England's Nimrud

ISIS use power tools to destroy 3000 year old monuments before
blowing the entire site up.

*Written back in April on a previous blog. Still relevant today.*

Today is a sad day for world history as it appears that ISIS have attacked and destroyed the ancient city of Nimrud in an act of pure religious fanaticism. In videos shown across the world, images showed Islamists attacking the Assyrian city ruins which still contained priceless artifacts, some of which were over 3000 years old. Those taking part are apparently inspired by their prophet Mohammed's violent behavior as documented in the Quran, in tales where he is said to have torn down pagan idols in Mecca "with his bare hands". (I know right, this guy must have been strong, huh!)

The issue seems to be more widespread than just ISIS though, so this isn't an issue of just one group of extremists. It seems that there is an inherent issue within Islam over protection of historically important sites. In Saudi Arabia for example the Government there has completely turned a blind eye to even Mecca's heritage, with one Time Magazine article saying as much as 98% of the heritage sites there have been bulldozed for modern development. 

There were even calls last month from ISIS and extremist Islamic preachers to destroy what is left of the Sphinx and the pyramids in Giza. Of course this wouldn't be the first time as the nose of the Sphinx and many statues across Palestine and Turkey were defaced (quite literally) by religious nutters throughout history. They weren't just Muslim though, as Iconoclasm has been used quite extensively across history as a method of erasing the cultural stamp of a previous civilization when conquering land or subjugating a group of people.

Whilst the practice has been used since the dawn of time, the main offenders across history have tended to be those from an Abrahamic religious persuasion, and although we might think of these acts as occurring in exotic locations in the middle-east or on some isolated Mediterranean island, it may shock some to hear that similar practices happened in England. And fairly recently too.

There is also a fairly lax account of that religious extremism that occurred in England too, the last bout started during the reign of Puritanism. From as far back as the late 1500's during Elizabeth I's reign, Puritans had tried to steer the Church of England in a certain direction. For around hundred and fifty years or so they pushed for extreme reform. Although they never appeared to achieve full domination of the religious and political fabric of the nation, they got pretty close to it with the Parliamentarian victory of the second Civil War. Cromwell was an unabated Puritan who even sought to ban Christmas celebrations. Because of histories bias towards Cromwell (the reasons of which must wait for another time,) most of this has been mostly forgotten.

Whilst the overall story of Puritans and English-come-British history is obviously a little too complex for a few paragraphs, the overall image is of a fragmented society split between three pillars of Traditionalism, 'Enlightenment' and Religious Extremism expressed by some elements in English society.

So what is it that I've dubbed "England's Nimrud"?

Well it sits approximately twenty-odd miles north of Stonehenge and despite being a World Heritage Site (and the entire area being in the region of twenty times the size of stonehenge,) its actually fairly unheard of. Avebury: a neolithic monument of such epic proportions that it pretty much contains an entire village quite comfortably within its ditches.

Like Stonehenge, nobody is one hundred per cent sure of its purpose (I have my own theories like every other Tom, Dick and Harry,) but one thing that we do know is that throughout the years the huge sarsen stones were broken up for use in construction on farm walls and buildings. Now despite what I've suggested previously about the Puritans, the method of using the stones for building material was not something new, and this is obvious when you look at the villages architecture. The sites destruction seemed to accelerate around the late 1600's though for a brief time.

That been said, a vast amount of damage had already been done to the monument through the 14th century when the population was more or less fully converted to Christianity. The population were brainwashed into associating the once sacred monuments with the Christian concept of Satan, and this is still evident today with many neolithic sites bearing a daemonic name. This ideological obsession (spurred on by clergy) convinced men to go out and dig the stones foundations out, and bury or burn them. Fortunately (or perhaps with some divine influence from the land wights) one man taking part in the destruction of the henge was crushed under a falling stone and may have been the reason why the destruction stopped for some time. The tales have it that he was a barber by trade, and his death was seen as an omen by many so the sarsens were left alone. As it happens, an excavation in the early 20th century actually proved this old tale as being historically correct, when a skeleton was found under a buried sarsen with a coin dating to the 1300's and with his scissors still in a pouch. 

