u/RedHeadDragon73

Greetings, everyone.

I dont use Reddit, but I have seen the same claims repeated through Google search enough times now that I wanted to sign up and correct the record.

One claim being made here is that I have "vocally supported Infowars" and the conspiracy theories associated with it.

That is simply not true.

I made a post when Paul Joseph Watson was banned from Facebook and Instagram.

My point was about censorship, and the power large social-media companies have to decide which political opinions may be expressed on their platforms. It was not an endorsement of Infowars, Paul Joseph Watson's political views, or conspiracy theories.

People are completely free to disagree with my position on censorship. But there is a very large difference between saying "I don't think someone should be censored*"* and saying "I support everything that person believes."

The same applies to claims that I am "alt-right," a fascist, a Nazi sympathizer, etc. Those labels get posted around very easily online but repeating them doesnt make them factual.

As for FolkRealms: yes, like essentially every open social platform, we have occasionally had people join who post extremist or otherwise inappropriate material. Out of almost 10.000 members, only a very small number have been banned for that kind of behavior.

We remove it. FolkRealms does not support Nazism, fascism, racial extremism, or political extremism from either side.

In fact, we dont allow modern politics in general on FolkRealms - not because i believe one political side should be silenced, but because FolkRealms is a community focused on folklore, history, paganism, culture, music and related subjects. The same rule applies regardless of political leaning.

EDIT:
I have now contacted Reddit directly and asked for the relevant records to be preserved. I have also contacted the current moderators and requested the historical AutoModerator records relating to Danheim, including when the rule was created, who added or edited it, and its revision history.

I have taken these steps because I have now seen concrete examples of these claims affecting my name, reputation and work, not only here on Reddit, but in search results on Google as well. People have openly stated that they stopped listening to, recommending or supporting Danheim because of what they were told here.

I have ignored this for years, but i am not willing to simply accept being publicly labelled a racist, Nazi, fascist or antisemitic when those claims are not supported by what I have actually said or done.

I am not accusing the entire community here in this subreddit or the current moderation team of being responsible for what happened in the past. I know many people here have nothing to do with it. But if anyone has old screenshots, messages, moderation records or remembers when these claims about Danheim started circulating here, I would genuinely appreciate hearing from you. You are also welcome to contact me privately.

I should also point out that Danish law has specific provisions concerning ærekrænkelse - statements capable of seriously damaging a person's honour or reputation. Serious false accusations can potentially fall under those provisions. I am therefore also looking into whether what has been published and repeatedly circulated about me here crosses that line

I would much rather be talking with you about music, history and everything else we actually share an interest in. But after seeing how far this has gone, I feel I have to address it properly.

And to those of you who have taken the time to listen, ask questions and speak with me instead of judging me from something you were told - thanks a lot! Especially my extended family at FolkRealms- you folk are amazing in every way.

Second edit:

We have now identified a few specific users for starting, and spreading most of these claims, and we are now looking into this further. Reddit legal has also been contacted and been provided with the evidence gathered, and we are now waiting for their reply.

So, i will be on my way again, Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Skål!

/Reidar

I guess this is more geared toward beginners, of which I still consider myself to be after a little over a year or so. I think it’s somewhat typical (or at least this was my experience) when you’re first seeking out info about Norse paganism online to come across content creators with more involved ritualistic practices, viking-themed clothing/gear/styles, citing knowledge from specific sagas, or talking about various important holidays/feast times.

It’s often said this is “a religion with homework”, and sure, that’s true.

But no one should feel intimidated by that either. I remember getting the uncomfortable sense going into this that there was some high barrier of entry or requirement I had to meet before diving in. That was mostly self-imposed.

My first prayers were awkward as hell, and I kept thinking to myself “am I even doing this right? Maybe I need a better altar, to get some figurines, to offer something more than just drink”. But eventually, I relaxed and I was told by some kind people that the gods don’t demand perfection, and they appreciate any attempts to reach them with sincerity.

I have ADHD, so going through complex rituals or studying beyond my means or observing every Norse holiday on the calendar besides the main seasonal ones would be impractical and give me a headache. Worse, it would probably kill my interest in this religion.

It’s completely fine and valid if all you ever do is keep a modest altar, read & study the Poetic and Prose Eddas and some saga literature, say or write out prayers, give small offerings. These are just the bare minimum, and very simple to sustain.

You don’t even have to get into runes and runecasting if you don’t want to (trust me, that’s a whole other beast).

You’re not a fraud, a fake, or a failure for keeping things simple in a way that works for you, and don’t let anyone tell you different.

And for the last time, because I see this a lot on this sub from newbies, your chances of offending the gods—unless you deliberately go out of your way to do so—are slim to none lol.

