i ii Bil Linzie Drinking at the Well of Mímir An Ásatrú Man’s Meanderings through the Last 30 Years Of Drinking at the Well of Mímir Dec. 8, 2000 i This piece may be reproduced freely by anyone as a portable document format (*.pdf extension on filename is required) as long as this frontispiece remains with the document and as long as the credits for authorship remain. Anyone wishing to repackage this document for distribution must contact the author. I believe that information should be freely given, therefore, I have no problem granting permission for redistribution. I have a problem, however, with people who simply take without permission and without giving credit where credit is due: these, I consider to be the lowest form of scumbag and will not hesitate in the least to point it out. Enjoy! Happy Yule and a Prosperous 21st Century! Wm. (Bil) R. Linzie,Eyvindr Hearth, Dec., 08, 2000 Contents List of Figures ...................................... iii Preface ........................................... iv Chapter 1. World Views ................................ 1 Chapter 2. Connections ................................ 18 A Tale of the Beginning . 21 The Problem of Balance . 34 Chapter 3. Midgard .................................. 58 Chapter 4. The Sky Connection ........................... 89 Chapter 5. The Underworld .............................110 Chapter 6. The Sky ..................................141 Chapter 7. At the Well of Urð ............................169 TO DRINK AT THE WELL OF MÍMIR . 183 Chapter 8. The Making of a Seiðman . 201 8.1. The Death: . 202 8.2. The Sick Come By: . 208 8.3. The Quick Dead: . 210 8.4. Disease Is Everywhere: . 211 8.5. On the Gathering of Plants: . 219 8.6. On Cleanliness: . 223 8.7. On ceremony: . 227 8.8. On the Making of a Seiðman–A Final Word (or Two): . 229 Bibliography .......................................232 Appendix A. The Ásatrú-Folk Manifesto .....................235 A.1. GENERAL COMMENTARY . 240 List of Figures 1. Frontispiece of the old book . v 3.1. Goðafoss–Falls of the Gods . 76 4.1. The Forked Bridge–Midnight at Jól . 96 4.2. Himinbjörg–to the far North . 99 4.3. Aurora Borealis–Souls flying . 106 5.1. A photo of Helheim—Fosnes—Reflection in the water . 116 7.1. The carved FUÞARK . 179 7.2. Northern Seeress–photo from pub. dom. 192 8.1. The seiðman with Fliegenpilze . 222 Preface I don’t consider this volume to be any great piece of research. There are plenty of researchers out there far more knowledgeable than I, and I have no problem with that. I don’t consider these books revolutionary in any way either; I seriously doubt whether they will change the practice of Ásatrú in the modern world. What they are is an Ásatrú man’s view of the world after having been Ásatrú two years short of a full third of a century. They are my views. When I was in 6th grade just entering junior high school in Lambertville, Michi- gan, I had few thoughts about religion. Our town was a collection of German-American Lutherns (who, like my grandfather, rarely, if ever, attended church) and Polish-American Catholics who only went to church until they were old enough to start helping on the farm. My mom was the oddball French-Canadian-Ojibwa Catholic who forced me to go to Mt. Carmel Catholic church until I was 14 years old and who does not know to this day that I schwäntst (played “hookey”) catechism from age 8 on. I asked my Grampa Jack one morning when we were hoeing corn what religion he was. After a minute of leaning on his hoe and thinking he said, “I guess I belong to the Linzie religion” and that was good enough for my 6th grade mind. Back then, I really didn’t think much about anything except for Laura Berry (who still comes to mind off and on) and Melanie Sigler. I was schwäntsing Mr. Thompson’s study hall one fine day and wound up in the school library which really wasn’t much except that Laura or Melanie might show up once in a while. I don’t know why I was looking at the books on the shelves (a rarity for me at the time), but I ran across an old book: Norse mythology, legends of giants and elves, trolls, wizards. The tales, poetry and the like were all familiar to me familiar to me. I had heard many of the stories, and nasty giants, ogres, and elves were all a part of growing up in that time and place which almost seems like a foreign country now. Growing up in a German-Polish-American farming community which had barely crept into the 20th century in the early 1960’s, one was barely out of rural Germany and the stories were common. Most kids (except for the ones just moving from the Preface v Figure 1. Frontispiece of the old book (a) city or just visiting on summer vacation) and about half the adults of my parents’ generation accepted the reality of elves. I remember the time when old Pussig VanGunten and his wife climbed the tree in front of their place, and told the road crew that if they were going to chop down the tree, they would have to chop it down with the two 80 year olds in it. Pussig was smart enough not to tell the road crew just why the tree couldn’t be chopped down, but most of us knew who really lived in that tree. So, when I pulled the smelly old book down, it felt familiar. I creaked open the cover and read the quote by some guy named Thomas Carlyle. “I think Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting than any other. It is, for one thing, the latest; it continued in those regions of Europe till the eleventh century: eight hundred years ago the Norwegians were still worshippers of Odin. It is interesting also as the creed of our fathers; the men whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless we still resemble in many ways. Strange: they did believe that, while we believe so differently. We have tolerable means to do it; for there is another point of interest in these mythologies: that they have been preserved so well. “Neither is there no use in knowing something about this old Paganism of our fathers. Unconsciously, and combined with higher things, it is us yet, that old faith withal. To know it consciously brings us into closer and clearer Preface vi relations with the past,-with our own possessions in the past. For the whole past, as I keep repeating, is the possession of the present. The past had always something true, and is a precious possession. In a different time, in different place, it is always some other side of our common human nature that has been developing itself.” –Thomas Carlyle I loved that book and read it cover to cover at least four times a year for the next 3 years. My Grampa Jack was “Linzie religion” and so was I, but I belonged to the Ása-Faith as well. I later bought a second printing of the book and still enjoy it. After 30 years of Ásatrú the book has begun to even take on the smell of that original I once held in my hands. I love the fact that I am a 3rd generation German-American. I now live in the southwest in a predominantly hispanic community and enjoy enchiladas y tamales as much as I do Sauerkraut mit Schinken und Äpfeln, but I never mistake where I came from. I read a lot more now than I used to and move a little slower than when I was still chasing Laura (and I do mean chasing—she was fast). I have a family of my own and I am 30+ years and 2000 miles away from the place of my upbringing, but I feel more a German-American now than I did growing up. I wrote this book as an expression of thanks, I suppose. This book came together over a period of 10 years. I started in 1990 (the year that our town’s electricity went out on Superbowl Sunday), and I lost the first thirty or so pages to an old, borrowed Apple IIe. Fortunately, I still had the original handwritten copy. Since that time, I’ve gone through 3 computers, Windows3.1, Windows95, Windows98, and now Linux/ FreeBSD; countless rewrites, and have lost half my hair, grown long in the tooth, became a Grampa, and got remarried only to have two more sons (one of whom is “Jack” born 99 years and 9 days after his namesake and founder of the ‘Linzie-religion’). A lot has happened in those 10 years. The book actually started out as a 5-page essay but quickly took on a life of its own sprawling out well beyond a ream of paper. The topics wander mainly because I like it that way. It starts with the individual who slowly discovers his relationship to the world. It starts at the center of the universe, i.e. me–(yes, I’m slightly narcissistic), and then looks out, then up, then down, and then further out. It is not an instruction manual, but rather a record of learning. I’ve put in beaucoup quotes and named the authors and their books as well. There are plenty of personal observations in here (actually, the bulk of what’s here is personal observations–I just ‘scotch-taped’ the personal observations together with quotes). I’m well aware that authors like to argue. One writes about a new theory–the Preface vii next knocks it.