The Root-and-Road Compass: Ogham, Runes, and the Storm Wayfinder

Viking-style compass with runes and tree design on ancient map

I have been sitting with the idea of the so-called Norse compass again. Not as a museum piece. Not as something I can honestly claim came straight out of the Viking Age. That part matters.

The symbol most people call the Norse compass is usually the Vegvísir, an Icelandic magical stave associated with finding one’s way through rough weather. It is powerful imagery, but it is not ancient Viking proof. It is a later symbol. That does not make it useless. It just means we should stop pretending it is something it is not.

And that is where this thought gets interesting.

What happens if we stop trying to prove ownership over the symbol and instead ask what it can become when placed beside older systems of marking, naming, and remembering?

What happens when Ogham meets Elder Futhark?

North ᛁ Isa / Ailm Stillness ᚨ Ansuz / Coll Counsel East ᚲ Kenaz / Beith Kindling ᚱ Raidho / Ash Road South ᛋ Sowilo / Oak Standing ᚾ Nauthiz / Alder Need West ᛚ Laguz / Willow Memory ᛇ Eihwaz / Yew Boundary Root and Road

A modern symbolic compass: Ogham as root, rune as road, storm-stave as wayfinding.

First, the honest line

This is not me claiming that the Celts and Norse sat down together and designed a secret compass. That would be a nice story, but nice stories are not the same thing as true stories.

What we are doing here is different.

We are building a modern pagan symbol honestly, using old materials without lying about them.

Ogham gives us the stemline. A central line. Marks crossing it. Names cut into edges. Boundary stones. Memory made physical. A way of saying: this person stood here, this name mattered, this place had meaning.

Elder Futhark gives us the roadline. Sound carved into wood, bone, stone, and metal. A row of forces. Wealth, need, ice, sun, journey, gift, day, inheritance. Not just letters, but a way of seeing pressure and movement.

The compass shape gives us the stormline. Not north on a map, necessarily, but the harder question: how do I keep from becoming lost when the weather turns?

Put those three together and we do not get an ancient artifact.

We get a modern wayfinder.

The three layers

Root Ogham memory / land / edge Road Runes force / speech / motion Storm Wayfinder weather / trial / return

The working idea: Ogham roots the symbol, Elder Futhark moves it, and the compass form tests it against weather.

That is the core of it for me.

Ogham is not just pretty scratch marks. It feels like root. It feels like the edge of a stone, the edge of a path, the edge between one holding and another. It is a language of boundary and memory.

Elder Futhark feels different. It moves. It bites. It carries conflict, need, gift, fire, ice, harvest, sun, and inheritance. The runes feel less like a fencepost and more like a road marker.

And then the compass shape asks the question that every spiritual system eventually has to answer:

Can this still guide me when things go bad?

The eight directions

North becomes stillness. Ice. Spine. Endurance. The place where the world is not moving, and neither are you, but you are still alive.

East becomes kindling. The first light. Birch. Fire beginning again. Not a roaring bonfire. Just the first honest spark.

South becomes standing. Oak. Sun. The place where private belief becomes public action.

West becomes water. Willow. Memory. Grief. The place where the day lowers and the old voices start speaking again.

The cross-directions matter too.

Northeast is counsel. Breath. Speech. The wisdom that arrives before action.

Southeast is the road. Movement. Duty. The decision to walk instead of only think.

Southwest is need. Friction. Survival. The hard place where spirituality stops being decorative and has to become useful.

Northwest is boundary. Yew. Ancestor. Death and transformation. The place where you admit that returning does not always mean becoming who you were before.

Not a map home

This is the part I keep coming back to.

A compass is often treated as a tool for getting home. But spiritually, that is too simple.

Sometimes home is gone.

Sometimes home changed while you were away.

Sometimes home was never as safe as memory made it.

And sometimes the point is not to get back at all.

Sometimes the point is to leave without becoming rootless.

That is where this Root-and-Road Compass starts to matter.

Ogham says: remember where the roots were.

The runes say: now move.

The storm-stave says: and do not lose yourself in the weather.

The Unplugged Pagan reading

For Unplugged Pagan, this symbol works because it refuses two easy lies.

The first lie is that everything old is automatically pure.

It is not.

The second lie is that anything modern is automatically empty.

It is not.

A symbol can be modern and still be meaningful. A ritual can be reconstructed and still be honest. A path can be personal without being fake.

The problem is not modern creation. The problem is dishonest creation.

So I would not call this an ancient Celtic-Norse compass.

I would call it what it is:

A modern pagan wayfinder built from root, road, and storm.

It does not tell me where north is.

It asks me what I am using as north.

Blood?

Land?

Memory?

Grief?

Duty?

Fire?

Need?

The answer may change depending on the weather.

And maybe that is the point.

The working declaration

If I were to put the whole symbol into words, it would be this:

I am guided by root and road.
I remember where I come from, but I am not chained to it.
I walk through storm, need, grief, fire, winter, and return.
I do not navigate by blood alone, or place alone, or institution alone.
I navigate by memory, action, boundary, and becoming.

