Heathenry and the Use and Abuse of „roots“ in a Reconstructionist Religious Movement
The symbol of roots plays an important role in the new religious movement Heathenry, whose main defining points are the veneration of Germanic deities and a focus on Old Norse literature. In this blog post, I want to show how the narrative of „reconstructing“ pre-Christian religions is combined with the idea of „roots“ and how this ties into nationalism and claims of „indigenousness.“
Tell Me Where You Come From and I Will Tell You Who You Are – Ibsen, the Modern Sami and the Medieval Finnar
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson argued that people exposed to the nature of the North could experience the same adventures as the characters in the sagas. Strange as this assumption may appear to us, Ibsen seemed to agree with it. In one quarter of his plays the main characters have strong connections to the North, and their portrayal was undoubtedly to a certain degree influenced by Ibsen’s contemporaries, but mainly by the Finnar’s depiction in the sagas he had read.