Thursday, June 7, 2012

OK, I know I missed another week of the PBP. I actually wrote a post, and then decided it was silly and nothing much to do with Paganism at all, so I didn't post it. This week is L, and I might write about Loki, even though I've written about Him on here before. There are elements I could touch upon such as why I consider it important to acknowledge Him in passing at the least for every intelligent Heathen, but I might just dive into folklore and post a bunch of evidence for His historical worship. (Plenty of people say there isn't any, but I don't understand why no one would worship Him and then He would crop up in all these elements of folkloric observance.) So that might be this week's aim. I'll collect a bunch of those and shove them all up. 

Because I love Him, and nuts to you if you hate Him. You don't have to understand Him, but you get that hating on Him is only going to attract His attention more, right? You're better off offering a small drink whenever you drink to Oðinn as the lore implies is appropriate and otherwise avoiding insulting Him. Calling Him a f****t isn't going to endear you to Him.

Also, check it out, I'm capitalising pronouns. This is a weird thing for me... I always capitalise pronouns when it comes to the Gods of my Hedgecraft, sort of as a method of distinction.... and then when it comes to other deities I capitalise randomly and arbitrarily. I decide one day that I want to and forget about it the next. But it's pleasing, sometimes, to capitalise pronouns. It spikes me back into awareness. Plus it upsets monotheists. 

I don't know why I take vague pleasure in upsetting monotheists in this sort of way. I suppose it's something to do with taking up some sort of idea or concept that are as much our right as Pagans as they are theirs - like tagging things "god" or "scripture" or "lord", knowing that a fair number of Christians will look on such a tag expecting to find things related to only their god and only their scripture. I know it ruffles feathers when they find a quotation from the Eddur under "scripture". 

Hey, did I ever tell you guys about a situation on the NaNoWriMo forums? It was hilarious. The subject was something like the afterlife. A Heathen there said "to quote scripture," and quoted the "Cattle Die" stanza of the Havamal. Most people - atheists, Christians and others - in that forum were perfectly civilised, but one Christian responded "Where exactly is that, and in what bible?".
A third writer chimed in: "The bible isn't the only holy scripture out there. If I recognise that quote it's from the Poetic Edda, specifically the Havamal or Words of Odin, held sacred by many Heathens and other Norse Pagans."
The Christian got all snotty: "Pagans and heathens don't go well with the word "holy", and there's only one book of truth."
The Heathen responded with another quote from the Havamal. "The witless man, when he meets with men, Had best in silence abide, For no-one shall find that nothing he knows If his mouth is not open too much. =D"

looooooooooool.

I like to occasionally shake things, to remind people that we're here, that other religions exist, and that our faith is valid enough to use terms like "holy" and "god" and mean them. I think there are people out there who associate Pagans with Renn Faires and sparkly "fairy" wings and glitter and dancing naked on a hill somewhere (not that these things are bad in their own rights), and don't associate Paganism with real, down-to-earth religion, with people who are happy to talk theology and scripture and history and archaeology. Maybe using words they associate nearly solely with their own faith unsettles some because it marks us out as normal, as just like them - and that gives us some legitimacy.

Whatever, it's entertaining.

4 comments:

  1. I'm far behind as well. I'm just in this sort of mood where I don't really have anything to say. I hope I snap out of it soon. :)

    When it comes to Loki, I think a lot of people fail to recognize that without a bit of chaos to shake things up, there wouldn't be any progress. We'd likely all just sit around and stagnate. So it's generally worth acknowledging that He has a part to play in things, even if we might rather travel down a less bumpy road at times.

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  2. *snorts*
    I agree the looool.

    You know that awkward moment, when you point something out to a Christian (something they never ever thought about, because - well - they are used to their religion - and it is mostly nothing more than that) and first they stare at you, and next you literally hear the gears in the head starting to spin. Ow, that must hurt.

    It is not so much the religion, but the people - and I can't stand stupid, ignorant people, no matter what they believe in.

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  3. Hmmm... why would Loki figure in folklore, you say, and people not worshiping him....? Oh, to be sure, there are some books about, like Jan Ekerman´s "Hagtornsgåtan" - "The Hawthorn riddle" (sadly, its only available in my native Swedish) which argues for a supposed deity under the "Lodyn" name, a proto-Loki if you will, worshipped up to around AD 800 or so... but that theory isn't widely accepted.

    Then again, we have all the folklore around "lokabrenna" (a windswept or barren place), throwing kid's "milk teeth" into the fire as a supposed offering to Loki, Loki as the "Lokke" spider, or traditional rhymes like "Geting geting etterspik, från Loke är du kommen och du är honom lik, stick i sten, men int' i ben, stick i mull, men inte hull, stick mig och du faller döder omkull"

    (In approximate translation: "Hornet, Hornet ichorspike, from Loki did you come, and you resemble him, stick in stone, not in bone, stick in earth, not in flesh, sting me, and fall over dead !" (a traditional chant against hornets)

    All in all, the folklore suggests a Loki deity best to be avoided, not exactly embraced, cherished or even worshipped, the way I see it. Even though I don't exactly worship Loki though, I find him oddly interesting - he - like you say - is the shaker, the mover and the flame, for ever stirring things up...

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    Replies
    1. There's some English folklore I remember from somewhere, not to mention that old story about the fisherman's son. I'm going to see what else I can find. I just would have thought that if he wasn't worshipped at all, his name would have been avoided rather than invoked, and offerings wouldn't have been made, but I suppose they could have been made just in appeasement. But then we have to decide how one defines "worship" precisely; appeasement could count, depending on your POV. :)

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