In keeping with the tradition of telling ghostly stories on Yule, here is a Xmas special about Odinic sacrifices.

https://youtu.be/vcZyYgbdY9A?feature=shared

A new mini-doc demonstrating the clearly pagan origin of the annual drowning of the Earl of Rone in Combe Martin. I went to film the event itself and I also show all the parallel customs from Ukraine, Russia, Poland, India etc. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/mZ-INj5xqA4

Thor is a Viking god who was mainly worshipped in Scandinavia but also in Britain. There are sacred cult sites of Thor or Thunor in the UK, and the Norse god of thunder also shows up in some local folklore. This short film looks at a couple of interesting examples from Derbyshire and Surrey.

https://youtu.be/_B76Wkk_wxM

Passing through rituals involving holes in stones and trees are widespread in Europe and beyond and are related to rituals that involve looking through a hole to see spirits. In this video we look at the passing through rituals associated with megalithic structures in Britain and Ireland, and the arboreal passing through rituals associated with oak and ash trees all over Europe, known as träddragning in Nordic countries. We also look at the related customs of looking through holes among the Sami and the Welsh, the Odinic ritual of looking through an arm akimbo as described in the Viking saga of King Hrólfr Kraki, and at the hagstone or adderstone tradition from Britain and the associated magical practices.

Efa

Additional art by:

Thomas Cormack - Elf blot

Christian Sloan Hall - Odin

Graman Folcwald - Anglo-Saxon burial

Christopher Steininger - Odin

Camden, W., ‘Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland’ (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610) Copyright 2004 by Dana F. Sutton.Sources:

Campbell, J. G., ‘Witchcraft & second sight in the Highlands & islands of Scotland’ (1902). Davies, J. C., ‘Folk-lore of West and mid-Wales’ (1911).

Evans, George E., ‘The Pattern Under the Plough’ (1966

Guðmundsson, H., ‘Handan hafsins’ Háskólaútgáfan (2012)

Hand, Wayland D. “‘Passing Through’: Folk Medical Magic and Symbolism.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 112, no. 6, 1968, pp. 379–402. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/985938.

Kuusela, T., 'He met his own funeral procession': The Year walk-ritual in Swedish folk tradition. Chapter in: "Folk Belief and Traditions of the Supernatural". Edited by Tommy Kuusela & Giuseppe Maiello. Beewolf Press 2016. Pp. 58-91.

Saxo Grammaticus. Gesta Danorum: the History of the Danes I, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen, and trans. Peter Fisher (Oxford, 2014), book 2, ch. 7, pp. 138–39.

Marwick, E. (1975) The Stone of Odin. In Robertson, J. D. M. (1991) An Orkney Anthology: The Selected Works of Ernest Walker Marwick (Vol 1). Scottish Academic Press: Edinburgh.

McDowall, Sue ‘PASSING THROUGH & UNDER: A RITUAL HEALING IN ENGLAND’ Folklore Thursday blog

National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin. https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009137/4990205/5100637 https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009301/5005811/5133480 https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922361/4874175 https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009277/5003835/5131790 

Ryan, Derek ‘Hag Stones, are they an example of authentic Irish folklore or a neo-pagan import?’ The Tipperary antiquarian blog (2019)

Rydving, Hakan. (2010). The 'Bear Ceremonial' and Bear Rituals among the Khanty and the Sami. Temenos. 46. 31-52. 10.33356/temenos.6940.

Skott, F., ‘Passing Through as Healing and Crime’ (2014).

Thoms, William J. “Divination by the Blade-Bone.” The Folk-Lore Record, vol. 1, 1878, pp. 176–179. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1252358.


https://youtu.be/i0KrLUoRwUI

What exactly are elves in the Anglo-Saxon pagan belief system? Did Anglo-Saxon pagans believe in an afterlife and Hell? I will answer all these questions in this video which is the second part of a 2 part series - I will also show you what their pagan temple at Yeavering looked like, and explain how the elves, orcs, dwarves, land wights and ents of their belief system were all classed as demons after Christianisation.

Abram, C. ‘In Search of Lost Time: Aldhelm and The Ruin’, Quaestio (Selected Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic), vol. 1, 2000.
Dowden, Ken (2000). European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Doyle, Conan. (2018). Dweorg in Old English: Aspects of Disease Terminology.
Gunnel, T., ‘How Elvish were the Elves?’ 2007.
Hall, A., 'Are there any Elves in Anglo-Saxon Place-Names?', Nomina: Journal of the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland, 29 (2006), 61-80.
Hall, A., (2004). The Meanings of Elf, and Elves, in Medieval England. 2007.
Lund, J., "At the Water's Edge" in "Signals of Belief in Early England"
Lysaght, P. ‘the banshee: the irish supernatural death messenger’
North, R. 1997 Heathen gods in Old English literature.
Pollington, S. 2011. The Elder Gods: The Otherworld of Early England.
Price, Neil & Mortimer, Paul. (2014). An Eye for Odin? Divine Role-Playing in the Age of Sutton Hoo. European Journal of Archaeology.
Semple. S., A Fear of the Past: The Place of the Prehistoric Burial Mound in the Ideology of Middle and Later Anglo-Saxon England. (1998)

https://youtu.be/KuX5imRS-Zo