That feels right to me.

Not because it is ancient.

Because it is honest.

And honestly, that may be the better foundation anyway.

Leaving Home in the Spirit of Hávamál 127

Man walking on cobblestone path outside stone cottage with lit entrance at dusk

There are places we call home because they shelter us.

There are places we call home because they shaped us.

There are places we call home because part of who we became was born there, around a fire, under certain trees, beside certain people, during a season of life when the word belonging still felt simple.

But not every home remains home.

That is a hard sentence to write.

It is harder still when the place was once sacred.

Unplugged Pagan did not come to that sentence quickly. It did not come to it cleanly. It did not come to it without memory, grief, anger, gratitude, and the strange ache that comes when something that once held you no longer does.

But there comes a point where staying attached to a dead bond is no longer loyalty.

It is silence.

And Hávamál 127 has something to say about silence.

The Verse at the Door

Declaration 127 takes its name from stanza 127 of the Hávamál, commonly rendered in modern Heathen circles as:

“When you see misdeeds, speak out against them, and give your enemies no frið.”

Frith, or frið, is often understood as peace, safety, right relationship, and the bond that allows a community to exist without tearing itself apart.

That is why the line matters.

It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, keep quiet for the sake of peace.”

It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, preserve the appearance of harmony.”

It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, maintain the old relationship at all costs because it used to mean something.”

It says to speak.

It says to name the wrong.

It says not to give frith where frith has already been broken.

That is the piece I keep circling back to.

Because the deeper lesson of Hávamál 127 is not only about enemies outside the gate. It is also about what happens when the problem is already near the hearth.

Declaration 127 and False Peace

Declaration 127 was originally written as a response to folkism and racial exclusion in modern Heathenry, especially in opposition to the Ásatrú Folk Assembly and its claims about who Heathenry was for.

That history matters. Folkism tries to turn ancestry into ownership. It tries to turn roots into border fences. It tries to turn the gods, ancestors, runes, and stories into racial property.

Declaration 127 said no.

But if Declaration 127 is only treated as an anti-folkish sticker, then we miss part of its power.

At its core, Declaration 127 also rejects the idea that silence should be maintained in the name of frith when harm is being justified through sacred language, tradition, ancestry, or community reputation.

That is where it becomes useful beyond the narrow question of folkism.

Not because every broken community is folkish.

Not because every failed home is racist.

Not because every wound is the same wound.

But because the spiritual principle is larger than the original occasion:

False peace is not frith.

That is the line.

Peace that requires silence is not frith.

Belonging that requires self-erasure is not frith.

Hospitality that protects the powerful while ignoring the wounded is not frith.

Community that remembers your labour but forgets your humanity is not frith.

Home that only remains home if you stop telling the truth is not home.

When Home Was Real

To be clear, this is not a post about pretending the old home never mattered.

It did.

That is part of what makes leaving it difficult.

There are old Unplugged Pagan writings that carry that truth plainly. The Vé remembers sacred work at Raven’s Knoll, the creation of sacred space, the carrying of poles, the marking of place, the building of something that mattered. That memory was not fake. The bond was not imagined. The sense of sacred place was real.

That matters.

If a place never mattered, leaving it would mean very little.

If a community never held meaning, there would be no grief in releasing it.

If the fire never warmed us, there would be no ache when it became ash.

So no, this is not bitterness dressed up as theology.

This is not a denial of the past.

This is not an attempt to rewrite memory so that leaving becomes easier.

The old home mattered.

That is exactly why leaving it had to be done honestly.

Roots, Hoards, and What We Refuse to Cut

Unplugged Pagan has been wrestling with roots for a long time.

Roots are not always pretty. They are hidden. Tangled. Muddy. Difficult to display. But they are what feed the tree.

In earlier reflections, I wrote about the danger of cutting off roots while expecting the branches to remain healthy. A tree can look strong from the outside while damage is already happening beneath the surface.

That image still holds.

A community can have events, names, land, symbols, buildings, programs, schedules, banners, and public language. It can still look alive from the outside.

But appearance is not health.

The roots are older than the poster.

The roots are the first fires, the old labour, the forgotten volunteers, the awkward conversations, the hands that carried wood, the people who showed up before there was applause, the ones who helped build something and later found themselves standing outside of it.

When those roots are ignored, starved, severed, or treated as disposable, something important has already gone wrong.

And when gold and silver begin to matter more than kith and kin, the hearth has shifted.

That does not mean money does not matter. Money keeps roofs standing. It pays bills. It buys tools, fuel, food, insurance, repairs, and all the practical things that keep a place functioning.

But gold and silver are not kin.

They do not sit beside you when your spirit is tired.

They do not remember the first fire.

They do not carry the old stories.

They do not make a hall sacred.

They only make it affordable.

There is a difference.

