Many ask me for advice on how to do this or that in a Pagan way: «How do we marry the European way?» or «How do we celebrate this-or-that High Festival the European way?» and so forth. I can not answer all these questions, I am but a single person with limited time at my disposal (in this life, anyhow…), but I do my best, and first I wrote a book, «Sorcery and Religion in Ancient Scandinavia», dealing amongst other subjects about this, and right now I am working to finish MYFAROG, a pen-and-paper roleplaying game, where 19 pages of the AIO rulebook is dedicated to the High Festivals and different rituals. Naturally there will be some RPG terminology and to most people irrelevant information in the chapter dealing with this, and it is all explained in a peculiar light, but it will still explain to a very large degree how I believe our forebears did these things.
In «Sorcery and Religion in Ancient Scandinavia» I describe much of the same, but I have failed to separate between the oldest and the youngest Pagan customs. Originally our forebears didn’t believe in gods and goddesses, but in nameless spirits, and when at one point these spirits were anthropomorphised and turned into deities the customs changed a bit, and today we often fail to understand anything about them because we fail to separate between the often contradicting oldest and the younger customs. In MYFAROG however I do that, and feel that I am able to present to the readers a very rare insight into the customs of our forebears. Those who read the chapter about the High Festivals will not only learn about the High Festivals, but will also understand so much else about our own culture, of traditions we have today, of rites and customs we still have, and the Pagan influence on Christianity – in particular Catholicism and the Orthodox branch – will be gleamingly clear. The Pagan nature and origin of Chivalry will become no less clear, and you will gain a new foundation on which to stand when you read our fairy tales and mythology.
For you to make any sense of it all I have included a PDF with the old calendar as well.
These, ladies and gentlemen, are our old High Festivals. Enjoy. HailaR WôðanaR!
PS. To anyone interested in my pen-and-paper RPG I can tell that MYFAROG will be published, hopefully later this year, but probably not until 2014, and I will sell it and promote it commercially.