Today, a fair amount of the monument still exists, however the magnitude of its grandeur would not be possible today without the illustrations made by John Aubrey and by William Stukeley during the 17th and early 18th century. The full extent and size of the monument far exceeded what we see today, as much of the existing stone avenue was destroyed, along with two inner-rings and a large 'phallic' monolith which was destroyed apparently when Stukeley was present. Credit where it's due, there would be nothing there today at all had it not been for John Lubbock who purchased the estates in 1871 an attempt to preserve the site, or had it not been for the efforts of Alexander Keiller during the 1930's to dig up and re-erect the buried stones. 

Artist impression of the henge in it's original state

One of the 'accepted views' about the destruction of this site during the 1600's is that this was not religious in nature, and was merely due to an increasing population in the village. They support the theory that in many cases, villagers wanted the stones removed in order to make ploughing fields easier, or to use the huge stones as building material for new homes. The main reason that I would object to this idea is because of Stukeley's own words:


Just before I visited this place... the inhabitants were fallen into the custom of demolishing the stones, chiefly out of covetousness of the little area of ground, each stood on. First they dug great pits in the earth, and buried them. The expence of digging the grave, was more than 30 years purchase of the spot they possessed, when standing. After this, they found out the kanck of burning them, which has made most miserable havock of this famous temple. One Tom Robinson the Herostratus of Abury,* is particularly eminent for this kind of execution, and he very much glories in it. The method is, to dig a pit by the side of the stone, till it falls down, then to burn many loads of straw under it. They draw lines of water along it when heated, and then with smart strokes of a great sledge hammer, its prodigious bulk is divided into many lesser parts. But this Atto de fe** commonly costs thirty shillings in fire and labour, sometimes twice as much. They own too 'tis excessive hard work, for these stones are often 18 foot long, 13 broad, and 6 thick, that their weight crushes the stones in pieces, which they lay under them to make them lie hollow for burning, and for this purpose they raise them with timbers of 20 foot long, and more, by the help of twenty men, but often the timbers were rent to pieces. 

Stukeley goes on to write that a single stone could provide enough pieces to build an ordinary house, but that because of the nature of the stone, such a house "is always moist and dewy in winter, which proves damp and unwholesome, and rots the furniture. The custom of thus destroying them is so late, that I could easily trace the obit of every stone; who did it, for what purpose, and when, and by what method, what house or wall was built out of it, and the like."

Now reading that passage, to me it looks like the method is out of date for even the 1600s. It is clearly labour intensive, expensive and produced homes of inferior quality which remained cold and damp. Religious reasons have to come into this in some way or another. Lets not forget that at the same time that this was occurring, we had issues with the puritans in Government and even the Witchfinder General wandering around the land in search of commission. They gained very little land in destroying the stones, and as Stukeley states, this has more to do with Tom Robinson'sideological beliefs than for any practical reasoning.

In any case, I think its safe to say that the monument at Avebury has received a second wind. It is now a vibrant place to visit with a deep spiritual and cultural connection for hundreds of thousands of people. It receives a huge number of visitors, and is a destination for a worldwide pagan pilgrimage, which is something we can only dream of for Nimrud which was spectacularly blown up with plastic explosives in the last few weeks.

Avebury today.

Whilst there are calls to judge Islam and its more extreme elements for the damage done to historically invaluable monuments across the Middle East, we have to remember that it is only through the chance of time that the same fate did not also befall some of Europe's most treasured sites. The true enemy of civilization and culture is unshakable religious dogma. It has been shown time and time again to turn back humanities development, and ISIS is just another reverberation of that repeating history. Avebury survived by the skin of its teeth and through the hard work of conservationists spanning a hundred years or more. It's new position as a culturally important destination today is good luck. Unfortunately, Nimrud's ran out.

Einherjar Day

Its often quite difficult to rekindle old traditions, that is of course if you can find a tradition from the old ways at all. The problem with a re-constructionist faith is that whilst the basics may be more or less laid down from historical accounts, the smaller customs often left to the imagination. It is laid out in front of us like a puzzle. A puzzle with many pieces unfortunately missing. In an ideal world, we could re-create these old traditions by way of studying history and any lore that we still have access to, but even that still leaves great holes in our customs and our annual calendar. 