The Moment the Header Came Down

When the old Unplugged Pagan header came down, that was not just a design choice.

It was a small funeral.

The old image was taken at Raven’s Knoll. For a long time, that mattered in a good way. It carried memory. It carried place. It carried old hopes, old gatherings, old people, and an older version of Unplugged Pagan that still believed itself rooted there.

But places change.

Or more honestly, our connection to them changes.

A grove can shelter us for a season and later become somewhere we no longer belong.

A fire can warm us once and later become ash.

A home can form us and still not hold us forever.

That does not make the warmth false.

It means time moved, people changed, and the bond reached its ending.

The header had to come down because Unplugged Pagan needed its own ground.

Not borrowed ground.

Not someone else’s grove.

Not a shrine to an old connection.

Its own ground.

That was not an act of hatred.

It was an act of boundary.

And sometimes boundary is the only honest ritual left.

Leaving Is Not Always Betrayal

People often treat leaving as betrayal.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes people abandon what they should have tended. Sometimes people walk away because repair is harder than resentment. Sometimes leaving is cowardice with cleaner shoes.

But not always.

Sometimes leaving is what happens after every inner warning has already spoken.

Sometimes leaving is what happens when the bond has died but everyone keeps asking you to behave as though it lives.

Sometimes leaving is what happens when “home” becomes a word used to keep you quiet.

Sometimes leaving is the first truthful thing a person has done in years.

That is where Hávamál 127 matters.

It gives no blessing to false peace.

It does not tell us to remain politely attached to what has already broken frith.

It does not ask us to keep handing warmth to a place that no longer shelters us.

It says misdeeds should be named.

It says enemies should not be given frith.

And sometimes the enemy is not a person.

Sometimes the enemy is the lie that a dead bond is still alive.

Not Folkism, But the Same Warning

This needs to be said carefully.

This post is not claiming that the old home was folkish.

That is not the argument.

The argument is that Declaration 127 carries a principle that reaches beyond the original fight against folkism:

Sacred language must not be used to demand silence in the face of harm.

Folkism is one form of that harm. It uses ancestry, gods, and tradition to exclude people and claim ownership over the sacred.

But there are other ways sacred language can be misused.

“Community” can be used to silence people.

“Frith” can be used to avoid accountability.

“Home” can be used to shame people for leaving.

“Kith and kin” can be used as decoration while actual bonds are neglected.

“Hospitality” can be used to protect the host while ignoring the guest.

“The good of the place” can be used to excuse the cost to the people who helped make the place good.

That is why 127 still applies.

Not as an accusation of folkism.

As a warning against false frith.

The Hearth Test

The real test of a hearth is not how it looks when the festival is full.

The real test is what happens when someone is wounded.

Who notices?

Who checks in?

Who listens?

Who protects the relationship?

Who chooses repair over reputation?

Who remembers that people are not disposable once their labour is no longer needed?

Who carries wood when no one is watching?

Who remains when the ash has to be dealt with?

That is the hearth test.

Not the banner.

Not the website language.

Not the number of people gathered around the fire.

The hearth is revealed by the treatment of the living.

If the living must become silent to preserve the image of home, then home has already failed the hearth test.

Why Unplugged Pagan Left

So why did Unplugged Pagan choose to leave home?

Because memory is not obligation.

Because gratitude is not captivity.

Because a sacred place can matter deeply and still no longer be ours.

Because roots matter, but roots are not chains.

Because frith is not maintained by pretending the wound is not there.

Because Hávamál 127 does not permit silence in the face of misdeeds.

Because Declaration 127 reminds us that keeping peace with what harms others is not peace.

Because the path does not end when one grove is left behind.

Because the land is larger than one campfire.

Because the gods are not trapped on someone else’s property.

Because the fire can be carried.

Because Unplugged Pagan needed its own ground.

The Road Behind and the Road Ahead

There is grief in this.

There should be.

Leaving home without grief usually means it was never home to begin with.

But grief is not a command to return.

Grief is the price of having once loved something honestly.

The old home shaped this path. That can be honoured.

The old fire warmed this path. That can be remembered.

The old grove held meaning. That can be spoken without shame.

But none of that requires Unplugged Pagan to keep standing under a roof that no longer shelters it.

There is a line from the Hávamál, in spirit, that cattle die, kinsmen die, and we ourselves die. What remains is reputation, deeds, and the truth of how we carried ourselves.

Places can die to us too.

Connections can die.

Communities can die.

The stories we told ourselves about belonging can die.

And when they do, the Pagan path should not require us to pretend otherwise.

Ancestor work is not dragging a corpse around.

Memory is not a leash.

Gratitude is not a prison.

Sometimes the most honest Pagan act is to stand at the edge of the old place and say:

I remember.

I honour.

I release what is no longer mine to carry.

Closing Thought

Hávamál 127 does not only belong at protests.

Declaration 127 does not only belong on organization lists.

The lesson belongs at the actual hearth.

