{"id":10289,"date":"2019-03-10T19:35:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T01:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10289"},"modified":"2019-03-10T20:44:19","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T02:44:19","slug":"these-heathens-reject-garb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10289","title":{"rendered":"These Heathens Reject “Garb”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Next comes shoe polish, gentlemen! (Photo from The Runestone).<\/p><\/div>\n

I have heard complaints from some Heathen groups about too many people trying to copy the movie-Viking look of Ragnar Lothbrok, Brjorn Ironside, and the rest of the Vikings <\/em>TV seriies.<\/a><\/p>\n

Now Matthew D. Flavel, Alsherjargothi of the Asatru Folk Assembly, makes it official. No garb!<\/a><\/p>\n

There was a period during the early days of modern Asatru where it was the norm for folks to wear Viking reenactment garb for events and rituals. There was an idea that by trying to recreate the look and feel of the Viking age, folks could better connect with our Gods and more \u201cauthentically\u201d practice our religion. Perhaps that was a necessary stage in order to reject what folks were used to and embrace something that was very different. Perhaps folks felt better connected to an idealized time, a better time for our folk\u2019s spirituality, by attempting to imitate the dress of that period. Happily, our religion has grown and developed over the last 50 years and, in the AFA, we no longer feel the need to reenact something dead, instead, we enact something living and vibrant in our own day and in our own real lives. Just as the Vikings did not dress up as cavemen in order to be more spiritual, we do not need to dress up as Vikings to be pious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was wondering about the appeal of “dressing like the ancestors” some years ago.<\/a><\/p>\n

In the Wiccan world, I have gotten mixed messages over the years. There is the definite priestess-y fashion statement that involves auburn hair and flowing garments. I have no problem with that \u2014 in fact, I married one of them, although I have not seen M. in flowing garments for years. She turned out to be a boots-and-jeans type of gal, which is fine with me.<\/p>\n

But against the Renn Faire Wicca stereotype, there was the Denver old-guard\/Gard HP who told me during a festival around 1990 that “You can tell the elders. They’re the ones in blue jeans.” Of course, the old guard\/Gard types don’t wear jeans in ritual, except maybe at mountain festivals.<\/p>\n

So I have often wondered if “dressing like the ancestors” takes you out of the mundane world, but simultaneously if it is not also an obstacle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have heard complaints from some Heathen groups about too many people trying to copy the movie-Viking look of Ragnar Lothbrok, Brjorn Ironside, and the rest of the Vikings TV seriies. Now Matthew D. Flavel, Alsherjargothi of the Asatru Folk Assembly, makes it official. No garb! There was a period during the early days of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,76,26,359,127],"class_list":["post-10289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-asatru","tag-culture","tag-elders","tag-festivals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2FX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12142,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12142","url_meta":{"origin":10289,"position":0},"title":"Great Review for Calico’s “Being Viking”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 31, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I was happy to see Being Vking: Heathenism in Contemporary America get a good review in Reading Religion, which is the American Academy of Religion's online book-review site. Michael Strmiska (currently teaching in Latvia) writes, Being Viking deserves great praise and wide readership as an extremely detailed and well-researched historical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/viking-200x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12100,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12100","url_meta":{"origin":10289,"position":1},"title":"Jefferson Calico, Author of “Being Viking,” Interviewed by Angela Puca","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Angela Puca, who recently earned a PhD in religious studies while still\u00a0managing to be a dominant figure in Pagan-studies YouTube, has interviewed Jefferson Calico, author of Being Viking: Heathenism in Contemporary America, which I consider to be the best new study of Heathenry that is accessible to both scholars and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11332,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11332","url_meta":{"origin":10289,"position":2},"title":"From Viking Re-enactor to Practitioner","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"At the BBC, a short video with a man who started doing re-enactments and ended up adopting Norse religion. Fighting with the Wuffa Viking and Saxon Re-enactment Society, he did not expect that his hobby of more than three years would help him find his own belief through Norse mythology.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9843,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9843","url_meta":{"origin":10289,"position":3},"title":"Coming Soon \u2014 Being Viking: Heathenism in Contemporary America","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"What do I like about Being Viking beyond Mark Lee's arresting cover design? It is that author Jefferson Calico can move beyond rehashing the folkish-universalist issue and look at some things not normally talked about, such as social class. Americans will talk you to death about race and ethnicity, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/being-viking-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11657,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11657","url_meta":{"origin":10289,"position":4},"title":"Northern Wolves: Garb and Shiny Boots in a Polish Pagan Order","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In his article \"Wolves among the Sheep: Looking Beyond the Aesthetics of Polish National Socialism,\" Polish cultural anthropologist Mariusz Filip examines the symbolic meanings of tattoos, re-created medieval garb, and modern paramilitary uniforms in the Polish Pagan group Zakon Zadrugi \u201cPolnocny Wilk,\" (the Order of Zadruga \"Northern Wolf\"). The artiicle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fashion\"","block_context":{"text":"fashion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fashion"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tattooed man holding medieval sword","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/FIg-4-tattoos-Igor.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/FIg-4-tattoos-Igor.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/FIg-4-tattoos-Igor.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/FIg-4-tattoos-Igor.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9153,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9153","url_meta":{"origin":10289,"position":5},"title":"Does Anyone “Own” the Vikings? The NY Times Wants to Know","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Some years ago \u2014 the late 1990s? \u2014 I had a Swedish freshman student in one of my classes. Looking over his shoulder as he was typing at his computer station, I noticed that he had a silver Mj\u00f6llnir (Thor's hammer) pendant on a thin chain around his neck. Naturally,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/hammer-maiden.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10289"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10294,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10289\/revisions\/10294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}