Herger's Philosophy: A Case of Northman Existentialism

The movie The 13th Warrior did miserably in theaters. Based on Michael Crichton's book Eaters of the Dead, the movie version sought to make a Viking adventure, but created a flop instead.
 But in one area, it trumped all the odds that were stacked against it.
Herger, the movie's third main character, after Ibn Fadlan (Antonio Bandaras), and Buliwyf (Valdimir Kulich)  is played by Norwegian actor Dennis Storhoi. He is the best example of the philosophy of Northmen that I have ever seen portrayed in film, or maybe anywhere else outside of the Sagas.
You may wonder how it is that I know this, or can substantiate it.
I intend to show, with some little Philosophy 101 thrown in, how this is true.
What we must first understand, to lay the groundwork for this argument, is that the Northmen in general believed that the Allfather, or in some cases the Norns (Fates) wove our lives on a skein or tapestry, long before we were ever born. This skein was akin to destiny, or fate. It was, according to them, unchanging, and regardless of how or when it happened, death was predestined and unavoidable.
Herger, in his first real dialogue with Fadlan, makes it plain that this is what he believes, and follows up his explanation with the maxim that he clearly lives his life by; "Fear profits a man nothing".
But it isn't this so much as the shrugging joy with which he faces his inevitable demise.
This is carried throughout the movie. He seems occasionally burdened by the events, but frequently laughs, jokes, and faces the dangers about them with an intentional unconcern.
That is not to say that he is willingly throwing his life away. He hasn't lost hope, or even fallen into a fatalistic motivation or become morbid, or obsessed with death.
He simply isn't worried about it.
Many of his quotes prove this assertion, and, in terms of proving my point, will require a small amount of back story.
In the course of the film, the warriors are in the cave home of the Wendol, their enemy. Though they have been successful in their mission, however, they are unable to return the way they've come. Fadlan discovers a possible way out, but it will require them to swim to their escape. All but Herger and Fadlan have begun the swim, and Herger says, as he gasps to fill his lungs, "The way we'll know is: if they don't follow us, it's too far to swim!" he laughs and plunges into the water.
This apparent fearlessness inspires us, not with reckless abandon, but with unbridled hope. He doesn't know what he will find, but that doesn't keep him from going ahead.
This, day to day minute to minute enjoyment of all aspects of life, seems to be much richer and fulfulling, than our tendency to consider all ways very carefully, and make hesitant baby steps, when we are uncertain, or worse yet, to fail to act at all.
Existentialism suggests, as one of it's more basic principles, that it is this very approach that ruins our lives. With each new moment, comes a new opportunity to live the way we were meant to. To enjoy life to its fullest, requires a certain abandon, that is not pinioned on excessive morals, nor nihilistic self-destruction, but somewhere perfectly between the two.
Somehow we have lost, in general, a sense by which we can both enjoy life, and not feel as though we are being irresponsible about it.
Herger shows us that, regardless of the events, this lifestyle is a chance to make each moment count.
The fact that the majority of us live our lives almost entirely within a network of moral conditions, is irrelevant to this life choice. If anything, it enhances those maxims and codes we live by.
For when we realize, with no doubt or fear, that our lives are on a predetermined course , we have no need to hesitate, or calculate too much what our actions will be.
And of all of the lessons his lifestyle teaches us, the one that sticks out to me is Herger's joy. His moments of gloom in the film are few and short lived. He doesn't mourn for his lost friends, but is happy for them. He is fully in the moment, and does not struggle to keep himself there. He faces each new trial, each new adventure with the same sense of inevitability.
And finally, we see that Herger's faith is not affected or diminished by his attitude.
As the movie closes, he tells Fadlan that he will make prayers for his safe passage home. Fadlan, a Muslim, asks to who he will pray to. Herger answers honestly that in Fadlan's land, one god may suffice, but that Herger and his people need many. His final comment "Do not be offended." resounds through to us now.
This is the final point. Herger is telling Fadlan the most important part of his philosophy. That life, regardless of faith, action or consequence, is precious while we have it, and that while we have it, we have one single requirement. To live joyfully and well.
Fadlan replies that he will be in Herger's debt.
I suggest that, if we adopt the very likely probability that this was the general philosophy adhered to by real Northmen, then we owe a debt of gratitude to this representation in film, of their memories. We owe it to them to adopt Herger's Philosophy.

