Days of Remembrance

There are days throughout the year that are put aside to remember to heroes of Asatru.  These are holy days that Heathens keep still to this day.

 

January 9 – Remembrance for Raud the Strong.   Raud was a Norwegian chieftain whom Olaf Tryggvason killed for refusing to convert.  The end of a metal horn was put down Raud’s throat; a poisonous snake was put into the horn and the other end heated to drive it along.

 

February 9 - Remembrance for Eyvind Kinnrifi whom Olaf Tryggvason tortured to death when he refused to convert, by putting a metal brazier filled with burning coals on his belly.

February 14 - Folk etymology has led to this day being called 'Feast of Vali' in modern Asatru. Actually, St. Valentine has no demonstrable associations with Vali, nor to the thinly disguised heathen Lupercalia rites which take place on this day

 

March 28 - Ragnar Lodbrok's day, when we celebrate this famous Viking's sack of Paris.

April 9 - Remembrance for Haakon Sigurdsson (Haakon the Great), one of the Jarls of Hladhir, a great defender of Heathenism in Norway during the brutal period of forced conversion to Christianity.

June 9 - Remembrance for Sigurd the Dragonslayer (known in German versions of the story as Siegfried).

July 9 - Remembrance for Unn the Deep-Minded, a woman who was one of the great chieftains of the Icelandic settlement.

July 29 - Death-date of Olaf the Fat.

August 9 - Remembrance for King Radbod of Frisia, who, standing at the baptismal font, changed his mind and refused conversion when told that his place in the Christian Heaven would mean his separation from the souls of his ancestors.

September 9 - Remembrance for Hermann the Cheruscan, embodiment of German freedom, who kept Germany from being overrun by the Romans and suffering destruction of their culture and language such as was experienced by occupied Celtic Gaul.

October 9 - Leif Eriksson Day - Remembrance for Leif Eriksson and his sister Freydis Eriksdottir, leaders of the earliest known European settlement in America.

October 28 - Remembrance for Erik the Red.

November 9 - Remembrance for Queen Sigrid of Sweden. Wooed by Olaf Tryggvason, the relationship ended sharply when she told him that she had no intention of leaving the gods of her fathers and he slapped her across the face. She was the chief arranger of the alliance that brought him down.

November 11th - Feast of the Einherjar, in which the fallen heroes in Valhalla, and in the halls of the other Gods and Goddesses are remembered.

November 27 - Feast of Ullr and Skadi, Weyland Smith's Day celebrating the greatest of Germanic craftsmen.

December 9 - Remembrance for Egill Skallagrimsson, great Viking Age poet, warrior and rune magician.