It belongs in the difficult moment when a person has to decide whether peace is still peace, or whether peace has become silence.

For Unplugged Pagan, the answer has become clear.

Home was real.

The memory mattered.

The work mattered.

The fire mattered.

But the bond reached its ending.

And when the bond is dead, pretending it still lives is not frith.

It is false peace.

So Unplugged Pagan leaves home in the spirit of Hávamál 127.

Not with hatred.

Not with denial.

Not by pretending the old place was never sacred.

But by refusing to let sacred memory become a chain.

The road remains.

The fire can be carried.

The roots can be honoured without living under the old tree.

And sometimes the only way to keep faith with the hearth is to walk away from the hall.

Sources and Further Reading

Declaration 127, Hávamál 127, and the Actual Hearth

Inclusive Heathen ritual emphasizing frith and integrity

There is a danger in letting institutions do all of our thinking for us.

That is not a knock against institutions. Sometimes they are needed. Sometimes they hold the line when loose communities cannot. Sometimes they preserve documents, organize clergy, publish resources, and provide a public answer when the wider world asks, “Where do you stand?”

In modern Heathenry, The Troth is one of those institutions.

It gives an organizational example of inclusive Heathenry. It stands against folkism, racialism, and the use of Germanic religion as a costume for white supremacy. It now also carries formal stewardship of Declaration 127, one of the most important anti-folkish statements in modern Heathen history.

That matters.

But Unplugged Pagan is not The Troth.

Unplugged Pagan is not a clergy program, a committee, a declaration archive, or an institutional hall with bylaws and officers. It is something rougher than that. It is more like a fire at the edge of the woods, where the questions are less polished but sometimes more honest.

So the question for this place is not simply, “What does The Troth say?”

The better question is this:

What does Declaration 127 mean at the actual hearth?

The Line Between Institution and Hearth

The bigger conclusion, at least for Unplugged Pagan, is this:

The Troth gives an organizational example.

Declaration 127 gives the public boundary.

Hávamál 127 gives the old poetic command.

Unplugged Pagan asks what that means at the actual hearth.

That is the angle that matters here.

Not “The Troth says this, therefore we obey.”

That would be too institutional and too neat.

Unplugged Pagan has always been more interested in the place where the clean statement meets the dirty ground. The fire pit. The broken friendship. The old gift-bond. The kinship that failed. The boundary that had to be drawn. The guest who became a threat to the hall. The moment when keeping peace becomes complicity.

That is where Hávamál 127 stops being a quotation and becomes a test.

What Declaration 127 Is

Declaration 127 first appeared in 2016 through Huginn’s Heathen Hof. It was written as a response to the Ásatrú Folk Assembly and the wider problem of folkish rhetoric in Heathenry.

The AFA has been widely criticized because of its folkish and racialized approach to Ásatrú. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes it as a neo-Völkisch hate group, and the Anti-Defamation League describes it as a modern Norse Pagan group with a white supremacist slant.

That is the problem Declaration 127 tried to answer.

Not ancestry itself.

Not remembering the dead.

Not honouring one’s roots.

The problem is when ancestry gets turned into ownership. When roots become border fences. When honouring the ancestors becomes an excuse to lock sincere seekers out of the hall because of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, ability, family structure, or bloodline.

That is folkism’s poison.

It takes something sacred and turns it into a gate.

Hávamál 127

Declaration 127 takes its name from stanza 127 of the Hávamál, commonly rendered in this form:

“When you see misdeeds, speak out against them, and give your enemies no frith.”

That line has teeth.

It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, quietly hope the situation improves.”

It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, avoid conflict so everyone stays comfortable.”

It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, keep inviting the poisoner back to the well because hospitality is sacred.”

It says to speak.

It says to name the wrong.

It says not to give frith to enemies.

That is a hard teaching, especially in Pagan spaces where many people are allergic to direct conflict. We often prefer circles, soft language, consensus, healing words, and the illusion that everyone can be included if we just stretch the tent wide enough.

But no tent can remain standing if you invite people in who are cutting the ropes.

Frith Is Not Blind Peace

Frith is often spoken of as peace, safety, right relationship, and the bonds that hold a community together.

That makes it sacred.

But sacred does not mean unlimited.

Frith is not blind peace.

Frith is not conflict avoidance.

Frith is not letting someone remain at the hearth while they deny the humanity, dignity, or belonging of others who sit there.

That is where “no frith with folkism” becomes more than a slogan.

If folkism says only certain blood belongs, then folkism has already broken frith.

If folkism says the gods are racial property, then folkism has already broken frith.

If folkism uses sacred symbols to shelter white supremacy, then folkism has already broken frith.

Refusing it a seat is not the first act of hostility.

It is the recognition that hostility was already brought through the door.

The Actual Hearth

The actual hearth is where this becomes personal.

It is easy to sign a declaration online.

It is harder to live one when the person crossing the line is someone you know.

It is harder when they once shared your fire.

It is harder when they gave you gifts.

