Recommended Sources on Asatru and Heathenry

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[SunflowerP]

Read anything written in later years by Stephen Flowers aka Edred Thorsson aka Spooky Eddie with an entire salt lick.

While his earlier work is fantastic, most of his later stuff is, by his own admission, NOT lore based except in the loosest terms. He does not call himself heathen any more, he has joined the *insert spooky voice over* Temple of Set.

I'm a little surprised about "fantastic" applied to his earlier work, unless I'm out to lunch on what's "earlier" and what's "later" - I had the idea that Northern Magic would fall under "earlier", and I thought there was a bit of "filling in gaps with Wiccish" going on there.  Not enough for a dis-recommendation - there wasn't much, and it seemed to be mostly for the purposes of making sure there was enough structure for modern practice - but enough to be worth noting.

Sunflower

[Wodening]

Many of the books I would recommend have already been recommended, but I would like to add:

"Culture of the Teutons" by Vilhelm Gronbech
Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia " by E.O.G. Turville-Petre
"Lady with the Mead Cup" by Michael Enright

[Hyacinth Belle]

Many of the books I would recommend have already been recommended, but I would like to add:

"Culture of the Teutons" by Vilhelm Gronbech
Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia " by E.O.G. Turville-Petre
"Lady with the Mead Cup" by Michael Enright

Hi, Wodening! Not to be picky (I know other boards have different methods, including AL), but try to remember to quote. Thanks!

And thanks for the recommendations, especially the Gronbech one. I've been thinking about resources for solid cultural information, and this looks great. (For those interested, Vol. 1 and 2 are available here on Northvegr!)

[bobthesane]

So, what would you recommend for some good reading (or websites) on Asatru and/or Heathenry?

Here is a list I shamelessly stole from Bil Linzie aka the Seidhman, one of the 'elders' of modern heathenry and a personal friend of mine.