Not sure how the Valkyrie intend on
carrying this guy up to Valhalla!

My argument, although not ideal, would be to start new customs wherever there is one of these holes. Anything that our young folk can carry forward into the future is a bonus, so long as the custom has a meaning, a story or a moral to go with it.

One day which approaches us soon in the UK and other nations is Remembrance Sunday, held this week on the 8th (and again on remembrance day held on the 11th each year.) Remembrance day today is there to mark and respect the Allied soldiers who fell in the two World Wars and all other wars up until present day. This is of course a recent commemoration, although it is hard to imagine a time where nations and folk have not held some sort of vigil for their fallen warriors in the past.

Within the Heathen community, Einherjar Day has become a recognised holy day. (The Einherjar are those who have died in battle and joined Woden's hall in Valhalla.) Whilst there is no consensus within the 'Old Ways' (be it Asatru, Odinism etc) as to what this date should be, in the UK it seems most logical to place it at the time at which the rest of society marks the death of their soldiers. Through a logical appropriation (although in this case obviously not a negative one) of mainstream society, it means heathens are adhering to something positive whilst not outcasting themselves.

I think the heathen mindset however respects all of our folk, from all across Europe who have died in battles. From the first Saxon folk who took up arms against the Wīlisc defenders, Luftwaffe pilots who bombed London in WWII, to our young lads who served in the Middle East all the way up until the present day. To the Heathen mindset, there is no longer tribal differences between kin at Odin's hall. All are welcomed and treated as brother. The idea that we might hate somebody just because they were fighting for the other side, even after death, is self-defeating as much as it is dishonorable. 

I implore you then to remember the fallen, as most do at this time of year. Do not mourn though. Eat well, and raise a glass to them. They have not passed on, but live on in eternal glory. Remember them as young men and women, prepared to risk their lives in the line of duty. In the eyes of the heathen, forever doing battle along side Woden or Freya. Hail the glorious dead.

The Meaning of Halloween

Every year I see the signs of Halloween in the shops come mid-September and I’m reminded of the strange relationship that modern society has with our ancient European customs. On the one hand, all the major festivals are still annually represented. Easter, Christmas (as well as New Years,) and Halloween are after all the three biggest festivals we celebrate in the Western world today. On the other hand, the meanings have been so far removed as to make them feel culturally impotent. Our main festivals have been butchered by capitalism to the point where in many instances, they no longer bring joy but financial despair.

I’m sure everyone will be familiar with the commercialisation of Christmas and to a lesser extent Easter, but when it comes to Halloween I’m probably not wrong to assume that the vast majority of the public don’t really know what Halloween is, or what it represents. If the public did, I would like to think that we as a society wouldn’t be so quick as to treat the festival with such disdain.

Halloween, like Christmas and Easter, is a European festival that comes from way beyond the dawn of Christianity. Simply put, in almost all European cultures Halloween is a time for honouring the dead and was originally observed by our pagan ancestors. The word Halloween literally means ‘holy evening’ when taken under the Christian guise, but is also known within most of the pagan community as Samhain. As a pagan festival, it is often presumed to be of Gaelic or “Celtic”, in its origin. However that been said, this is an overly simplistic view. Aspects of Halloween were seen all across Europe, and I really don’t understand why everything pagan pertaining to Northern Europe has to be given the “Celtic” title.

Jack-O-Lanterns were said to scare aware evil spirits which on Halloween could cross over the spiritual plains, except they were originally carved from turnips in Ireland seeing as pumpkins originally only grew in America. In Scandinavia and certain Germanic tribes, children who were coming of age that year dressed up in the clothes of their dead ancestors and walked about the village as a sign that they had effectively been “reborn”, a symbol if you like of a biological link which in a literal way means eternal life. Other places would light bonfires and even jump over the flames in a bid to ward off evil spirits. The connection with apples (candied apples, or apple bobbing) is a link to a pagan symbol of everlasting life, especially within Germanic or Scandinavian lore. Basically what we have today with modern Halloween is essentially a mash-up of varying but ultimately very similar cultural celebrations, mainly from Northern Europe.

