Brute Norse

Latest articles

Jan 28, 2019

The Alchemy of Fire: Cremating the Dead in Ancient Scandinavia

Jan 28, 2019

Jan 28, 2019

Dec 14, 2018

Brute Norse Podcast ep. 15: Pagan Christmas

Dec 14, 2018

Dec 14, 2018

Nov 30, 2018

Barbarian Beverages: The Bitter Viking

Nov 30, 2018

Nov 30, 2018

Nov 29, 2018

Brute Norse Podcast Ep. 14: The Archaeology of Evil Dead

Nov 29, 2018

Nov 29, 2018

Nov 15, 2018

Clubbing Solomon’s Seal: The Occult Roots of the Ægishjálmur

Nov 15, 2018

Nov 15, 2018

Oct 25, 2018

Fårikål: An Edible Cultural History of Norway

Oct 25, 2018

Oct 25, 2018

Oct 9, 2018

A Migration Era Puzzle from Evebø in Norway

Oct 9, 2018

Oct 9, 2018

The Fourth Spell: A Hymn to the God of Secrets

Oct 3, 2018

The Fourth Spell: A Hymn to the God of Secrets

Oct 3, 2018

Oct 3, 2018

Sep 24, 2018

The Flying Rowan, Some Ethnobotanical Notes on a Magical Tree

Sep 24, 2018

Sep 24, 2018

Sep 22, 2018

Brute Norse Podcast Ep. 13: Supernatural Islands and the Folks that Live There

Sep 22, 2018

Sep 22, 2018

Thor at the court of Utgarda-Loki: a lesson in Trollish tactics by Jens Bjørneboe (1955)

Sep 4, 2018

Thor at the court of Utgarda-Loki: a lesson in Trollish tactics by Jens Bjørneboe (1955)

Sep 4, 2018

Sep 4, 2018

Aug 21, 2018

"A Congo Village for Western Norwegians": Njardarheimr in Gudvangen

Aug 21, 2018

Aug 21, 2018

Aug 12, 2018

"To the Unknown God", Friedrich Nietzsche (1864)

Aug 12, 2018

Aug 12, 2018

Jul 30, 2018

Let the Bodies Hit the Bog! (Wetland Sacrifice pt. II): The Brute Norse Podcast ep. 12

Jul 30, 2018

Jul 30, 2018

Jul 21, 2018

Summers Are For Mead Spritzers: A Scandifuturist Cocktail Manifesto

Jul 21, 2018

Jul 21, 2018

BRUTE NORSE

Is an out of the box blog exploring the legacy of Ancient and Medieval Scandinavia, walking backwards into the future.

Latest from /The Fool’s Mirror/:

Featured

Feb 16, 2019

On the Emancipation of the Android

Feb 16, 2019

Feb 16, 2019

Feb 7, 2019

Along Ancient Future Beaches

Feb 7, 2019

Feb 7, 2019

Jan 29, 2019

tidarbrot.tif // On the Brink of a Novel Perception of Time?

Jan 29, 2019

Jan 29, 2019

Brute Norse

An out of the box blog tracing the legacy of ancient and medieval Scandinavia, by Old Norse philologist Eirik Storesund.

Worm road auguries

"If one conflates the concept of “nobility” with nonviolence, past peoples were certainly not the noble savages we like to imagine they were. Not my ancestors, yours, nor the ancestors of other folks.
Historical populations and ethnic groups subjected to atrocities by industrialized nations in recent memory, are themselves nerfed down for the sake of convenience, forgetting that they — like many, probably most historical, vigilant, self-advocating populations, had a relationship to violence few decent people today would be willing to accept. But that measure of decency is relative." ON THE EMANCIPATION OF THE ANDROID. New post on the Brute Norse sub-blog, /The Fool’s Mirror/
#scandifuturism #paganism #retrofuturism #artificialintelligence #transhumanism

“Along Ancient Future Beaches”. New post up on The Fool’s Mirror, Brutenorse.com

$Cremation was common in Bronze and Iron Age Scandinavia. The average human male yields bones weighing more than three kilograms after burning. In all but a few cases these burials contain only a small fraction of the bones we should expect from a normal cremation, down to just a few grams. So what did they do to the rest? And just how effective were the funerary customs of prehistoric Scandinavia on a scale from fine dust to burnt lasagna? Find out on BruteNorse.com #archaeology #eschatology #funerary #burial #cremation #death #transformation #alchemy #smelting #folkreligion #ritual #paganism #heathenry #blacksmithing #metalworking #germanic #indoeuropean #ironage #bronzeage$