###########################################
Author/ Title
Adalsteinsson/ A Piece of Horse liver
Adalsteinsson/ Under the Cloak
Alcock/ Arthur's Britain
Anderson/ Norse Mythology
Anderson/ War of the Gods
Andren/ Old Norse Religion in Long Term Perspectives
Asbjornsen-Moe/ Norwegian Folktales
Augustyn/ The Semiotics of Fate, Death, and the Soul in Germanic Culture
Baker/ The Viking
Baker/ The Vikings
Bates/ The Real Middle Earth
Bates/ The Way of Wyrd
Bates/ The Wisdom of Wyrd
Baushatz/ The Well and the Tree
Bede/ Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Bellows/ The Poetic Edda
Blecher/ Swedish Folktales and Legends
Bonser/ The Medical Backround of Anglo-Saxon England
Briggs/ Witches and Neighbors
Bright/ Old English Grammar and Reader
Byock/ Medieval Iceland
Byock/ Viking Age Iceland
Canwell/ Vikings
Chisholm/ The Poetic Edda
Christianssen/ Folktales of Norway
Christianssen/ The Norsemen in the Viking Age
Clare/ Wikinger -Ich war dabei
Clunies-Ross/ Old Norse Myths, Literature and Society
Coulter/ Germanic Heathenry
Crossley-Holland/ The Exeter Book of Riddles
Crossley-Holland/ The Norse Myths
Dasent/ Popular Tales from Norse Mythology
Daun/ Swedish Mentality
Davidson/ Gods & Myths of Northern Europe
Davidson/ Gods & Myths of the Viking Age
Davidson/ Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe
Davidson/ Roles of the Northern Goddess
Davidson/ Scandinavian Mythology
Davidson/ The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe
Davidson/ The Road to Hel (Printed PDF)
Dennis-Foote-Perkins/ Laws of Early Iceland: Gragas I
Dover/ Heimskringla
Dronke/ The Poetic Edda, Vol. II
Dronke/ The Poetic Edda,vvol. I
DuChaillu/ Land of the Midnight Sun (vols. 1-2)
DuChaillu/ The Viking Age (vols 1-2)
Dubois/ Nordic Religions in the Viking Age
Dumezil/ Gods of the Ancient Northmen
Eldaring/ Heidnisches Jahrbuch 2006
Eldaring/ Heidnisches Jahrbuch 2007
Eldaring/ Heidnisches Jahrbuch 2008
Enright/ Lady with a Mead Cup
Ewing/ Gods and Worshippers
Ewing/ Viking Clothing
Faulkes/ Trans./ Edda
Feagles/ Thor and the Giants
Fischer/ Trans./ Saxo Gramaticus: History of the Danes
Fitzhugh/ Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga
Fletcher/ The Barbarian Conversion
Flowers/ Galdrabok
Flower's/ Ibn Fadlan's Travel Report
Flowers/ Trans./ The Rune-Poems
Foote, et al/ The Viking Achievement
Frakes/ The Fate of Fortune in the Early Middle Ages
Franzen/ The Viking's Guide to Good Business
Frazer/ The Golden Bough
Frueh/ Geheimnisvolle Winter und Weihnachtszeit
Frueh/ Raunaechte
Frye/ Ibn Fadlan's Journey to Russia
G. Dimmbla/ Odhsmal
Geary/ Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages
Genzmer/ Die Edda
Glob/ The Bog People
Glosecki/ Shamanism in Old English Poetry
Golther/ Handbuch der Germanischen Mythologie
Graham-Campbell/ Cultural Atlas of the Viking World
Graham-Campbell/ The Vikings
Graigh/ Scandinavian Folk-lore
Grant/ Viking Mythology
Greer/ A World full of Gods
Griffith/ The Viking Art of War
Grigsby/ Beowulf & Grendel
Grimm/ Grimm's Fairy Tales
Grimm/ Teutonic Mythology (Vol. 1-4)
Groenbech/ Kultur und Religion der Germanen (vols. 1-3)
Gronbech/ The Culture of the Teutons (Vol. 1-3)
Guerber/ Myths of the Norsemen
Gundarsson/ Elves, Wights, and Trolls
Gundarsson/ Our Troth (1st ed)
Hagan/ Anglo-Saxon Food
Hagan/ Anglo-Saxon Food & Drink
Hall/ Beyond Culture
Hastrup/ a Place Apart
Haywood/ Encyclopedia of the Viking Age
Haywood/ The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings
Henish/ Fast and Feast
Herbert/ Looking for the Lost Gods of England
Herbert/ Peace-weavers & Shield-maidens
Hollander/ Trans./ Heimskringla
Hollander/ Trans./ The Poetic Edda
Hollander/ Trans./ The Saga of the Jomsvikings
Holmberg/ Finno-Ugric Mythology
Holmberg/ Siberian Mythology
Humble/ The Fall of Anglo-Saxon England
Hutton/ Stations of the Sun
Hutton/ The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles
Hutton/ The Triumph of the Moon
Ingram/ The Saxon Chronicle
Janoda/ A novel of Medieval Iceland: Saga
Jesch/ Women in the Viking Age
Jochens/ Women in Old Norse Society
Jolly/ Popular Religion in Late Anglo-Saxon England
Jonasson/ Trans./ The Sayings of the Vikings
Jones & Pennick/ A History of Pagan Europe
Jones/ A History of the Vikings
Kauffmann/ Nothern Mythology
Keightley/ The world Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and other Little People
Keyser/ Religion of the Northmen
LaFarge/ Glossary to the Poetic Edda
Lacy-Danziger/ The Year 1000
Lee/ Feasting the Dead
Lindow/ Handbook of Norse Mythology
Linsell/ Anglo-Saxon Mythology, Migration and Magic
MacDonald/ Vikings
Madsen/ The Vikings
Magnusson/ The Vikings
Maier/ Die Religion der Germanen
Mallory/ In Search of the Indo-Europeans
Mannhardt/ Wald- und Feldkulte
Margeson/ Viking (Eyewitness Books)
Martell/ Food and Feasts with the Vikings
McNallan/ Rituals of Asatru (vols 1-3)
Meehan/ Celtic Designs: Animal Patterns
Miller/ Eye for an Eye
Moberg/ History of the Swedish People (vols. 1-2)
Morris/ Song of the Volsungs
Murphy/ The Heliand
Murray/ Germanic Kinship Stucture
Nurmann, et al/ The Vikings
O'Donoghue/ From Asgard to Valhalla
Owen/ The Germanic People
Owen/ The Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons
Page/ Chronicles of the Vikings
Page/ Norse Myths
Paul/ The Rune Poem
Pennick/ Materworks
Pennick/ The Complete Illustrated Guide to Runes
Plastmann/ Der Jahresring
Pollington/ Leechcraft
Pollington/ The English Warrior from Earliest time to 1066
Pollington/ The Mead-Hall
Polome/ Essays on Germanic Religion, JIES Monograph #6
Price/ The Viking Way
Proettel/ Es Spukt in Franken
Raetsch/A Der Heilige Hain
Raetsch/ Hexenmedezin
RoT/ Our Troth (2nd ed.)(vols. 1-2)
Roesdahl/ The Vikings
Rosenmeyer/ Der Zwergkristall
Russell/ The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity
Saga/ Beowulf (Klaeber Trans.)
Saga/ Beowulf (Wright Trans.)
Saga/ Egil's Saga
Saga/ Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas
Saga/ Eyrbyggja Saga
Saga/ Hrafnkel's Saga & Other Stories
Saga/ King Harald's Saga
Saga/ Laxdaela's Saga
Saga/ Njal's Saga
Saga/ Orkneyinga Saga
Saga/ Seven Viking Romances
Saga/ The Nibelungenlied
Saga/ The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki
Saga/ The Vinland Sagas
Sawyer/ Medieval Scandinavia
Schultz/ Riesen
Seebohm/ The English Village Community
Seebohm/ Tribal Custom in Anglos-Saxon Law
Sigurdsson, Gisli/ The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition
Simek/ Der Glaube der Germanen
Simek/ Dictionary of Northern Mythology
Simek/ Die Edda
Simek/ Die Germanen
Simek/ Die Wikinger
Simek/ Goetter und Kultur der Germanen
Simek/ Heaven and Earth in the Middle Ages
Simek/ Heaven and Earth in the Middle Ages
Simek/ Mythologie und Religion der Germanen
Simpson/ Everyday Life in the Viking Age
Simpson/ Scandinavian Folktales
Singman and Mclean/ Daily Life in Chaucer's England
Smiley/ Ed./ The Sagas of the Icelanders
Smithsonian/ Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga
Snorri/ Prose Edda - Brodeur, tr.
Stanley/ Imagining the Anglo-saxon Past
Storms/ Anglo-Saxon Magic
Swanton/ Anglo-Saxon Prose
Tacitus/ The Agricola and The Germania
Terry/ Poems of the Elder Edda
Thorpe/ Northern Mythology
Titchenell/ The Masks of Odin
Todd/ The Early Germans
Toorn/ Ethics and Moral in Icelandic Saga Literature
Toyne/ Scandinavians in History
Turville-Petre/ Myth and Religion of the North
Tuse, ed./ Beowulf
Wingate & Millard/ The Viking World
Wodening/ Germanic Magic
Wodening/ We Are Our Deeds
Young/ Trans./ The Prose Edda
von Nemenyi, Geza/ Heidnische Religion