I want to talk about a pattern I keep seeing in Norse spaces, because I think it needs attention. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I think I’m finally able to somewhat articulate it.

I noticed a lot of online spaces claiming to be a space of Frith, a permanent, kin-based peace ensuring mutual protection and stability, and Grith, a temporary, situational peace imposed or agreed upon for specific events or places. I see a lot of hostility first, aimed at people who haven't broken any rules, haven't done anything, and are just suspected of holding the wrong politics. I've had this happen to me directly. I once defended a piece of state legislation restricting flag displays on state property to official state/federal flags only (no political flags of any stripe, left or right) and was immediately called homophobic and a Nazi.

A few days ago, a conversation about branding took place and a user called those were disagreed with the new image fascists. And there was some hostility.

I'm not asking this sub to litigate that legislation or those comments specifically. That's a separate conversation and not what this post is about. What I want to look at is the shape of the reaction. Judgment was rendered before any violating conduct occurred, based on assumed identity rather than anything said or done. That kind of behavior is what I wanted to check against what the sources actually describe, because I don't think it holds up.

I think hospitality in the sources is a transaction with terms, not a one-way virtue, and not a hair-trigger either. It has limits, and the limits are attached to conduct, not to who someone is presumed to be before they've done anything.

1. What the sources say

Sayings of the High One (roughly st. 1–35). The opening of the poem is not "welcome everyone warmly." It's "be careful who you let in." St. 1 has the guest checking the hall for threats before entering. St. 2-4 says the host owes fire, food, water, a towel, some clothing, a seat, and a warm welcome. And this is the bare minimum, not a ceremony of unconditional warmth. St. 5-6 goes back to what’s expected of the guest. Be humble, keep your wits about you, and keep a “store of common sense.” St. 35 tells the guest not to overstay even a friendly welcome, “the loved man is loathed if he sits too long”. The whole passage reads as wary reciprocity: mutual obligation, sized up on both sides.

Loki's Quarrel (Lokasenna). I think this is the clearest myth-level test case for a limit. Loki forces his way into Aegir's hall by invoking his blood-brotherhood oath with Odin. Hospitality is claimed on a technicality, not earned by good conduct. He then spends the poem tearing into every guest present. He isn't tolerated indefinitely. Thor shows up and ends it by threat of force, and the poem treats that as the correct resolution. But it’s not the gods failing at hospitality. The welcome was real but conduct inside it is what determined how long it lasted.

Grith at the Thing/Assembly. Not going to lie, Njal’s saga is so long. I’ve been working through a pdf of it and it’s so long. I fed the pdf into Claude to help me find specific chapters to read on truces, safe passage, and grith and frith related words and concepts. And that’s when it finally started making sense to me, and the whole invoking hospitality towards enemies. I had no idea Grith was the compulsory truce, legally binding, with curses and godly retribution for oath breakers, covering the assembly grounds. Actively feuding parties were required to hold peace within that space so law and negotiation could function at all. It's not warmth per se towards an enemy. It was a functional, temporary peace that existed because the alternative was everything grinding to a halt. Njáls saga's assembly scenes are the classic illustration of what happens when grith breaks down.

Egils Saga. There’s a lot here too. I also fed a pdf into Claude to help me with this one. Ch. 56, Grith is sacred, and violating it would bring curses and wrath upon you. Ch. 43-44, the host, Bard, lies to his guests. False hospitality gets the violation here. And Ch. 59-60, Hospitality is extended to the King’s literal enemy. It was a negotiation of status conducted through hospitality, not hospitality extended regardless of how the guest carries himself.

2. What this pattern might suggest

Across all four sources, I think the concept is consistent: default to welcome, because that's what maintains your own honor and keeps social/civic function intact, but the obligation is conditional on conduct, not identity, and it is not indefinite. Loki's expulsion and grith's conditionality both point the same direction; that hospitality can be claimed even by someone you'd rather not host, but it is forfeited by continued bad faith inside it. Nobody in the sources is depicted as owing indefinite tolerance to someone actively working against them.

And I think it’s worth being honest about the limits of this evidence. None of these sources are addressing anything like modern political disagreement. They're addressing feuds, honor, and physical guests and visitors in a warrior aristocracy. Relating that to internet discourse is an act of my own interpretation, and not direct textual application, which brings us to:

3. My own UPG / modern application (offered as one practitioner's read, not saying this is doctrine)

If a subreddit were the Thing or Assembly and the Mods are the host, then the formal rules of grith could apply. A temporary, situational peace imposed or agreed upon for a specific event or place. The expectation for all present is to practice civility first as the default, and let the person’s conduct, not their affiliation or ideology, determine whether that continues. Someone is not aggressed upon because of their assumed or confirmed ideology, but by their actions within the subreddit. I’m not referring to the Christian principle of "turn the other cheek," and it's not pacifism either. Grið didn't stop you from being someone's enemy, it just held a truce space where discourse and reason could function. And it's not owed forever. Loki did eventually get expelled.

