Tag: Wotan

You can buy Collin Cleary’s Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition here.

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Collin Cleary
Wagner’s Ring and the Germanic Tradition
Wagnerphile Books, 2021

Richard Wagner is a cornerstone of Western culture. He is one of the few composers that still receive mainstream attention in the 21st century, but usually for negative reasons. Hacks can’t resist the temptation to bash him for his alleged proto-Nazism and anti-Semitism. Even if critics see him as a predecessor to Hitler, many of them still enjoy his music. Few doubt he was a great musician. (more…)

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Peter Gatien
The Club King: My Rise, Reign, and Fall in New York Nightlife
Seattle: Little A, 2020

Driving with my father one day, we passed an imposing building, the Cornwall headquarters of the Orange Lodge, the Grand Order of British North America. “What’s that, papa?” I asked.

“It’s like a club,” he answered dismissively. (more…)

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Ron McVan is an American white nationalist and Wotanist. He has followed a lifelong career in the fine arts as an oil painter, pen & ink illustrator, sculptor, poet, writer, stained glass artisan, jewelry craftsman, and musician. His extended interests have always been wide and varied, ranging foremost in the martial arts, philosophy, the ancient mysteries, mythology, European history and heritage, comparative religions, and spiritual studies, most particularly in Gnostic Wotanism and Druidism. (more…)

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Richard Rudgley
The Return of Odin: The Modern Renaissance of Pagan Imagination
Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2018

Richard Rudgley is a British author who has published several books offering unconventional interpretations of the ancient and prehistorical eras of Northern European history, as well as works on psychedelics. (more…)

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Part I here, Part IX here, Part XI here

Chapter 10. The Death of Sinfjotli

In our last two installments, we explored the fascinating digression – the “saga within the saga” – that is the story of Helgi. (more…)

Ernest Wallcousins, Helgi Returns to Valhalla

5,344 words

Part I here, Part VIII here, Part X here

In our last installment, we explored the career of the legendary Norse hero Helgi. Chapter Nine of the Volsung Saga is devoted to Helgi, and it constitutes a rich and entertaining digression from the main story. At one time, Helgi must have been a very important hero. The anonymous author of the Volsung Saga draws on two poems concerning Helgi compiled in the Poetic Edda: Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I (The First Poem of Helgi, Killer of Hunding; henceforth HH I), and Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II (or HH II). (more…)

Arthur Rackham, The Valkyrie

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Part I here, Part VII here, Part IX here

In our last installment, we saw Sigmund and Sinfjotli (the product of Sigmund’s incestuous union with his sister, Signy) return to the ancestral lands of the Volsungs. Many years have passed since the entire clan left there, and, in the meantime, a pretender has claimed the Volsung kingdom. But Sigmund and Sinfjotli drive him out, and Sigmund becomes a great and powerful king, “both wise and well-advised.”[1] He decides to marry a woman named Borghild, and they have two sons together, Helgi and Hamund.

(more…)

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Part I here, Part VIII here

Chapter 8. The Vengeance of the Volsungs, Continued

In the last installment of this series, we learned of the life Sigmund leads in the forest with his son Sinfjotli – the product of Sigmund’s incestuous union with his sister, Signy. (more…)

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Part I here, Part II here, Part III here, Part IV here, Part V here, Part VII here

Chapter 8. The Vengeance of the Volsungs

In the last installment of this series, we told of the birth of the hero Sinfjotli, product of the incest of the twins Sigmund and Signy. (more…)

Sigmund & the wolf.

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Part I here, Part II here, Part III here, Part IV here, Part VI here

In our last installment, we saw that after Sigmund pulls the sword from the tree Barnstokk, Siggeir (who has just married Sigmund’s sister, Signy) offers to buy it from him. When Sigmund refuses, Siggeir immediately begins plotting revenge. On a pretext, he takes Signy and leaves the wedding feast early, inviting Volsung and his ten sons to visit him in Götaland. (more…)

Willy Pogany, Sigmund & the Wolf (1920)

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Part I here, Part II here, Part III here, Part V here

In our last installment, we saw how King Volsung marries his daughter Signy off to the loathsome King Siggeir of Götaland, a man she “was not eager to marry.” (more…)

Siegmund the Walsung, Arthur Rackham, 1910.

1,890 words

Part I here, Part II here, Part IV here

Chapter 3. The Marriage of Siggeir to Signy, Volsung’s Daughter

In our last installment, we met Volsung (“stallion phallus”), who becomes a great King and sires eleven children: the twin brother and sister Sigmund and Signy, and nine brothers (who go unnamed). Volsung builds a “magnificent hall” around an immense apple tree whose branches weave about the beams of the roof. (more…)