[Hyacinth Belle]

Bede/ Ecclesiastical History of the English People

HAIL! Wow, this is a wealth of resources. Thank you, thank you, thank you. A great range of subjects, too. I was especially amused to see Bede on there. lol. I read a snippet of it for a literature course, and I have to admit I found in painfully boring. YMMV, however. lol. And undoubtedly an important work.

Thank you a million times, Bob. This is wonderful!

[Grins]

Here is a list I shamelessly stole from Bil Linzie aka the Seidhman, one of the 'elders' of modern heathenry and a personal friend of mine.

Wow!  Great list!  This should keep me busy for a while, too!

[bobthesane]

HAIL! Wow, this is a wealth of resources. Thank you, thank you, thank you. A great range of subjects, too. I was especially amused to see Bede on there. lol. I read a snippet of it for a literature course, and I have to admit I found in painfully boring. YMMV, however. lol. And undoubtedly an important work.

Thank you a million times, Bob. This is wonderful!

*grin* Be thankful Bil left Saxo off the list. He makes Bede read like an action novel

[Adare]

*grin* Be thankful Bil left Saxo off the list. He makes Bede read like an action novel

Ug, Saxo's just painful! Thanks Bob!

[Kasmira]

- I do have John Lindow's Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs which I think is pretty great.

HB, could this book be used as something of an introduction to Norse practice? I'm looking for a book to get a friend who's been practicing as an Asatru for some time, but currently has The Rites of Odin by Ed Fitch as his primary source for rituals and practices... I hadn't heard of the thing before, but he asked me to do a ritual with him for Samhain and handed me the ritual from The Rites of Odin to read over. I got about 1/2 a page in before deciding I was getting him some new reading material...