Where I think this actually goes against a lot of behavior I see in Norse spaces is the pre-judging or shunning someone before any breach of conduct has occurred. Hostility based on their presumed politics, is closer to what the sources treat as the violation, not what they treat as hospitality's proper limit. Loki wasn't barred from the hall for being Loki. He was let in, and the hall responded to what he did once he was there. If we're taking the source material seriously, "I suspect you're the wrong kind of person" isn't a grith-breach and isn't grounds to skip straight to hostility. Actual bad-faith conduct is.

 

"This ignores the paradox of tolerance"

I know where this post is going to get pushback, so I’d like to meet it head-on instead of ignoring it or pretending it won't come up.

The argument, stated fairly, usually traces back to Karl Popper: a tolerant society that extends unlimited tolerance to those actively working to destroy tolerance will eventually be destroyed by them, because movements built on suppressing opposition don't reciprocate the courtesy once they have power. In Norse spaces specifically, this is definitely not a hypothetical. Actual Nazi appropriation of Norse symbolism is a documented, ongoing problem, and people invoking this argument here are often doing so in good faith, not just looking for an excuse to exclude.

So, I'm not going to pretend the paradox of tolerance is wrong. It isn't. But it's narrow, and the trouble is how far the label gets stretched to invoke it.

Popper's paradox describes movements that work to abolish pluralism itself; suppressing opposition, denying rights by force, ending the mechanism that lets discourse happen at all, etc. What I'm describing in this post is different: the label "Nazi" or "fascist" or “racist” applied to contestable policy positions, like a stance on a cultural issue, or support for an enforcement agency, whatever, held by a large fraction of the population through ordinary democratic means. Collapsing "holds position X" into "is doing what Popper warned about" doesn't apply the paradox of tolerance correctly. It uses the name of the paradox to license the exact pre-judgment-by-label problem this post is arguing against.

And this is where I think the grith standard comes back into play rather than contradicting it: a genuine bad-faith actor, someone advocating for the actual suppression of a group's existence, someone doing apologetics for historical atrocity, is a grith-breaker, full stop, and this sub's rule against extremism already handles that case. The disagreement was never about whether real extremism should be tolerated. It's about what counts as extremism versus a contested policy position someone merely holds or states. Stating a position isn't the same as advocating for suppression, and treating those two as identical is precisely the pre-judgment move this whole post is about.

Sources referenced:
Sayings of the High One and Loki’s Quarrel, Poetic Edda, Carolyne Larrington,
Njáls saga, Penguin Classics, ch. 62-65, 130, and 145
Egils saga, Penguin Classics, ch. 43-44, 56, and 59-60

Open to pushback, especially if anyone's got saga passages that complicate this. I'd rather get corrected here than post something half-right.

What kinds of things do you do in your practice that has helped you grow? What kinds of things would you like to see posted here? Would you like to see posts about specific books and shared insights?

I've been thinking a lot lately about why many of us feel lost these days. It's not just that we're anxious or depressed.. Although those feelings are real. It's something deeper. It feels like we're going through life without a clear direction, or maybe with a direction that has lost its familiar markers.

A while back, I started reading Norse myths. I didn't approach them as historical records or academic interests; I saw them as living stories. Something changed for me. Suddenly, the sagas weren't just tales from a bygone culture.. They became ways to understand my own struggles. Odin gives up an eye for wisdom. Thor fights giants, knowing he won't always succeed. Sigurd values honor over safety. These stories aren't fairy tales; they offer guidance on how to bear heavy loads when it's necessary.

This led me to think about superstition. Not in the old way of avoiding black cats, but in the deeper sense Theophrastus wrote about. It's the person who sees signs everywhere and feels crushed by them, paralyzed by the fear of what the gods might want. That isn’t spirituality; it’s fear disguised as devotion. In Heathenry, I found something different. I learned that the gods aren't far-off judges keeping track of our sins. They are present and engaged with us. Your words matter because they are yours. Even Ragnarök, the end of the world with fire and blood, brings the hope of new beginnings.

Maybe this is the gap we find ourselves in now. It’s not just a lack of religion but a lack of hero stories. When everything goes wrong, who do you become in that narrative? Are you a problem to fix? A victim of systems? A patient needing treatment? Or are you someone standing tall against the odds because that's how you face challenges?

