Blood, Fire, & Spirit

Mårten Eskil Winge, Thor’s Fight with the Giants, 1872.

1,839 words

When the average person thinks of Sweden, they probably think of IKEA, meatballs, ABBA, and PewDiePie. When people in the Dissident Right think about Sweden, we often think of a country at the pinnacle of anti-white propaganda and anarcho-tyranny. Nevertheless, Swedish culture has had a great influence on my life, from the music I listen to each day to the furniture I fall asleep on each night. Furthermore, much of our fascination and modern-day perception of the Vikings comes from a small group of Swedish writers from the Geatish Society who had a passion for reviving Swedish history, art, and culture. As ethnic nationalists and white advocates, we can learn a few things from these Swedish artists to form a collective identity where white people are the heroes of our own past, present, and future narratives.

After college, I worked as an inventory manager at IKEA. It was one of the best jobs I ever had. I knew every piece of furniture by its Swedish name (and a few Finnish words, such as hylly for “shelf”). I often volunteered to build most of the furniture on the showroom floor and warehouse. I always enjoyed building IKEA furniture as I took pride in putting something together with my hands and tools, whether it be shelves, furniture, or lighting fixtures. IKEA is an abbreviation of its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, the name of his family farm (Elmtaryd), and his hometown of Agunnaryd. Like most corporations, IKEA has made quite a few anti-white commercials and advertisements within the last few years. Nevertheless, I still enjoy going to IKEA as Kamprad made every IKEA around the world feel like a trip to Sweden.

Along with furniture, Sweden is also known for its Viking metal. While there were Swedish artists like Heavy Load and Yngwie Malmsteen who wrote songs about the Vikings, no one would make such an impact as Quorthon did with Bathory’s Viking-era trilogy: Blood, Fire, Death (1988), Hammerheart (1990), and Twilight of the Gods (1991). Bathory was the main project of singer, guitarist, and composer Thomas Forsberg, known around the metal world as Quorthon. Bathory’s first exposure was in 1984 with two songs on the compilation album Scandinavian Metal Attack. Sounding like a mix of Venom and Motorhead, these songs generated a lot of attention and led to three amazing albums that all had a similar sound and subject matter. For his fourth album, Quorthon surprised the metal community with different lyrics and a different sound. Gone were the short, fast songs with evil lyrics and imagery. In their place were longer, mid-paced songs about Norse mythology and the Vikings. Whereas Blood, Fire, Death still had faced-paced sections and raspy vocals, Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods had clean vocals and operatic choruses. While there have been many other Swedish bands that incorporated Viking themes into their songs (such as Unleashed, Mithotyn, and Amon Amarth), metal fans around the world consider Bathory to be one of the most influential artists of both black metal and Viking metal. After Quorthon died in 2004, it has always been a goal of mine to visit his grave in Stockholm to pay my respects.

Despite living in Norway and Denmark in the mid-2000s, I only visited Sweden once during this period in 2008. My goal was to sightsee in Southern Sweden, meet friends in Gothenburg, and then visit Quorthon’s grave in Stockholm. Being of Danish descent, I decided to visit Scania, an area that once belonged to the Danish kingdom since the 10th century but was integrated into the Swedish kingdom after the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. Being accessible from Copenhagen by train, I decided to visit the Malmöhus Castle before seeing my friends.

Malmö was the first Scandinavian city where I noticed that non-whites were a large part of the population. Even in 2008, I noticed a lot of Middle Eastern people around the city center. I did not want to ask a non-white person for directions, so it took a while before I found the Malmöhus Castle. I arrived just as the museum was closing and asked the museum curator if I could take a quick look around. Since I was by myself, the curator offered to give me a personal tour of the museum if I would escort her to the bus station afterward. Without hesitation, I took her up on the offer.

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Malmöhus Castle was originally founded by King Eric of Pomerania in 1434. After major damage in the 16th century, King Christian III of Denmark had a fortress built around the castle in the 1530s. After coming into Swedish hands in 1658, the fortress withstood major damage during a Danish siege in 1675. The castle then fell into disrepair and was used as a granary and prison by the 19th century. After the tour, I asked the curator why she wanted me to escort her out of the museum. After looking around, she said that she did not feel safe walking in the area after closing hours due to the “new” people in the city. Therefore, I walked her to the bus station and kept her company until the next bus came.