A Note on Óðr. Introducing The Fool’s Mirror, an esoteric sub-blog of Brute Norse where I publish shorter bits and subjective notes that don’t quite fit on the main site. Find it on BruteNorse.com

Hrímfaxi he is called, who draws night over the benign gods. The froth of his bit he fells every morning, that’s the source of the dew in the dales.
— Vafþrúðnismál

Ojizō-sama, a deity of the underworld and patron of dead, aborted, and unborn children. It is traditionally believed that dead children, quite pragmatically, were unable to undertake the journey of the afterlife and were therefore stuck in the hells bu default. This was due to the fact that their short lives didn’t give them a chance to make up for the suffering brought into the world by their existence.
Jizō absolves them of that karmic debt and usual strains of hell (piling stones along the riverbank etc.) and helps the children hide from demonic entities that roam the hells and educate them in know-how required for the “three crossing”s of the Sanzu River.

The motif of afterlife journeys and intraversible underwordly rivers are famous throughout world mythologies. Norse mythology has a whole bumch, and the motif of underworldly aquatic suffering is adressed in The Prophecy of the Seeress, where adulterers and murderers and swearers of false oaths are said to wade in heavy streams.

Trollish encroachment

Worm road auguries

"If one conflates the concept of “nobility” with nonviolence, past peoples were certainly not the noble savages we like to imagine they were. Not my ancestors, yours, nor the ancestors of other folks.
Historical populations and ethnic groups subjected to atrocities by industrialized nations in recent memory, are themselves nerfed down for the sake of convenience, forgetting that they — like many, probably most historical, vigilant, self-advocating populations, had a relationship to violence few decent people today would be willing to accept. But that measure of decency is relative." ON THE EMANCIPATION OF THE ANDROID. New post on the Brute Norse sub-blog, /The Fool’s Mirror/
#scandifuturism #paganism #retrofuturism #artificialintelligence #transhumanism

“Along Ancient Future Beaches”. New post up on The Fool’s Mirror, Brutenorse.com

$Cremation was common in Bronze and Iron Age Scandinavia. The average human male yields bones weighing more than three kilograms after burning. In all but a few cases these burials contain only a small fraction of the bones we should expect from a normal cremation, down to just a few grams. So what did they do to the rest? And just how effective were the funerary customs of prehistoric Scandinavia on a scale from fine dust to burnt lasagna? Find out on BruteNorse.com #archaeology #eschatology #funerary #burial #cremation #death #transformation #alchemy #smelting #folkreligion #ritual #paganism #heathenry #blacksmithing #metalworking #germanic #indoeuropean #ironage #bronzeage$ A Note on Óðr. Introducing The Fool’s Mirror, an esoteric sub-blog of Brute Norse where I publish shorter bits and subjective notes that don’t quite fit on the main site. Find it on BruteNorse.com

A Note on Óðr. Introducing The Fool’s Mirror, an esoteric sub-blog of Brute Norse where I publish shorter bits and subjective notes that don’t quite fit on the main site. Find it on BruteNorse.com

Hrímfaxi he is called, who draws night over the benign gods. The froth of his bit he fells every morning, that’s the source of the dew in the dales.
— Vafþrúðnismál

Ojizō-sama, a deity of the underworld and patron of dead, aborted, and unborn children. It is traditionally believed that dead children, quite pragmatically, were unable to undertake the journey of the afterlife and were therefore stuck in the hells bu default. This was due to the fact that their short lives didn’t give them a chance to make up for the suffering brought into the world by their existence.
Jizō absolves them of that karmic debt and usual strains of hell (piling stones along the riverbank etc.) and helps the children hide from demonic entities that roam the hells and educate them in know-how required for the “three crossing”s of the Sanzu River.

The motif of afterlife journeys and intraversible underwordly rivers are famous throughout world mythologies. Norse mythology has a whole bumch, and the motif of underworldly aquatic suffering is adressed in The Prophecy of the Seeress, where adulterers and murderers and swearers of false oaths are said to wade in heavy streams.

Trollish encroachment