It is harder when there is history, memory, laughter, old ritual, old loyalty, or old kinship tangled around the problem.

But that is exactly where Hávamál 127 matters most.

The real test is not whether we can denounce a stranger with a bad logo.

The real test is whether we can name misdeeds when they happen close enough to cost us something.

Unplugged Pagan has circled this fire before. Gift-bonds. Betrayal. Frith. Kinship. Hospitality. Land. Roots. The painful knowledge that some bonds die, and when they die, pretending they still live becomes its own kind of lie.

That is why this subject fits here.

Because Declaration 127 is not only about public statements and organization lists. It is about the moment when a person has to decide whether peace is still peace, or whether peace has become silence.

Remembering Roots Is Not Worshipping Blood

There is also a difference between remembering roots and worshipping blood.

That distinction matters deeply to me.

I can honour where I come from.

I can honour my ancestors.

I can honour the old stories, the land, the dead, the language fragments, the hearth practices, the gods, the spirits, the old roads, and the strange pull that brings a person back toward Pagan soil.

But ancestry is not a weapon.

Ancestry is not a deed to the gods.

Ancestry is not a lock on the hall door.

Ancestry may explain part of the road that brought me here.

It does not give me permission to lock the road behind me.

That is the sentence I keep coming back to.

Because folkism takes the memory of roots and turns it into blood worship. It takes the dead and makes them border guards. It takes heritage and turns it into spiritual property law.

I cannot accept that.

Not as Paganism.

Not as Heathenry.

Not as honour.

The Troth, Declaration 127, and Unplugged Pagan

The Troth matters here because it gives one institutional example of a different road.

It says Heathenry does not have to be folkish.

Declaration 127 matters because it gives a public boundary.

It says discriminatory organizations and exclusionary ideologies do not represent the wider Heathen community.

Hávamál 127 matters because it gives the old poetic command.

It says that when we see misdeeds, we speak against them, and we do not give enemies frith.

But Unplugged Pagan’s work is smaller and closer to the ground.

It asks what that means in the actual living of it.

What does it mean when the person at the hearth is the one poisoning the well?

What does it mean when hospitality becomes a shield for harm?

What does it mean when kinship is used to demand silence?

What does it mean when “keeping the peace” only protects the person breaking it?

Those are not institutional questions.

Those are firekeeper questions.

The Firekeeper’s Answer

A firekeeper does not only feed the flame.

A firekeeper also watches what comes near it.

Too little fuel and the fire dies.

Too much fuel and the fire becomes dangerous.

The wrong thing thrown into it can poison the air.

That is how I understand this issue.

Hospitality is sacred, yes.

But so is protection.

Kinship is sacred, yes.

But so is truth.

Ancestry is sacred, yes.

But so are deeds.

Frith is sacred, yes.

But frith cannot be built with those who deny frith to others.

That is the line at the hearth.

Not hatred.

Not purity.

Not moral performance.

A boundary.

A necessary one.

Closing Thought

The Troth can hold the archive.

Declaration 127 can mark the public boundary.

Hávamál 127 can give the old command.

But each hearth still has to decide what it will allow beside the fire.

For Unplugged Pagan, the answer is simple enough:

Remember your roots.

Honour your dead.

Keep the fire.

Welcome the sincere traveller.

But do not confuse hospitality with surrender.

Do not confuse ancestry with ownership.

Do not confuse silence with peace.

And do not give frith to those who would use the sacred to deny it to others.

The fire is lit.

The road is open.

But folkism does not get a seat by the hearth.

Sources and Further Reading

The Troth, Declaration 127, and the Line at the Hearth

Group of people socializing outdoors around a banner reading 'Open Hall, Many Roots Inclusive Heathenry All Are Welcome'

Every so often in modern Heathenry, a name comes up that is bigger than the name itself.

The Troth is one of those names.

On the surface, The Troth is an organization. It has memberships, officers, clergy training, educational programs, policies, publications, committees, and all the ordinary machinery that comes with a long-running religious body. But beneath that administrative layer is something more important: The Troth is one of the major inclusive Heathen organizations that has tried to stand against folkism, racialism, and the use of Germanic religion as cover for white supremacy.

That matters because modern Heathenry has never been free from that fight.

The gods, myths, runes, symbols, ancestors, sagas, and old Germanic language have been repeatedly grabbed by people who want to turn a spiritual path into bloodline politics. The result is a constant argument over who gets to define Heathenry: those who see it as a living religious path open to sincere seekers, or those who want to turn it into a racial gate.

The Troth stands on the inclusive side of that argument.

According to its own organizational statement, The Troth is open to people who seek to know and worship the gods, honour the ancestors, and live by Germanic Heathen values, regardless of tradition, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, gender, or family structure. It also states plainly that it stands against the use of Germanic religion or symbols to advance racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, or white supremacy.

That is not vague language.

That is a line.

What Is The Troth?