I’m not suggesting everyone should start worshipping Odin or participate in traditional rituals. But I do wonder about the idea that suffering is part of being human. It’s not punishment; it’s not failure. It’s just part of the experience of living. Myths recognize this without falling into despair. The world ends only to begin again. Loss occurs, yet you keep pushing forward. You die, but your name continues through the memories of others.

Modern psychology offers help that those old stories couldn't.. Trauma is real, chemical imbalances are real, and therapy can be effective. But there’s a limit to telling someone their grief is just a chemical reaction or that their existential dread comes solely from serotonin levels. Sometimes people need more than treatment; they need a story that allows them to handle what cannot be fixed.

I'm sharing this because I think I might not be alone in feeling this way. If you've ever found yourself staring at the ceiling, wondering why life feels so fragile, why hardships seem more intense than they should, or why even success can taste bitter, you might be searching for something you can't quite identify.

For me, it was the old gods and their hard-won wisdom. For you, it could be something completely different. It might be Buddhist ideas of impermanence, Jewish concepts of covenant, indigenous storytelling, music, community work, or raising children well. What matters less is the container and more what it holds. We all need stories that help us face darkness without flinching.

We aren’t meant to walk this path alone.

I was listening to Dr. Jackson Crawford’s translation of the Poetic Edda on my way into work this morning and like every time I go through it, I notice something different. As a precursor, I was born and raised in the Mormon church. I know what the church says is the purpose of life, but I wanted to find answers from non-Christian sources. And recently, I kept watching videos on Instagram and Tik Tok and a post on r/pagan talking about the purpose and meaning of life and I wondered what light could be shed on the topic from our own sources.

The Poetic Edda and most of Norse mythology in general, point to the hardships and mortality of life. Much of the lore is grim, death-focused, fatalistic, and oriented around heroics and the supernatural. But I noticed a bunch of stanzas that gives us kind of a blueprint to finding a purposeful and fulfilling life.

TLDR; Only the living enjoys anything. Friendship and hospitality are at the core of a good life. Happiness is found in the small things. The moderately wise are the happiest. And reputation is a part of your legacy.

"Only the living enjoy anything."

The most direct statement that hit me this morning is Hávamál 70–71:

>”Better to be alive, no matter what, than dead — only the living enjoy anything.” (st. 70)

>”A limping man can ride a horse, a handless man can herd, a deaf man can fight and win. It's better even to be blind than fuel for the funeral pyre; what can a dead man do?” (st. 71)

Someone can be blind, deaf, impaired, limp, or disabled. It’s all still better to be alive than dead. Whatever the circumstances, the capacity for you to experience life is still worth defending.

 

Friendship is at the Heart of a Good Life

No theme recurs more consistently in Hávamál than the value of genuine friendship. Several stanzas treat it almost as a survival necessity:

>”A person is the same way if nobody loves him; how will he live much longer?” (st. 50)

>”I was young once, I walked alone, and I became lost on my way. I felt like I was rich when I met another traveler — people's joy is in other people.” (st. 47)

>”Sadness will eat up your heart if you have no one you can talk to.” (st. 121)

The poem is also fairly specific about what a good friendship looks like:

>”Men become friends when they can share their minds with one another. Anything is better than being lied to: a real friend will disagree with you openly.” (st. 124)

And it emphasizes reciprocity and maintenance. Friendship requires tending to.

>”Friends should provide their friends with weapons and clothing; this kind of generosity shows. Generous mutual giving is the key to lifelong friendship.” (st. 41)

While I love the idea of providing my friends with weaponry, it might not be as applicable today as it was then. If you have a good friend, and really trust him, and want good to come of your friendship, you should speak your mind with him, exchange gifts, and visit him often.

>”Weeds and high grass will grow on a path that nobody travels.” (st. 119)

 

Hospitality as a Lived Ethic

Now I’m a southern boy born and raised so hospitality is not a new concept to me. And while much of the opening of Hávamál's Gestathattr reminds me a lot of what I grew up with, I forget sometimes that not everyone was raised that way. The first several stanzas describe what a cold, hungry traveler needs; things like a warm fire, dry clothes, water, food, and the chance to be heard. And providing these things was a mark of character. Being a good host was a demonstration of who you are.