Position versus Dispossesion

We tend to think of religions and mythologies as being separate. The Greeks had gods that they worshipped, but, because we no longer actively believe in those gods, -there are no Zeus Temples that I know of- we tend to demote these faiths to legend, myth, and rumor.
It is a sad fact, in my estimation that this is the case. Not because of what has gone before, but for what is to come. It means that those things that we actively believe in now, will one day be marginalized to myth. Dare I mention it, this may already be occuring.
Nevertheless, our modern mentality disengages us from feeling any kind of nostalgia for these fallen faiths. Oh, sure we make our tributes to them, but even in these few cases, we probably don't even recognize what we are doing, or why we are doing it.
As a result, we go about, touting our current faith, and leaving the past faiths behind.
However, if we are to truly understand why we do what we do, we must understand the history of our beliefs.
As I pointed out in a previous blog, many of the holidays, and rites in Christian celebrations, for example, have their roots in 'pagan' ritual or festival. We do ourselves an injustice to be so quick to dismiss the validity of our ancestors and their faiths.

To this point, I hold a course of humble, albeit nostalgic respect for those peoples who held these mythologies as their faith. I don't mean that I worship their gods, but simply respect the processes behind the evolution of those gods, and in general, the environments, cultures, hopes and fears that helped them come about. It seems rather easy to suppose that our many current faiths are here because they are somehow ordained to be here, thanks to history. However, looking back, the tiniest movement of fate, and Christianity may never have left the Middle East and spread. One doesn't stop to think that it is merely a gossamer strand of causes and events which has allowed history to progress in its current form. The present is only one of millions of possible outcomes that could have been. I realize that this is a somewhat flimsy argument, but it stands that we may now be worshipping Zeus or Odin, rather than those deities we currently hold to be our own. It is with this fragility in mind, that I say we should at once embrace our former beliefs as real and important to our current identities, and remember that our current faith, no matter how potently we believe, may grow as a result of this adopted mentality.

Cross and Hammer: The Validity of Both Views

Basically, we assume, in a scholarly way, that Christianity and the Northmen's faith, now called Asatru, were in close contact with one another.
As a result of this proximity, the Northmen were aware of Christ, and I am sure the Christians knew about Odin and Thor.
Regardless of the spread of Christianity in other lands, it encountered a strange mix of derision and validation from Northmen.
In one case, the Northmen did not really understand a god who would willingly stand aside when action was required. The concept of turning the other cheek was decidedly unknown among them.
They did not understand, I suspect, Christians willingly dying without fighting back at all. Not only was it bewildering, I am certain they might have found it a little unsettling.
Northmen knew about Christ, they knew that he gave over to the authorities and let himself be hung on a cross. This they had no qualms with. Odin hung himself with his spear from Yggdrasil (the World Tree) for nine days and nine nights.
It seems reasonable that they would have been impressed or even amazed by the similarities.
Still, all evidence points to an unwillingness to give over to Christ and his followers.
I would suggest we cannot know how the Northmen really felt about any of it. They were, in my opinion, indifferent to Christianity.
It makes sense that they were, because those missionaries to northern lands that survived, worked very hard to assimilate the faith to the Northmen's beliefs.
We still retain evidence of this to this day. The Christian celebration of the resurrection we call Easter, but Eöster, was a Germanic goddess of fertility. Why do we call it that? Because the monks tried to make their faith accessible to the peoples of those lands. We know that the early church celebrated Christmas in the spring, but now we celebrate it at the winter solstice. We know that this was to unite the two faiths similarities to be utilized for winning souls.
Understandable, seeing that the Vikings had worked hard to loot the monasteries, and leave the monks and nuns dead or wishing they were.
Placating them, seems to be the only way they could save themselves. Martyrdom, after all is defeated by religiocide.
I don't mean that the Northmen were obsessed with destroying Christianity. That would not have been at all practical. The Chritians posed no threat, and the effort to do so would have required vast planning and man power. We know that the Northmen's clans had a lot of infighting. Decimating the Christians would not even have been a dream. 
Archeological evidence, however, may show just how much the Christians persistence and patience paid off. A Mjölnir pendant found in Fossi Iceland is a combination of a cross and a hammer.
I am rather fond of the idea that the Christians began to assimilate their beliefs into the Northmen's by simple persistence and perseverance. The instant a loyal Thor worshiper thought it might be a good idea to include a prayer or sacrifice to Christ as well as the Thunderer, and as a result found they had a safe sea crossing, the word would spread. I think, then that these new believers would have continued to ply for more help. Over long years, this would have created a sense among them, that this Christian god was worthy too, and would have worshipped him out of regard for his apparent intercession.
Whether or not this accurate, is irrelevant. Speculation can be supported regardless by the very existence of such relics.
However, no one knows exactly how the Northmen may have felt.
I tend to think they would have identified with the Old Testament God. He was far to vindictive, violent and vengeful to ignore. And far too much like Odin that way. A god of wisdom, writing, and prophecy, war and battle.
But in the end, we must assume, or in my case, hope that the Northmen, and the Christians among them found some sort of common ground to live and worship on. 

