{"id":8586,"date":"2017-05-18T19:11:55","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T01:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8586"},"modified":"2017-05-18T19:11:55","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T01:11:55","slug":"the-bbc-interviews-iceland-heathens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8586","title":{"rendered":"The BBC Interviews Iceland Heathens"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can download this episode (27 minutes) of the BBC’s Heart and Soul<\/em> program on the Heathens of Iceland:<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"

Priestess at Icelandic blot (BBC).<\/p><\/div>\n

Floating in a hot spring, snow falling from the night sky, John Laurenson meets Teresa Drofn. A 25-year-old Heathen, Teresa describes her return to the religion of her Viking forebears as a renewal of a unique spiritual relationship with nature. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A millennium after it was banned in exchange for Christianity, John explores why Icelanders are returning to the faith. At a \u2018blot\u2019, or sacred ceremony John hears a priestess read aloud from the Eddas, an ancient Icelandic text serving as scripture for the new heathens of Europe. In the old days at a \u2018blot\u2019, there\u2019d be animal, even human sacrifices. Today they share in traditional Viking food, horse and whale, sheep\u2019s head, puffin p\u00e2t\u00e9 and rotten shark.<\/p>\n

Visiting the site of a newly planned Heathen temple John meets high priest Hilmar \u00d6rn Hilmarsson. Hilmar has presided over hundreds of weddings and seen his own congregation increase six-fold within a single decade. This new Heathen house of worship, the first in a thousand years, will be aligned with the sun\u2019s path and burrowed deep into a hill near the city\u2019s airport.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Not mentioned: a conversation with a Lutheran bishop who claims not to be concerned with the rise of traditional Norse Paganism because (a) the movement is “very small” and (b) they are sort of proto-Christian anyway, as shown, for example, by their abandonment of animal sacrifice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can download this episode (27 minutes) of the BBC’s Heart and Soul program on the Heathens of Iceland: Floating in a hot spring, snow falling from the night sky, John Laurenson meets Teresa Drofn. A 25-year-old Heathen, Teresa describes her return to the religion of her Viking forebears as a renewal of a unique […]<\/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":[106,5],"class_list":["post-8586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-iceland","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2eu","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12142,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12142","url_meta":{"origin":8586,"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":5445,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5445","url_meta":{"origin":8586,"position":1},"title":"Pentagram Pizza: Should You Print Out These Links?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Items that deserve more commentary, but are not getting it today: \u2022 From\u00a0 MIT Technology Review: When we read books on paper, do we retain more than when we read on a screen? \u2022 Re-creating the sound of ancient musical instruments, sometimes with synthesizers. \u2022 A review of Apocalyptic Witchcraft,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Classics\"","block_context":{"text":"Classics","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=classics"},"img":{"alt_text":"pentagrampizza","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/pentagrampizza.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9649,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9649","url_meta":{"origin":8586,"position":2},"title":"How Do You Say “Ziggurat” in Icelandic?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Icelandic Pagan religion \u2014\u00a0 Norse gods and the \"Hidden Folk,\" right? Um, there is more. \"Iceland's pagan Zuist religion hopes to build temple.\" Zuist leader \u00c1gust Arnar \u00c1g\u00fastsson told the paper that the group had always planned to have a place of worship for its followers, but given the movement's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Iceland\"","block_context":{"text":"Iceland","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=iceland"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1340,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1340","url_meta":{"origin":8586,"position":3},"title":"All the sagas in one\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"All the sagas in one place Visit Saganet for a complete (Norse and English) searchable compilation of all the pre-13th century Icelandic sagas. The material consists of the entire range of Icelandic family sagas. It also includes a very large portion of Germanic\/Nordic mythology (the Eddas), the history of Norwegian\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1355,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1355","url_meta":{"origin":8586,"position":4},"title":"All the sagas in one\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"All the sagas in one place Visit Saganet for a complete (Norse and English) searchable compilation of all the pre-13th century Icelandic sagas. The material consists of the entire range of Icelandic family sagas. It also includes a very large portion of Germanic\/Nordic mythology (the Eddas), the history of Norwegian\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1370,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1370","url_meta":{"origin":8586,"position":5},"title":"All the sagas in one\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"All the sagas in one place Visit Saganet for a complete (Norse and English) searchable compilation of all the pre-13th century Icelandic sagas. The material consists of the entire range of Icelandic family sagas. It also includes a very large portion of Germanic\/Nordic mythology (the Eddas), the history of Norwegian\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8586","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=8586"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8591,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8586\/revisions\/8591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}