>”Hail to a good host! A guest has come inside, where should he sit?” (st. 2)

>”He needs a fire... Food and dry clothes will do him well, after his journey over the mountains.” (st. 3)

>”Never mock, never laugh at, a guest nor a wanderer. Those inside the house rarely know anything about the stranger who knocks at their door, but there is no man so good that he has no flaw, nor a man so bad he's good for nothing.” (st. 132–133)

>”Never spite a guest nor be stingy with your food — treat a poor wanderer well.” (st. 135)

The reciprocal duty to being a good guest, is also addressed. Don't overstay, be watchful and engaged, eat your share, say something worthwhile or wise, and most importantly don't monopolize the mead-horn. The relationship between host and guest is treated as a mutual bond with weight and responsibilities on both sides.

 

Happiness Is Found in Small and Real Things

Hávamál 69 was another stanza that struck me:

>”No one is totally wretched, even if his health is bad — some find happiness in their children, some in their kin, some in their money, some in work well done.”

I don’t know why this one hasn’t stood out to me before. It’s so simple and profound for me. It’s not a prescription or a commandment for what should make you happy. It's more practical. Happiness isn't just located in heroic glory or divine favor. It’s distributed across ordinary life: family, craft, community, or honest work. And any or all of those were valid reasons.

Hávamál 68 hits on kind of the same note:

>”Fire is best for mortals, and sunshine — and also good health, if you have it, and living beyond reproach.”

Fire. Sunlight. Health. A life you can stand behind. These are the goods the poem recommends.

And stanza 15:

>”A noble man should be silent, thoughtful, and bold in battle. But every man should also be cheerful and happy, till the inevitable day of death.”

Be silent, thoughtful, and bold in battle. Be cheerful and happy everywhere else.

 

Wisdom for Comfort and Character

Much of Hávamál's advice about wisdom is framed in terms of protection, social survival, or strategic manipulation. Know when to be quiet, read your situation, or don't embarrass yourself among the wise. But the poem also frames wisdom as something that can sustain you, especially in hardship:

>”A traveler cannot bring a better burden on the road than plenty of wisdom. It will prove better than money in an unfamiliar place — wisdom is the comfort of the poor.” (st. 10)

The word "comfort" is worth pondering over. I’m reminded of a saying I heard from my grandpa a lot, “Those who lack wisdom, gain knowledge. Those who lack knowledge, gain experience.” Wisdom comes from surviving hard things. And since it seems the poor tend to suffer a greater number of hardships, wisdom isn't just a tool for gaining advantage; it's what sees you through when everything else fails.

And stanza 54 offers kind of a surprising counterweight to the glorification of deep knowledge:

>”You should be only a little wise, never too wise. The happiest people throughout their lives are the moderately wise.” (st. 54)

>”You should be only a little wise, never too wise. A wise man’s heart is seldom glad if he’s truly wise.” (st. 55)

>”You should be only a little wise, never too wise. It’s best not to know your fate beforehand; you’ll live happier if you don’t.” (st. 56)

Over-knowing, particularly foreknowledge of your own fate, is presented as a burden, not as a gift. The poem recommends enough wisdom to navigate life well and warns us against the kind of obsessive gnosis that leaves a man perpetually heavy.

 

Reputation as a Legacy

The cattle-die stanzas (76–77) are some of my favorites and are famous enough that they get quoted quite a bit:

>”Cows die, family die, you will die the same way. But a good reputation never dies for the one who earns it well.”

>”Cows die, family die, you will die the same way. I know only one thing that never dies: the reputation of the one who’s died.”

This could be read as consolation in the face of death. To me, it’s now more practical, and an argument for how to live. The investment into your reputation is the one thing you leave behind that actually lasts. Living honorably, treating people well, doing good honest work, and being known as someone who could be trusted, that’s what will persist.

 

This, of course is not the complete picture of the Poetic Edda's worldview. The heroic poems deal in grief, vengeance, betrayal, and doom in ways that don't resolve neatly into "finding a purpose." But I’m finding more and more that the Poetic Edda, especially the Hávamál exists as a practical argument that the ancestors cared about the texture of daily life: who you ate with, how you treated strangers, whether you kept your friendships in good repair, whether you got up early and did honest work.

And that seems like something we can use to try and find life’s purpose with.

 

 

I donated plasma for the first time last night. And while I sat there, I was listening to Jackson Crawford’s translation of the Poetic Edda. And I had the thought that if I had made an invocation to Eir beforehand, this could be a modern adaptation of a blood sacrifice. But instead of being tossed out afterward, it’s actually used in medicine or given to people who need it. What are your thoughts? Is this a good offering?

I donated plasma for the first time last night. And while I sat there, I was listening to Jackson Crawford’s translation of the Poetic Edda. And I had the thought that if I had made an invocation to Eir beforehand, this could be a modern adaptation of a blood sacrifice. But instead of being tossed out afterward, it’s actually used in medicine or given to people who need it. What are your thoughts? Is this a good offering?