I am excited to announce Michael Foley of Louisiana has stepped up to folkbuild for the AFA’s South Central region. This region has a ton of potential and we are very eager to watch our South Central family grow and thrive. Thank you Michael for stepping up, I am sure great things are in store.
Hail AFA South Central!
Hail Michael Foley!
Matthew D. Flavel
Alsherjargothi,
Asatru Folk Assembly
This month, we raise a horn to the Folkmother Else Christensen. As a young girl growing up in Denmark, she felt the call of our ancient ways. As a young woman, she became interested in the future of her folk. Else worked to lay the groundwork for a society that she believed would act in the best interest of her people. This would lead to many hardships while living in Europe during the early 20th century. Else found herself, her husband, and many peers under harsh scrutiny. This scrutiny then lead to personal hardship, including arrests.
Else carried her goals and dreams for her people across the ocean when she and her husband left Europe for Canada. There she encountered the works of Alexander Rudd Mills. From these works, she began to focus on the return of the Germanic pantheon to the hearts of the European peoples. She found further inspiration in the works of Francis Yockey and Oswald Spengler. While she agreed with their consensus that the European folk-soul was in a state of disrepair and decline, Else also believed that there was hope to be found. This hope was in the practice of Odinism. The very roots of this faith, she believed, were nestled with the spiritual DNA of the people themselves, and were part of their natural state.
In 1969, this vision blossomed into the founding of the Odinist Fellowship. This organization began to connect more and more followers of the old ways together, building a network across the globe. Else reached out to those in prison, and provided them with the materials to build themselves. She is a vital part of what we have built ourselves up to today. It would be difficult to imagine what we would be left to work with if not for her unrelenting perseverance.
Else died in 2005, working to build the Folk until the very end. Her legacy is in the communities that we have, the networks, and the Folk.
Hail Else Christensen!
Gythia Anna Funk
From The Runestone Winter 1980
WHY YOU SHOULD CONTRIBUTE TO THE AFA LAND FUND ••••••
We Northern Europeans are a practical bunch. We can handle abstractions with ease, but we are most at home in the material world, the world of doing
as well as of thinking–hence our strong sense of history, which deals in things and places as well as in ideas.
Asatru, in this country as elsewhere, has ideas. We have people who accept those ideas. But now we need a place–the boden to match our blut, so to speak. In a broader sense we have our local regions and our European homelands, but we need something more specific, something more identifiable–a concrete locus in space-time.
We need a modern-day equivalent to the ancient holy site of Uppsala. Not a carefully preserved monument, rifled by archaeologists and powdered with the dust from the tourists’ clumsy feet, but rather a living, vital religious center –Uppsala as it was a thousand years ago, not as it is today.
We can have it, with your help.
A proper parcel of land could serve all of us as a special center for Asatru. On it we could hold all our future Althings, as well as lesser seminars and meetings. We can teach our children there, in summer camps where they can escape the physical. and spiritual poison of the city. Both the Varangian Guard and People of the Lord and Lady would have the special places they need for their members. The uses of this land could be manifold, extending our capabilities, broadening our horizons, and enriching our faith.
With .each and every issue we have shown that we mean business. The Runestone grows longer and more professional in appearance. Subscriptions continue to climb. People from. all around the-country write us, wanting to form kindreds of the AFA. Make no mistake, we are here to stay! Your trust placed in us will not be disappointed. This is an important project–for you, for Asatru. Let’s all pull together to make it work.
Werner Holm of Norway has stepped up to Folkbuild! We have Wanted to see Werner take this step for some time and are very excited to watch AFA Scandinavia continue growing and thriving! Thank you Werner and welcome.
Hail the Aesir!
Hail AFA Scandinavia!
Hail Werner Holm!
Matthew D. Flavel
Alsherjargothi,
Asatru Folk Assembly
We are very excited to announce Fiona Aedgar of the United Kingdom as our newest Apprentice Folkbuilder. Fiona will work alongside Anders Nilsson and Massimo Nobili to build and support our AFA family in the ancestral lands of Europe. We are honored to have Fiona on the team and very excited to watch our European family grow and thrive.
Hail the Aesir!
Hail AFA Europe!
Hail Fiona Aedgar!
Introducing James Ault of Wisconsin, the AFA’s newest Apprentice Folkbuilder serving the Midwest region alongside Zach Cato and Ben Tiemeier. James has been working hard to build things locally and we are very excited to watch the AFA Midwest region flourish with his effort and commitment. Thanks for stepping up James.
Hail the Aesir!
Hail AFA Midwest!
Hail James Ault!
Matthew D. Flavel
Alsherjargothi,
Asatru Folk Assembly
Hail from Volkswachstum AFA-South Africa
Havamal 41 –
“Friends shall gladden each other
with arms and garments,
As each for himself can see;
Gift-givers’ friendships
are longest found,
If fair their fates may be.”