Anyway, I've been fishing around the SIG trying to find recommendations for a more scholarly (and less wiccish) book to give him. I guess the problem I'm having is that overview-for-the-modern-practitioner style books tend not to be scholarly, and scholarly books tend not to provide very much by way of possible ritual and practice today. Eventually I'll get him something deep and scholarly, but I kinda want to start him off with something that doesn't require too much additional research to come up with a comprehensive practice. Ya know, not to shock him after Fitch...

Would Lindow give him something he can work off of? Or maybe Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson? Any other recommendations?

[SatAset]

HB, could this book be used as something of an introduction to Norse practice? I'm looking for a book to get a friend who's been practicing as an Asatru for some time, but currently has The Rites of Odin by Ed Fitch as his primary source for rituals and practices... I hadn't heard of the thing before, but he asked me to do a ritual with him for Samhain and handed me the ritual from The Rites of Odin to read over. I got about 1/2 a page in before deciding I was getting him some new reading material...

Anyway, I've been fishing around the SIG trying to find recommendations for a more scholarly (and less wiccish) book to give him. I guess the problem I'm having is that overview-for-the-modern-practitioner style books tend not to be scholarly, and scholarly books tend not to provide very much by way of possible ritual and practice today. Eventually I'll get him something deep and scholarly, but I kinda want to start him off with something that doesn't require too much additional research to come up with a comprehensive practice. Ya know, not to shock him after Fitch...

Would Lindow give him something he can work off of? Or maybe Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson? Any other recommendations?

I'd recommend Essential Asatru by Diana Paxson.  This is a book about how to practice today and is not based off of Wicca. 

H. R. Ellis-Davidson's books are all scholarly and the one mentioned above is a good place to start. 

[SunflowerP]

I'm looking for a book to get a friend who's been practicing as an Asatru for some time, but currently has The Rites of Odin by Ed Fitch as his primary source for rituals and practices...

<cringes> Honestly?  Almost anything else would be better - well, maybe not quite; I can think of a couple of others that'd probably be about as bad, but I doubt they'd be worse.  Fitch is a respectable author when he's on his own turf - exoteric Wiccish for those who can't find BTW training or who don't want to be priest/esses of BTWicca - but The Rites of Odin is... well, exoteric Wiccish in an ahistorical horned helmet.

I'm surprised you didn't know about it; it's a favored snark-target.

Sunflower

[Kasmira]

I'm surprised you didn't know about it; it's a favored snark-target.

Yeah. I don't have much contact with Asatru so it had never quite made it onto my radar, I guess. It's definitely on now.

Anyway, I'm thinking of possibly getting two books. Essential Asatru for a framework for practice and then either Lindow of Ellis-Davidson for stuff to build on. Does that sound like a good set? Gods, I wish there was a good bookstore around here where I could actually take a flick through the things...

[Dragondaughter]

A couple of books that were recommended over on AL by Boar's Heart when a related question came up were Gods & Worshippers by Thor Ewing, and The Mead Hall by Pollington.

I'm trying to find those two locally, but may have to resort to ordering them from Amazon....

[Hyacinth Belle]

HB, could this book be used as something of an introduction to Norse practice

Unfortunately, this doesn't have much in the way of practice... the first section is a really excellent intro to the Heathen culture / worldview, and the majority of the book is a sort of catalog or survey of mythic figures. A great reference and handy to have around, but not really a beginner book or "how to" book.

Paxson might be quite palatable, but some more recon people have some issues with her. I would recommend Ellis-Davidson's book! It's standard, well-accepted fare... although I haven't read it myself, even though it's been sitting on my pile for a while! Grrr.

[Adare]

Paxson might be quite palatable, but some more recon people have some issues with her. I would recommend Ellis-Davidson's book! It's standard, well-accepted fare... although I haven't read it myself, even though it's been sitting on my pile for a while! Grrr.

I think I've said this before? The only thing I don't like about Ellis-Davidson is that she doesn't care for Odin, at least in God's and Myths. If he's more of a Thor's man, that wouldn't matter, but every time I read her I end up irritated.

Another Paxson that has a lot of ritual material is her Taking Up the Runes. I've got both (Runes and Essential Asatru) and for ritual construction Runes was far more useful, though it is (as the title suggests  ) rune based. Good luck!

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