The Troth began as The Ring of Troth, founded in 1987 by Edred Thorsson, also known as Stephen Flowers, and James Chisholm. Its early history has baggage, as nearly all modern Pagan institutions do. There were occult influences, personality conflicts, internal controversies, and leadership struggles. No serious reading of modern Heathen history should pretend otherwise.

But The Troth also became known as one of the major non-racialist, inclusive Heathen organizations. That distinction is important. It was not built as a folkish gatekeeping body. It was built around education, publication, community, religious training, and the idea that Heathenry could be practiced without racial exclusion.

The Troth currently describes its mission as building and supporting a diverse, inclusive spiritual community that provides education, clergy training, pastoral care, and publications for the many faiths within Heathenry. Its current values are listed as Integrity, Hospitality, Courage, Reverence, and Sustainability.

Those values are worth looking at carefully.

The Troth defines courage as anti-racism, active resistance to white supremacy, and confronting injustice and bigotry. That is a long way from the watered-down “honour, courage, loyalty” boilerplate that gets passed around in some Heathen spaces as if it were ancient law carved into a stone somewhere.

It is not.

Modern Heathenry is full of reconstruction, interpretation, invention, recovery, and correction. The honest practitioner needs to admit that. We are not walking out of an untouched Iron Age temple. We are rebuilding from fragments: poems, sagas, archaeology, folklore, comparative religion, devotional experience, and modern community work.

That means the question is not whether an organization is modern.

They all are.

The better question is this: what kind of modern thing is it trying to build?

The Problem Declaration 127 Tried to Answer

To understand why The Troth matters, we have to talk about Declaration 127.

Declaration 127 first appeared in 2016 through Huginn’s Heathen Hof. It was written as a response to escalating folkish rhetoric and, more specifically, to the Ásatrú Folk Assembly, commonly shortened to AFA.

The AFA is a folkish Heathen organization. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes it as a neo-Völkisch hate group and states that its members subscribe to the belief that pre-Christian Norse and Germanic religions can only properly be practiced by people with Northern European ancestral roots, especially white people.

That is the core problem.

Folkism tries to turn ancestry into spiritual ownership. It takes the honouring of ancestors, which can be meaningful and sacred, and twists it into a locked gate. It says, in effect, that blood decides belonging.

Declaration 127 said no.

The name comes from Hávamál stanza 127, often rendered in English along these lines:

“When you see misdeeds, speak out against them, and give your enemies no frið.”

That line is the spine of the matter.

Frith is often discussed as peace, safety, social harmony, sacred order, and the bonds that hold a community together. But Declaration 127 forces a harder question: is frith owed to those who are actively poisoning the well?

That is not a small question.

Modern Pagan spaces often love the language of tolerance. Everyone gets a seat. Everyone gets a voice. Everyone gets to speak their truth. That sounds noble right up until someone uses that openness to normalize exclusion, bigotry, and racial gatekeeping.

At that point, unlimited tolerance becomes cowardice dressed as hospitality.

Declaration 127 was important because it said, publicly and collectively, that Heathen groups should not maintain silence simply to keep peace with those who use the gods, ancestors, and traditions to justify prejudice.

The Original Declaration: A Necessary First Line

The original Declaration 127 was powerful because it gave inclusive Heathens a shared public statement. It allowed kindreds, groups, and organizations to say: we do not stand with the AFA; we do not accept racial exclusion as Heathenry; we do not grant folkism the cover of religious diversity.

That may sound obvious now, but at the time it was not always treated as obvious.

According to The Troth’s own later summary, before Declaration 127 there had been a habit in some Heathen spaces of tolerating white nationalists and folkish actors as if their presence were simply an unpleasant cost of growing the religion. The hope seemed to be that if inclusive Heathens offered enough hospitality, the folkish element might eventually soften.

That did not happen.

Because folkism does not enter the hall looking for hospitality. It enters looking for legitimacy.

That is the real lesson.

If a group built on exclusion is allowed to sit beside everyone else as merely “another kind of Heathenry,” then the wider public sees two equal options: inclusive Heathenry and racialized Heathenry. That is exactly the trap. It makes white supremacy look like a valid theological position instead of a corruption of the sacred.

The original Declaration 127 disrupted that.

It was not perfect. It was not complete. It was not a magic spell. But it gave people language. It gave people a public marker. It gave people a way to say, “No, that does not represent us.”

Sometimes the first act of rebuilding a community is not writing a complete constitution.

Sometimes it is simply pointing at the fire and saying, “That does not belong in the hall.”

The Criticism: Did Declaration 127 Go Far Enough?

Declaration 127 also drew criticism from inclusive Heathens who supported its general purpose but believed it did not go far enough.

A 2019 article in The Wild Hunt summarized one of the key concerns: because the original Declaration focused heavily on the AFA, some felt it weakened the broader statement that needed to be made. The real issue was not only one organization. The issue was folkism, racial exclusion, and opposition to inclusivity across Heathen spaces.