Elves, Tall or Short?

Chances are, you have watched the Lord of the Rings movies. If so, think back, and try to remember how you felt when the 'elves' were represented as tall, and not little tiny people like in the Grimm fairy tales.
Did that moment challenge you to investigate the source behind Tolkien's elves?
I'm fairly certain from my own research, that the origin of these creatures may have its roots in the Proto-Germanic, and possibly even Indo-European mythologies. However evidence for or against these origins, what little scholars know of it for sure, lends little to the understanding, or to my argument.
Jacob Grimm suggests that there are three main delineations among the races of Elves, or Alfr.  The Light Elves, the Dark Elves, and the Black Elves.
He, and Snorri Strulossun assert that the Black Elves, may in fact be no different than the Dwarves.
But before I go getting too deep into the caverns of mythology on this subject, let's keep in mind that Tolkien was rather fond of Norse Mythology, and had studied at length (it was his job, after all) the languages at the root of the mythologies.
That seems to be enough for me to trust to his interpretation. However, there is the famous critical argument, which suggests that if Tolkien created Middle Earth out of his own mind, then it follows that he could have made certain basic changes to the races within his stories. That is his right, we assume, if he is the creator.
Middle Earth, after all, is not set up like the cosmology of Norse Mythology, or any other, for that matter. All he seems to have borrowed, are the races themselves, and that doesn't help my argument much. The same argument is also often cited for his particular elve's ears.
We assume, that elves, tall or short, have pointy ears.
Subsequent authors, who have borrowed the races that Tolkien used, have always shown their elves with pointy ears, but those elves were also always shown to be tall, and fair.
Regardless, of that particular interpretation which seems to be an artist's and not an author's vision in Tolkien's case, other than describing them at length in his books, Tolkien never really describes their ears.
He does, however mention how tall they were. He goes on, in certain parts of the Silmarillion to show that the race of Half-Elven, of whom Aragorn is the offspring, and who originally come from the island of Numenor, had elf blood flowing in their veins. This is used to explain how tall they were in comparison to the rest of the race of Man in Middle Earth.
The real issue that I have, then, with the representation of Elves as tiny folk, is that the correct word is not being used.
Piskies, Pixies, Sprites, even gods forefend, The Wee Folk, would do for the representation of these tiny interlopers, who both help the cobbler, and who lead some unfortunates far astray.
In any case, the Elves, of which Strulossun writes, were a race which inhabited the realm or world of Alfheim, and who were not really any different than the races of Men in Midgard, with the exceptions that they had retained some use of magic, and men could, if found worthy, become elves after their death.
Tolkien says himself, that the Elves were a race who abided in the world to keep it from changing, and who had not suffered a fall from grace, as the race of Men had, though some of their group had fallen, or turned away.
I like this last version the best.
I think the more reasonable assumption to make, when we refer to Elves, and their kind, is that they are indeed not tiny little people, but a regular sized race of beings, which exist outside the realm of men, dwarves, or Jotuns, the giants.
This may affect how we think of or call Santa's elves, but even he is called a Jolly Old Elf, and we assume, that that's okay. Regardless of their portrayal, the miniature creatures that so plague us by taking one of a pair of socks, or who tempt us to our early fates in the woods, are not really elves as we have called them, but some other race entirely. In the meantime, try to think of elves the way they are presented by Tolkien when you read about the Norse Cosmology. I think you will find that they fit much better.