After a short train ride, my friends met me at the train station in Gothenburg. Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and was originally founded by a charter by King Gustav II Adolf in 1621. My friends took me to the Museum of Art where there was a special exhibition on Norse mythology. The exhibition included many 19th century Swedish artists including Carl Wahlbom, Nils Blommer, and Mårten Eskil Winge. Winge’s 1872 painting Thor’s Fight with the Giants is one of my all-time favorite paintings and was also used on the Scandinavian Metal Attack album cover.

After the museum, my friends took me for a tour around the city. As we walked past a major shopping mall, I saw a group of Middle Easterners harassing people. My friends told me that these were recent immigrants who were constantly causing trouble everywhere they went. It made me mad to think that immigrants would be ungrateful enough to cause problems in the country that opened its doors to them. The next day I was supposed to visit Stockholm, but my friends invited me to a local concert, so we spent the weekend in Gothenburg instead.

I would eventually visit Stockholm for the 2019 Scandza Forum conference. I took a taxi to the church and cemetery where Quorthon is allegedly buried, but it was unfortunately closed. I went back to the downtown area and visited the Viking museum. I was expecting to see a lot of anti-white propaganda, but I found the exhibitions to be mostly fair and accurate. Furthermore, they had some great information on the Geatish Society.

The Geatish Society (“Götiska Förbundet” in Swedish) was a group of poets and authors who formed a club in 1811 to revitalize Norse mythology and medieval Scandinavian history in art and culture. The club published a magazine called Iduna which contained various poems, articles, and stories related to medieval Scandinavian history. Two of the main editors were Erik Gustaf Geijer and Esaias Tegner.

Geijer was a Swedish historian, composer, and author whose most popular poem, Vikingen (“The Viking”), was published in the first issue of Iduna. The word “Viking” was used to refer to the Norsemen as heroic explorers and warriors. By depicting their Scandinavian ancestors as heroic adventurers, the members of the Geatish Society wanted to instill a sense of national pride and identity in the people of Sweden. Geijer also worked with Arvid August Afzelius in creating a collection of Swedish folksongs called Svenska folk-visor från forntiden (“Swedish Folk Songs from Antiquity”).

Esaias Tegner was a Swedish writer and linguist who also published poems in Iduna. In 1820 Tegner started releasing fragments in Iduna of a modern version of Frithjof’s Saga. Originally an Icelandic saga from the 13th century, Frithjof’s Saga was first translated into Swedish in 1797 but it was Tegner’s poetic version that became increasingly popular throughout Europe as each fragment was released. Tegner published the final and complete version in 1825 and it greatly added to the growing interest of the Viking era.

Reading about the Geatish Society and their magazine reminds me of the importance of having websites like Counter-Currents in the Dissident Right. It should be our goal as writers, artists, and content creators to keep our community interested in our history, art, and identity. We must remind our people that they are the descendants of warriors and adventurers. From the spartan and the gladiator, to the Cossacks and the Vikings, we are a race of heroes. Even today, there are brave individuals who are willing to risk censorship, financial ruin, and even prison just to speak truth to power. We have courageous heroes among us who are willing to stand up for their ethnicity and race, even when their own families disown them. Most importantly, there are rare occasions where modern-day warriors risk their lives to protect our people. One of these brave souls was Tommie Lindh, a true Swedish hero. These are the people we should write sagas and legends about.

Some people may want to give up on Sweden. They say that the country is lost or that the majority population is too cucked to save itself. All I can say is that when I went to the Scandza Forum in Stockholm, I met Swedish people that were just like me. They looked like me, talked like me, and had the same concerns and goals as me. I care about Swedish nationalists. I do not want to see their history, language, or culture disappear.

Yet if Barbara Lerner Spectre has taught us anything, it is that white Europeans have not yet learned to unify as a racial group. The Dissident Right is going to be a part of this transformation that must take place. Europe cannot continue being a multi-racial, dystopian nightmare. White advocates and ethnic nationalists are going to be at the center of this transformation, and we will probably be resented because of our leading role. But without that leading role and transformation, Sweden, Europe, and the white race will not survive.

Let us create a new Geatish Society, where we can celebrate our ethnic identities with a unified white identity. Let us share stories of ancient Viking warriors and modern dissident heroes. One day I might even get to visit Quorthon’s grave in Stockholm. Until then, let the blood, fire, and spirit of the white race carry on to the twilight of the Gods.

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