As this blog is intended to bring about musings on English culture though, I feel it rather pertinent to defend the Anglo-Saxon celebration of Halloween. Most places you go to on the internet for reference will claim that Samhain is strictly a Celtic thing, but as we’ve already discussed this is not necessarily the case. In all honesty, it seems highly unlikely that the Catholic, Orthodox and certain Protestant churches would have adopted All Saints Day across Europe if the cultural event it was replacing (this was common practice, hence Easter is recognised in Spring, and Christmas at Yule) was only observed in the far flung extremities of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Perhaps it is more realistic to assume that those mountainous isolated regions saw the least amount of persecution which enabled more of the old traditions to survive.

We also have to consider other evidence, such as the ‘Witches Sabbath’, which was said to have been held on the night of the 31^st of October in isolated regions across England and on the continent too including Germany, France, Italy and Hungary to name but a few. A night where those who still keep the old ways would meet in secret to do their traditional, pagan rituals. This cannot be seen as a coincidence, but more as a re-affirmation that Halloween is a real festival, probably older than most give it credit for.

The Anglo-Saxons called November ‘blotmonað’, or blood month. That sounds like something pretty barbaric, but the blot is a ritual in which an offering (usually cattle) were offered up to the Gods and ancestors. Given that the month starts with Halloween (remember that in those days, a day began with the sundown of the previous day) it makes perfect logical sense. Especially when we consider that after Christianisation, the day was observed with an abstinence of meat. This could either mean the foregoing of meat was done by the pagans and carried over into the new faith, as meat on that evening was reserved solely for the departed as a gift, or it was an attempt by the Church later on to try and prevent cattle being offered to ‘false’ Gods. Either way, it still makes a pretty good case for a European-wide festival, or at least Germanic celebration. Clearly not just Gaelic.

What happened to England’s Festivals Though?

In England today, just like in Scotland, some of these festivals survived. There is still a number of villages that celebrate the night in weird and wonderful ways, but in England I have a sneaky suspicion that something that’s considered a relatively new thing is actually something very pagan. Guy Fawkes Night today might be celebrated with the letting off of annoying pyrotechnics, but traditionally it’s marked by the burning of an effigy of Guy Fawkes. I’m sure most in England will be familiar with the story of Guy Fawkes and the whole ‘Burning the Guy’ thing, if you don’t please google it.

It is interesting that the time at which Guy Fawkes Night is observed is so close to Samhain.  As we’ve already said, Samhain was very often observed with bonfires. Also, we need to take into consideration the politics at the time in 1605 at the time of the gun powder plot. England was under the control of an increasingly Puritan Government. The culmination of the Puritan power would eventually lead to Cromwell trying to ban Christmas fifty years later because it was too ‘pagan’. When we consider that Guy Fawkes was hung, not burnt to death for his attempted terrorism, the whole thing about burning an effigy of him seems pretty absurd. Perhaps the timing of the attack was coincidence, or perhaps the whole thing was some sort of conspiracy by the state to try and take control of the meaning of Halloween as a festival, but either way I find it amazingly too coincidental. Two cultural events within one week both burning bonfires. I suspect that the State at the time simply said that the bonfires would be accepted, so long as the effigy of Guy Fawkes was placed upon it. In this way, the public managed to keep their tradition, but the meaning was forever skewed.

I think it’s probably important to point out that except from some isolated villages (at least in the United Kingdom,) many of these festivals disappeared almost entirely until America amalgamated the varying traditions into a commercial product to re-sell to Western Europe. In a way, we should be thankful that at least some of the traditions have been saved, albeit in a perverted form, but like I said in the beginning, if people truly knew the real meaning behind Halloween, it wouldn’t be celebrated with such mockery. Whilst dressing up as horror characters and eating vast amounts of E-numbers may seem fun, the real meaning behind the night is meant to be respect for the dead. In a society today which fears growing old and laments too much on the present – maybe a more serious observance of Halloween is what society is missing.

The Church in recent years has certainly shirked away from keeping this festival in the limelight, so I suppose that the onus should fall once again in the hands of pagans to re-spread the true meaning once more.

All that been said, enjoy the evening and stay safe this Halloween!