Hearthside

So I have seen some interesting discourse for the start of the Aun year, which started on the New Moon (according to Rune Rasmussen’s reckoning.) There seems to be a bit of confusion why the name Aun is associated with the 9 year cycle. Rune didn’t just make that up. It is likely that the story of King Aun was in part a story that taught how to reckon the 9 year cycle to the elder Heathens. (The 9 year cycle is 9 years inclusive, or by modern reckoning, which is exclusive reckoning… 8 years.) So what is the Aun story, for those not familiar?    In Upsal's town the cruel king Slaughtered his sons at Odin's shrine -- Slaughtered his sons with cruel knife, To get from Odin length of life. He lived until he had to turn His toothless mouth to the deer's horn; And he who shed his children's blood Sucked through the ox's horn his food. At length fell Death has tracked him down, Slowly, but sure, in Upsal's town. - Y...

So I have lots of bigger stuff underway for the blog but it just isn't quite ready yet. This has been weighing on me lately though, and I just needed a rant.  Canadian Heathenry. There are only 13 inclusive Heathen kindreds in Canada that I can confirm on my inclusive Heathen group list . (If you have another one please contact me on social media or by email to have it added.) That is 13 groups. We have 13 provinces and territories in Canada. These groups are not evenly dispersed across all of them. In fact, many of them are multiple kindreds within the same cities even. The result is that the Canadian Heathen landscape is very isolationist. If you aren't able to travel you might never meet another Heathen or if you are lucky enough to be a part of a kindred, you may never meet another kindred.  But wait... Didn't I just say many kindreds are in the same cities? Yeah. That is the point of this rant actually. This isn't about how isolationist Canadian Heathenry is, altho...

Okay, so I have alluded to this a few times in my blog, but never really got into it. But what the heck? I have been sick for most of the month of December and I can’t sleep as a result. Why not work out my frustrations this way? Loki. A tricky topic at the best of times. If you are hoping for my opinion on the worshipfulness of Loki in modern Heathen practice (or even historical Heathen practice) you are in for a let down. No, what bothers me about Loki is very specifically Loki’s role in the story arc of the death of Baldr.  Honestly, Loki’s character makes perfect sense up until then. They are a trickster figure who makes mistakes and then finds ways to set them right. We see similar patterns with other trickster figures around the world. But then there is Loki’s role in the death of Baldr. Suddenly Loki takes on a sinister (and unredemptive?) role.  Baldr has his dream that he will die but it isn’t clear how. So Odin goes to ask the sorceress. Meanwhile, Frigg asks everyth...

Below is the transcript for an interview with Heathen Children's Author, Joy Page. Her book would be excellent as a Halloween/Samhain gift or for someone on your Yule list this year! --- Michelle: Hi there, and welcome to Hearthside. My name is Michelle. I'm the author on the blog, and today we're doing something a little bit different. Instead of starting with our blog and making the accessible copy, what we are doing is I am interviewing Joy here, and then I will make the transcript as the blog entry. Michelle: So for those of you who don't know Joy, this is Joy Page and she's one of my Kyn. And something really cool that Joy has just done is released a children's book. The book is called The Witch’s Family. So we have hard copies and paperback editions and I'll give you all the information at the end. So this is written by Joy and the illustrator is Penny Nicoles, and yeah, so I'm really excited about breaking our routine, doing the YouTube version fi...