That criticism is fair.

There is a danger in making one group the entire target. If one organization is named as the problem, then others can dodge the issue by saying, “We are not them.” But the rot can exist under different names, different logos, and different tones of voice.

A person does not have to wear an AFA patch to carry folkish ideas.

A kindred does not have to use open slurs to create an exclusionary space.

A group does not have to shout “white supremacy” to quietly build its membership around blood, ancestry, ethnicity, gender conformity, and suspicion of outsiders.

That is why Declaration 127 had to evolve.

Declaration 127 2.0 and Declaration of Deeds

By 2021, Declaration 127 2.0 had emerged as a broader non-discrimination statement. The Troth explains the difference this way: the original Declaration gave people something to stand against, while Declaration 127 2.0 set a broader standard of conduct for people and organizations to follow.

That distinction matters.

Standing against something is necessary. But eventually, a community has to say what it stands for.

“We are not folkish” is a beginning.

It is not the whole path.

Around the same period, another statement called the Declaration of Deeds was also written and circulated. It framed the matter through a simple but deeply Heathen idea: we are our deeds. We are not made worthy or unworthy by the circumstances of birth. We are judged by what we do.

That may be one of the cleanest anti-folkish arguments available.

Folkism says blood matters most.

Declaration of Deeds says deeds matter most.

That is a direct collision of worldviews.

The Troth signed both Declaration 127 2.0 and the Declaration of Deeds in 2022. In its announcement, The Troth stated that simply saying “we will not associate with white nationalists” was not enough, because Heathens also had to declare what they were for.

That is the mature stage of the argument.

Not just “no frith with folkism,” but also: what kind of frith are we building instead?

The Collapse and Stewardship of Declaration 127

Declaration 127 did not remain stable forever.

According to The Troth’s current Declaration 127 page, after Declaration 127 2.0 was approved and released during the COVID-19 pandemic period, the structure around it began to unravel. By the end of 2021, the committee had burned out and the website had gone down. The statement still existed, but its home, signatory process, and active stewardship had weakened.

That is not surprising.

Volunteer-driven Pagan work burns people out. That is not an insult. It is a reality. People build something important, hold it together with unpaid labour, fight the same fights repeatedly, get attacked from multiple sides, and eventually run out of fuel.

Movements often fail not because the idea was wrong, but because the people carrying it were exhausted.

In April 2024, Rob Schreiwer turned over stewardship and ownership of Declaration 127 and its associated assets to The Troth at Frith Forge. The Troth then became the official steward of Declaration 127, with the stated goal of preserving it, updating it, and forming committees to vet signatories and guide its future.

That is where The Troth becomes more than just another signatory.

It becomes part of the infrastructure carrying Declaration 127 forward.

That does not mean The Troth owns inclusive Heathenry.

It does not mean The Troth speaks for every Heathen.

It does not mean The Troth is beyond criticism.

But it does mean that The Troth has taken formal responsibility for one of the major anti-folkish documents in modern Heathen history.

Did Declaration 127 Defeat Folkism?

No.

And it is important to say that plainly.

Declaration 127 did not destroy folkism. It did not erase white nationalism. It did not stop bad actors from using runes, gods, ancestors, and Germanic symbols for racial politics.

The Troth itself admits this. Its Declaration 127 page notes that folkish Paganism and white nationalism surged during the rise of the far right between 2015 and 2021, and that less than a year after Declaration 127 was written, Charlottesville happened.

That should sober everyone up.

Declarations are not wards.

They are not spells.

They are not substitutes for action.

A declaration is a line written down. Its worth depends on whether anyone is willing to stand on that line when pressure comes.

This is where modern Pagan communities often fail. We write beautiful statements. We share them. We pin them. We put them in bylaws. Then, when conflict arrives, we suddenly rediscover our fear of confrontation.

But Hávamál 127 is not passive.

It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, quietly hope things improve.”

It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, maintain neutrality so everyone feels welcome.”

It says to speak out against wrong and give no frith to enemies.

That is a hard teaching.

Hard teachings are usually the ones communities need most.

The Troth as the Inn

The Troth uses a useful image for itself: the inn on the roadside of Heathenry.

I like that image.

Not a throne.

Not a fortress.

Not a blood gate.

An inn.

An inn offers hospitality. An inn has a hearth. An inn gives travellers a place to rest, learn, eat, speak, and continue on their road. Not everyone who comes to the inn stays forever. Some people warm their hands by the fire and move on. Some become regulars. Some become innkeepers.

But an inn also has a door.

That is the part people forget.

Hospitality does not mean surrendering the house to those who would burn it down.

Frith does not mean smiling politely while someone poisons the well.

Inclusivity does not mean including exclusion.

The innkeeper has a duty to guests, yes. But the innkeeper also has a duty to the hearth, the house, and everyone already sheltering inside.

That is why “no frith with folkism” is not a contradiction of hospitality. It is a defence of hospitality.