As we entered some unknown dark times with the “pandemic” of the Covid-19, it caused many of us to start stressing about our own jobs, our own businesses that we started to look past the ones who already was jobless and homeless long before the Covid-19 even existed.
Volkswachstum took this time with the generous help from AFA to reach out to the elderly homeless people. This handful people live on the street, their only form of income to buy food and if they are lucky pay R20+ ($2) for a night at a shelter was to stand at local shopping centres and act as car guards and collect tips from people. Due to the Covid-19 it became illegal for them to go out and earn an income leaving them hungry and shelter less.
South African government released over 500 000 food parcels in the time of the “pandemic” to assist the people in need, to date the parcels who did not got stolen by the people intrusted to hand it out and bandits who attack the vehicles that transport these parcels, only townships were helped (non-white settlements). Millions of Rands was also made available to assist families who lost their means of income this includes small business owners and once again only those who qualified got helped (you must fall in the BEE policy to qualify), again only helping the non-white people.
Volkswachtum took a message of hope, we will not reach out to the 100’s of organisations that currently are only reaching out to townships, but we will reach out to OUR OWN FOLK, those who truly needs it most.
We raise a Horn and Hail our Alsherjargothi and Asatru Folk Assembly who made this possible, we in South Africa appreciate the thoughts and endless support we have received from day one.
As Folkbuilder, I raise a Horn and Hail Nathan Small for his support and time he dedicates to our kindred, may the Gods bless you brother.
Christo Le Roux
Folkbuilder – South Africa
Please join me in welcoming Krystal Bailey as the AFA’s newest Apprentice Folkbuilder. Krystal will be working with Gythia Sheila McNallen, Gothi Thorgrun Odden, and Ryan Harlan to build and support our AFA West membership. Those of us in the West have appreciated Krystal’s commitment and hard work first hand at Óðinshof. Welcome to the team Krystal, we are all excited to watch you succeed.
Hail the Aesir!
Hail AFA West!
Hail Krystal Bailey!
Matthew D. Flavel
Alsherjargothi,
Asatru Folk Assembly
by Stephen A. McNallen
from The Runestone Fall – Winter 1999
January 2, 2000
The lights didn’t go out. Hordes of frenzied cannibal yuppies didn’t fill our streets. Instead of the rattle of automatic weapons, popping champagne corks welcomed in the New Year. Y2K, the collapse of the computerizedd infrastructure of modern civilization, was a nonevent.
Now can we all get back to work?
Our apprehensions consumed much of our energy over the last year or so. Many of us, myself included, spent time and money planning for everything from a power outage to a The End Of The World As We Know It. Quite a few Asatruar turned inward, preoccupied with questions of survival, and the energy feeding into our common religious life dropped off noticeably. This was understandable – but hey, folks, we survived. It’s time to focus on both our private spiritual lives and on the tribal, community aspects of Asatru.
Even though the millennium is a Christian milestone with no religious relevance to us, this is still an appropriate time to ponder the future of the Asatru Folk Assembly. I will be giving a lot of thought to this question in the next hundred days or so. At last August’s Gathering of the Tribes I said I would not be doing “status quo Asatru” in a year’s time, and I was entirely serious. We have to continually examine our actions, even to the point of challenging our basic premises, if we are to keep the AFA on the cutting edge of forward movement in Asatru.
One priority for the coming year? Organizing our Asatru community here in northern California. Between now and the next issue of The Runestone, we will make significant physical improvements on the land. At the same time, we will continue attracting quality individuals and families to our area. Our plan is to build a model community, one which will lure still more Asatruar – and which will inspire others to emulate our success in their own localities.
On another topic – Y2K has come and gone, and now it is time to tackle V1K … Vinland One Thousand! Yes, this is the one thousandth year since Leif Erikson’s first voyage to North America and we must use this as an educational opportunity to enlighten others. We are Vinlanders, and by the end of the coming year we need to make the name of our nation a household word from New York to San Diego and every point in between!
Whatever the shape of our various projects in the coming months and years, we must remember that the AFA did not come into being so that Asatru could be practiced by a handful of the faithful, safely out of sight of the larger society around us. We came to lay the groundwork for fundamental historic changes. I, for one, am not interested in anything less. Any smaller vision, any diminutive and unheroic mission, is not worth our trouble. Join with me as we rise to this challenge and prepare to make our mark on the twenty-first century! Hail the AFA!
Please join me in welcoming South Carolina’s Daniel Young as the AFA’s newest Apprentice Folkbuilder. Daniel will be working with Rob Stamm and Gothi Svan Herul to grow and care for our AFA family in the Upper South region. We are very confident in Daniel’s commitment and ability to help the Upper South shine.
Hail Daniel Young!
Hail the Folkbuilders!
Hail the AFA!
Matthew D. Flavel
Alsherjargothi,
Asatru Folk Assembly