The rose, with its exquisite beauty and rich symbolism, holds a special place in the Western Mysteries, intertwining with spiritual, mythical, and historical narratives. Let’s the multifaceted spiritual symbolism of roses, delving into their significance in various cultures and their connection to the Grail. The Mystical Rose The Rose, often compared to the Grail, serves as a symbol of the...
In the rich tapestry of Old Norse literature, tales of encounters between Christian kings and the remnants of the old gods persist as fascinating narratives that reflect the complex interplay between the pagan past and the emerging Christian present. One such tale unfolds in the saga of Óláfs Saga Helga, captured vividly in the introductory quote. ‘Have you no desire...
“The Goose Girl,” a Grimm fairy tale, weaves a tapestry of maternal blood, identity, and heritage. The tale unfolds with the princess embarking on a transformative journey, her fate entwined with three drops of blood. Beyond a cautionary narrative, the story delves into the complexities of self-awareness, adoption, and the magical, protective power of maternal blood. The Symbolism of Blood The narrative commences with a poignant act – the queen’s blood, a symbolic connection to the impending separation. The drops […]...
The exploration of ancient symbols often reveals hidden threads connecting diverse cultures. In the Maier Files Chronicles, we delve into the higher meaning of the swastika, tracing its roots through various traditions and shedding light on its symbolism beyond conventional interpretations. Herman Wirth’s research on the Ur-Nordic races in Germany serves as a guiding beacon, unraveling the swastika’s significance in...
The rape of Lucretia …Leibniz, the founder of optimism, and a great poet as well as a profound philosopher, writes somewhere that in a temple at Memphis there was a great pyramid of globes placed one on top of the other. A priest, who was asked by a traveller what this pyramid of globes represented, replied that these were all...
On the morning of Wednesday 8 March 1647, the Presbyterian theologian Francis Cheynell, an influential member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines—an institution appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England—appeared before his colleagues to read out a report that censured a book entitled Satan’s Stratagems, which had been published almost a century before (in 1565) by an Italian exile named Jacob Acontius. A few years later, on 21 April 1654, many miles away from Westminster Abbey […]...
Today, most of us think of the self as having two or three parts: a body, a mind, and perhaps – depending on your own religious convictions – a soul. The Vikings, too, thought of the self as having different components, but they believed in more and different components than we do. The Viking self was an integral being; all...
Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world. Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs, and practices to the lands they discovered and the peoples they encountered, and...
John Kenny ‘s fascinating CD “Dragon Voices.Around 1990, John Purser – composer, musicologist, poet, playwright, broadcaster and passionate scholar of Scotland’s music – initiated a project to reconstruct the so-called Deskford carnyx, which was discovered in a peat bog at Leitchestown farm in Deskford, in the former Scottish county of Banffshire, in 1816. Only the boar’s-head bell survives, apparently placed in a shallow lake as a ritual deposit. It was donated to Banff Museum, and is now on loan from […]...
This book should be seen as a nuanced representation of the relationship between folklore studies and a socialist-totalitarian state, based on some of the significant issues in the history of folklore studies in the three countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, often referred to as “the Baltic countries.” This is not a complete and comprehensive history of folkloristics in the...
The nornir or norns were a group of female supernatural beings closely related to ideas about fate in Old Norse tradition. Karen Bek-Pedersen provides a thorough understanding of the role played by norns and other beings like them in the relevant sources. Although they are well known, even to people who have only a superficial knowledge of Old Norse mythology,...
Midsummer, the Summer Solstice is one of two yearly solstices, the other being the Winter Solstice, at the opposite end of the year. Technically, the solstice itself falls at the exact moment that Earth’s semi-axis is most inclined toward the sun, which occurs twice a year. So in the Northern Hemisphere, the Summer Solstice occurs in June, and the Winter Solstice occurs in December. In the Southern Hemisphere, the reverse is true. The Summer Solstice tends to fall around June […]...













