Monthly Archives: March 2015

Paganism

Chief pagan blesses Icelandic jet – mbl.is

An­cient and mod­ern Ice­land met yes­ter­day evening at Reyk­javik Air­port, as Ice­landic low-cost air­line WOWair held a nam­ing cer­e­mony for one of two brand-new Air­bus A321 air­craft pur­chased by the air­line. The guests of ho­n­our at the event were Dor­rit Mous­saief, First Lady of Ice­land, and Hilmar Örn Hilmars­son, high priest of the Ice­landic neo-pa­gan re­li­gious as­so­ci­a­tion, Ásatrúar­félagið.

via Chief pagan blesses Icelandic jet – mbl.is.

Paganism

The Eleusinian Mysteries and Other Mystery Religions

The Eleusinian Mysteries and Other Mystery Religions by Jeremy Naydler, Ph.D.

The Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated from at least the eighth century B.C. at Eleusis, near Athens, and continued into the Hellenistic period. While there is some reason to believe that they were established at a much earlier date—in the second half of the fifteenth century B.C.—and that their origin was Egyptian, neither an earlier dating nor an Egyptian origin is accepted by the majority of scholars today, for lack of firm evidence. Nevertheless, the possibility of an earlier Egyptian origin of the Eleusinian mysteries should not be dismissed out of hand, and there are some who have no difficulty with this view. But whether or not they had an Egyptian origin
is a side issue to the present argument. Eleusis was just one of many mystery centers that flourished throughout the Greek and Greco-Roman world.

Mythology

Ratatoskr and Meeko: Spiteful Squirrels of Norse and Wabanaki Mythology | EsoterX

Common knowledge about squirrels is that they are basically furry rats. Yes, they are adorable in an amnesiac sort of way, what with their inability to remember where they buried their nuts, but the modern squirrel is not typically considered a manifestation of anything monstrous. Interestingly, much like Coca-Cola and Pop Rocks, if you combine Viking aesthetics with squirrels, you produce a malevolent little rodent called Ratatoskr (“Drill Tooth” in Old Norse) that spends his days spreading malicious gossip and trying to start a fight between the eagle at the top of the World Tree Yggdrasil and the angry Wyrm beneath called Níðhöggr, generally with phrases like, “Did you hear what he said about your mother?”

via Ratatoskr and Meeko: Spiteful Squirrels of Norse and Wabanaki Mythology | EsoterX.