Video Review: Why Are We Afraid to be Pagan?
Posted by Byron Pendason on December 23, 2022 CE, in Heathenry, Heathen worldview, UpdatesWes hal!1 An ally recently posted^4 a video to her YouTube channel entitled Why Are We Afraid to be Pagan? She poses some interesting questions, in an attempt to start a conversation on the matters in the video. Before getting into the video itself, though, let’s talk about the author a little bit. Wes hāl and Beo gesund are Old English greetings and farewells that literally mean Be well/whole/healthy. The first seemed to be more common among the Anglian dialects and the second more common among the Saxon dialects. I prefer to use both though, the first as a greeting...
Farewell, Twitter! How to Follow Mine Wyrtruman
Posted by Byron Pendason on December 20, 2022 CE, in Tech, UpdatesWes hāl!1 Some of you who follow me on Twitter may have noticed my conspicuous absence. Twitter has become so toxic. Part of it, I’m sure, has been Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform. But to be honest, it’s been this way for a long time. I’ve just failed to see it. Being betrayed by a couple of people I considered allies really opened my eyes to the way Twitter operates, and I don’t want to have any part of it any longer. I’ve been a lot happier since deleting the app, and my mental health has gotten a lot...
Lost in Translation- Ettins in Old English
Posted by Byron Pendason on November 8, 2022 CE, in Heathenry, Heathen worldview, Cosmology, ReconstructionI came across a blog post recently, alleging to reevaluate ettins in Old English literature (Moniz, 2022). I read it with interest, because I’ve interacted with the author on various Discord servers and have had nothing but positive experiences with them. I feel that their argument in this case, though, is unconvincing. It takes most every instance in Old English literature that is translated as giant in modern English, and proposes that it is talking about ettins. This reflects a problem that is not entirely new, the conflating of all giants in Old English literature. However, there isn’t enough evidence...
The Essentials of Fyrnsidu
Posted by Byron Pendason on September 24, 2022 CE, in Heathenry, Heathen basics, Heathen worldview, Heathen worship, ReconstructionIt’s all too easy to lose sight of why you’re doing something. I started this blog almost three years ago when I was still a baby on this path. My intention was to take what I was learning and put it into my own words in order to help fellow newbies learn about Fyrnsidu. Since then, it has become my passion to promote and contribute to Fyrnsidu, in order to help it grow. But sometimes, you have to return to the basics. So in this post, I want to outline what the essentials of Fyrnsidu are, and link to resources...
Fyrnsidic Cosmology- Wyrd and Orlæg
Posted by Byron Pendason on September 20, 2022 CE, in Cosmology, Heathen basics, Heathen worldview, Heathenry, ReconstructionMy first post on this blog was about wyrd. Like most Heathens, I looked at it on the personal level. We each have our individual wyrd, and this should probably be our basic understanding of it. But the universe itself also has a wyrd, and I think we’ve reached the point in this series on Fyrnsidic cosmology that wyrd is the next logical concept to address. Before we dive into that, though, let’s recap what wyrd is on a personal level.