Turisas: A Treatise for Folk and Battle Metal

  I worked in a book store, and so, occasionally I got to have the left over sample CDs, or sometimes I would get first dibs on posters, free promo books and so on.
One day a colleague gave me a poster of five guys in what appeared to be 'Dark Ages' garb, sitting in a skiff holding aloft swords and looking rather like they were shouting a battle cry. The poster was from the magazine TERRORIZER, which specializes in heavier music, such as speed metal, death metal, and the like.
In the bottom corner of the poster, was the word 'Turisas'.
I taped it to our big freezer in my 'shop' and there it stayed and I saw it whenever I went in there.
But for several years, I couldn't bring myself to actually listen to their music.
When I finally did listen, I learned that the genre was called Folk Metal, or in the case of the title song of the album, Battle Metal.
A Finnish band, Turisas hails from Hämeenlinna, in the Sourthern province of Finland.
Their music is atypical of what I was expecting, though, despite their inclusion in a magazine of such dubious renown. It is in fact atypical to anything I've ever heard before.
Certainly, "Tude" Lehtonen keeps the double bass drums rolling in the background, behind Jussi Wickström and "Hanu" Horma keep the guitar and bass guitar thrumming respectively. And the music gets pretty hard, there's no doubt of that.
But here's where it gets interesting. Oli Vanska, plays the electric violin, and plays it so that it’s a wonder it doesn't burst into flame. And Netta Skog plays the accordion.
Now, I think I can guess what you may be thinking. How does a band with a violin and an accordion sound? Amazing.
The songs are variants of pounding battles from history, and soft ballads, which are done in tribute to Finland and her lakes.
Some are folk tunes, and some are drinking tunes, but all are broad, majestic, symphonic and powerful. Especially if you love all things old, Viking-ish, and North.
Turisas appears on stage in one part fur and armor and one part black and red make up. they look as though they're Berserkers, stepping right out of history and onto the stage.
Visit a few of their live videos on YouTube, and you'll see.
However vicious and threatening they may appear onstage, Mathias "Warlord" Nygård, whose ripping vocals and deep sonorous narratives add verbal context to the music, is in fact eloquent and quite an amateur historian.
The name Turisas comes from the ancient Finnish god of war, Iku-Turso, and is mentioned in the Kalevala as 'Tall and Hardy'.
I'm not sure what that does to help you, but in the lyric of the song Battle Metal:
"The heart of Turisas was forged by four winds
In a smithy high up in the skies
On an anvil honour, with a hammer of blood
The Four Winds pounded..."
This does something toward making him sound like quite the god of war if not just down right cool.
Whatever the differences between the mythologies of the Finns and the Northmen (who apparently both loved and feared their darker-haired cousins), Iko-Turso, or Turisas, may have even been a handful for Odin Allfather and Thor the Thunderer at the same time.
But don't tell them I told you so.
Also, take some time to check out Turisas' new album Stand Up and Fight (2011).
You may find that you like it.

Ravens in Winter

It takes Bernd Heinrich twenty-one pages to mention Norse Mythology in his book Ravens in Winter, (Summit Books) which for me, the Lone Norse Mythology Buff (LNMB) was kind of a head-scratcher. It seems that if there are two animals that have a front row seat when we introduce Odin, it would be the wolf and the raven.

Odin has two each. Freki and Geri, his wolves, have a special place in his hall Valaskjalf, in Asgard. I will come to them in a later blog. His ravens, on the other hand, Huginn and Muninn, seem to be the more appropriate subject within a book about ravens.

Huginn is thought, and Muninn is memory. Both Ravens rest on his shoulders or on the back of his High Seat, or throne called Hildskjalf. From here he can see everything from the top of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, and can send the ravens into the nine worlds to collect or send messages and so forth.

Heinrich, some two-hundred pages later, claims that it is probably the raven's vast vocabulary, which inspired ancient man to to adopt or create these manifestations of Odin's mind. Certainly a bird that has such an unrivaled intellect amidst it's feather-brained cousins, and whose language may indeed be as rich and poetic as our own, deserves to be the cohort of the gods.

They not only carry messages from Odin, but they carry news of the world back to him. This part seems to be the reality check of the omnipotent ideology of deities in general. Odin uses a tool, possibly of his own creation, to accomplish this type of work.

I like to think he's too busy up there in Asgard, to worry with all the news by going out and seeing for himself. He saves those visits for his Heroes, and more important activities.

But even when he is intent upon the doings of Asgard, his ravens are circling the worlds, and recording everything.

I remember my grandmother warning me very seriously that the big black birds were 'tattle-tales' and not to be trusted. Is this a thread-bare version, I am sure of the old Germanic superstitions, and probably she didn't even know who Odin was.

But it seems to me that it may have its roots in the belief that anytime you saw two crows or ravens, (I'm not sure the Scandinavians made an attempt to differentiate between the two,) it was possible that Odin would receive a report.

It seems rather self-important to think that the small doings of everyday folk would play into a god's plans, but perhaps it helped reinforce their simple faiths.

In the meantime, I am always happy to see crows or ravens in pairs. It amuses me to think that even though he probably has fewer believers now than ever before, Odin is still watching the events of this Midgard (Mid Earth, between Asgard, and the sub worlds, Hel, Muspelheim and Niflheim).

Even without the mythology, Heinrich's evident love of these ravens is endearing, and a much needed change of the somewhat myopic view we have of corvidae of late. Most people hate ravens and crows, thinking of them as vermin, and pests. Or at the very least, think they’re noisy, and annoying.

Heinrich's book goes a long way to dispel that myth, and turn the light of true reason on the subject.

I hope somewhere in that vast Tree, Yggdrasil, Huginn and Muginn are croaking their thanks, and keeping a special weather-eye on Bernd Heinrich.

I'm sure he has a special place in Valhalla waiting for him.