECORD: «Symbols such as Ægishjálmur and Vegvísir, or the rest of the Icelandic magical staves, represent a native Scandinavian tradition that reaches to the Viking Age.»

The above statement is wrong and harmful.

1. The Icelandic magical staves, including Ægishjálmur and Vegvísir, come from Icelandic grimoires (icel. galdrabækr) dated for the 16-19th century. In fact, there are mentions of galdrabækr from late middle ages, but none such a book did survive. Contents of Icelandic grimoires clearly reveal their attachment to pan-European occultic literature, despite the addition of some antiquarian or folk Icelandic themes (Davies:31).

2. European grimoires are based on the tradition of “The Key of Solomon” (lat. Clavis/Clavicula Salomonis), which moved to European ground the magic known from the Byzantine treatise of Hygromanteia also known as “The Magical Treatise of Solomon” (Skinner [in:] Marathakis:12). It comes from a mixture of Middle Eastern culture (mainly Jewish), Classical and Christian.

3. Even a brief look at the Hygromanteia and “The Key of Solomon” makes it easy to notice, that symbols contained there are very similar or almost identical to those of the Icelandic Grimoires, including Ægishjálmur and Vegvísir (e.g. Marathakis:176; Peterson:97; Mathers:64-65). It makes it clear that Icelandic staves are just a branch of Mediterranean magic tradition, not the native Scandinavian one.

REFERENCES
O. Davies, “Grimoires: A History Of Magic Books”, Oxford University Press, 2009.
S. Flowers, “The Galdrabók: An Icelandic Grimoire”, Samuel Weiser: York Beach, 1989.
S. Liddell MacGregor Mathers, “The Key of Solomon the King”, London, 1889:
< https://archive.org/details/b24884431 >.
I. Marathakis (Trans. & Ed.), “The Magical Treatise of Solomon, or Hygromanteia”, Fore. S. Skinner, Golden Hoard Press, 2011.
J. H. Peterson (Ed.), “The Lesser Key of Solomon: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis”, Weisser Books, 2001.
M. Rafnsson (Ed.), “Tvær galdraskræður: Two Icelandic Books of Magic”, Strandagaldur, 2008.

WORTH READING
https://www.brutenorse.com/blog/2018/5/14/the-gishjalmur

04/04/2020

Today I “googled” the term “sigurblot”. Four of the first seven links were links to my own blogs or my own published books on Google Books. Three of the other seven are about Ásatrúarfélagið, which is Iceland’s Asatru organization. If I were to google the term “Ostara” the dis-information on the world wide web is remarkable, and outright embarrassing. There are only two historical references to Eostre or Ostar. Both of these references call Eostre or Ostar a moon, specifically the fourth moon of the year. One of these, is the Anglish Heathen calendar recorded by Bede in De Temporum Ratione, chapter 15, written in the precise year 725 AD. Eostre is a moon that corresponds roughly to the modern fixed day solar month April, but obviously never corresponds exactly. Ostar Manod is the fourth moon of the year on the Heathen Frankish Calendar recorded by Einhard in his Vita Karoli Magni Chapter 29 written circa 830 AD. These are the only two historical occurrences of the word “Eostre” or “Ostar.” The Iceland Althing recorded the Norwegian Heathen Calendar (a Christianized one) circa the year 930 AD. Of course, zero Norse (Norwegian) moons were called “Eostre” or “Ostar.” Yet this is one of modern Asatru’s two biggest holidays. Eostre or Ostar is not found in any of the 700 plus Norse Sagas and Poems, nor in the Prose and Poetic Eddas.
Two references to “Ostar.” Yet on Asatru websites you will see claims that “Ostara” is a historical Norse holiday, left and right, here and there, up and down, and all around. Ostara is a mis-spelling to boot, based off Jakob Grimm in the 19th century who was “reconstructing” the Old High German name for “Easter.” This is kinda humorous of course, as Einhard was a Frank, and the Franks lived in what is now modern Belgium and central Germany, i.e. Frankfurt. Ostar is the obvious Old High German name which Einhard a Frank left us in one of the two historical sources I mentioned above. So where does “Ostara” come from in modern Asatru?

Most people argue that Wikipedia is not the best internet web-source. But Wikipedia is 100% correct on where “Ostara” comes from, and how it came into Asatru. It documents this extremely well quoting published books by Asatru leaders, well footnoted. It comes from the Wiccan Wheel of the Year. Where does the Wiccan Wheel of the Year come from? In the 1960s, an American Witch and poet named Aidan Kelly went looking for Wiccan sabbat names more interesting than Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Winter Solstice, and Autumn Equinox. He ended up adopting Ostara for the Vernal Equinox, Yule for the Winter Solstice, and Mabon (as a reference to Mabon ap Modron, a character from Welsh mythology, not even a holiday in Celtic Paganism) for the Autumnal Equinox. "Wicca" is a modern word based on the Old English word for "Witch." Aidan A. Kelly (born October 22, 1940) is an American academic, poet and influential figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Having developed his own branch of the faith, the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn, during the 1960s. He has also published academic work studying the early development of Gardnerian Wiccan liturgy, primarily through his controversial 1991 book Crafting the Art of Magic.

Wikipedia is 100% correct in its article called “Heathen Holidays”, that the founders of American Asatru took the Wiccan Wheel of the Year Sabbats and has been passing it off as the historical calendar of Norse Heathen peoples.
I often compare Catholicism to Asatru. Hear me out. When a lie or dis-information is told long enough and often enough, it becomes the "truth." Prayer to Mary and Prayer to Saints is clearly the opposite of New Testament teaching, where Jesus taught the disciples to pray to the Father in his name. That is right, pray to the father. The “Our Father” prayer starts out with “Our Father.” But despite clear biblical teaching, a lie was told by monks, priests, bishops, and Popes for so long, it became a “fact”, prayer to Mary and saints became catholic orthodox teaching, and to question it was “heretical.” If I were to tell the average catholic who prays to Mary daily that it is not a teaching in the New Testament, I would get a harsh response. Asatru has taught the Wiccan Wheel of the Year for so long, that as soon as someone questions it, they receive a harsh response, as Ostara celebrated on the Vernal Equinox has become Asatru Orthodoxy. It literally has. If one were to argue against this on say a page, one would be accused of teaching “dogma” and orthodoxy. This of course is “odd” because Asatruar claim they do not follow any orthodoxy. By calling a person "monotheistic" or "preaching orthodoxy" who questions their ways, implies (and proves) that those who are complaining about the historical teaching presented feel that their own orthodoxy is being called into question. And by the way, 100% of Asatru pages and websites show the Wiccan Wheel as their calendar. (Only the Troth mentions Sigurblot anywhere). When uniformity in Asatru happens (and Asatru is pretty damn uniform) then orthodoxy happens. For those who want the Old Ways then, most often Asatruar ask us to leave due to our questioning their orthodoxy.

https://www.aldsidu.com/post/the-wiccanization-of-asatru-ostara-vs-historical-pre-christian-sigurblot