You cannot build a welcoming hall while giving honoured seats to those who want some of the guests removed by blood, race, sexuality, gender, ancestry, or ability.

At that point, the issue is no longer politeness.

It is protection.

The Nine Noble Virtues Problem

This also matters when we talk about the Nine Noble Virtues.

Many people encounter Heathenry through simplified virtue lists: courage, truth, honour, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, self-reliance, industriousness, perseverance. These are often presented as if they are ancient Heathen doctrine.

They are not.

They are modern constructions.

That does not automatically make every word on the list worthless. Hospitality, courage, truth, and perseverance can all be good things. But the problem is not whether a virtue sounds nice. The problem is who framed it, why they framed it, and what kind of community it trains people to accept.

A virtue list can become a mask.

“Honour” can become obedience.

“Loyalty” can become silence.

“Discipline” can become authoritarianism.

“Folk” can become race.

That is why The Troth’s current values are worth noting. It does not center the Nine Noble Virtues as its defining ethical framework. Instead, it names integrity, hospitality, courage, reverence, and sustainability, and it defines courage in terms of anti-racism and active resistance to white supremacy.

That is not accidental.

That is a corrective.

No Frith with Folkism

The phrase “no frith with folkism” works because it goes straight to the heart of the issue.

Folkism wants the benefits of Heathen language without the obligations of Heathen ethics.

It wants ancestry without humility.

It wants tradition without hospitality.

It wants gods without accountability.

It wants symbols without responsibility.

It wants frith while denying frith to others.

That cannot stand.

Frith is not a decorative word. It is not a warm fuzzy feeling. It is a bond of peace, trust, and right relationship. If someone’s ideology is built on excluding sincere seekers because of race, gender, sexuality, ancestry, or ability, then that person has already broken frith.

Refusing them a seat at the hearth is not the first act of hostility.

It is the recognition that hostility was already brought in with them.

The Useful Lesson of The Troth

The Troth is not perfect.

No institution is.

Its history has conflict. Its founders were human. Its leadership has changed. Its roof has leaked. Its hearth has burned low at times. There are people who will criticize it from inside and outside Heathenry, and some of those criticisms may be worth hearing.

But perfection is not the test.

The better test is this:

When the line had to be drawn, where did the organization stand?

On the question of folkism, racial exclusion, and white supremacy in Heathenry, The Troth has placed itself on the inclusive side of the line. Its current mission, values, Declaration 127 stewardship, and signing of Declaration 127 2.0 and the Declaration of Deeds all point in that direction.

That does not make The Troth the final authority on Heathenry.

It does not make membership mandatory.

It does not mean everyone must agree with its structure, leadership, theology, or institutional choices.

But it does make The Troth a useful landmark.

When someone claims Heathenry must be folkish, The Troth proves otherwise.

When someone claims the gods belong only to bloodlines, Declaration 127 answers otherwise.

When someone claims peace requires tolerating white supremacy, Hávamál 127 answers otherwise.

When someone asks whether there can be frith with folkism, the answer should be plain.

No.

Not at this hearth.

Closing Thought

Modern Heathenry is not ancient Heathenry resurrected whole.

It is a reconstruction. A rebuilding. A difficult act of memory, scholarship, devotion, community, and correction.

That means we have choices to make.

We can rebuild the hall as a blood gate.

Or we can rebuild it as a hearth.

We can use ancestry as a weapon.

Or we can honour ancestors without turning them into border guards.

We can mistake silence for peace.

Or we can remember that sometimes peace is protected by speaking plainly against what would destroy it.

The Troth, at its best, is the inn on the roadside.

Declaration 127 is the sign by the door.

The fire is lit.

But folkism does not get a seat by the hearth.

Sources and Further Reading

No Frith with Folkism Means Reckoning with the Nine Noble Virtues

A vintage scale balancing symbols of reciprocity on one side and responsibility on the other

After reading The Wild Hunt’s recent opinion piece, “No Frith with Folkism,” I found myself agreeing with the surface statement while still feeling that something deeper needed to be said.

Yes, Folkism has no rightful place in Heathenry.

Yes, racism, white supremacy, blood-gatekeeping, and ancestry-as-spiritual-ownership need to be rejected.

But that led me to the harder question:

What happens when parts of modern Heathenry were built, shaped, repeated, or popularized inside the same ideological weather system that inclusive Heathens now say they reject?

That question brought me back to the Nine Noble Virtues.

The Nine Noble Virtues are often presented as if they are ancient Heathen ethics. They are not. They are a modern construction. The Wild Hunt has previously reported that the Nine Noble Virtues were created by John Yeowell and John Gibbs-Bailey of the Odinic Rite in 1974, and that Yeowell had ties to white supremacist and fascist movements. The Troth also states plainly that the Nine Noble Virtues are neither authentically from the Viking Age nor really ethics in the ancient sense, and that they were originally developed by the Odinic Rite.

That matters.

Not because courage is racist.

Not because truth is racist.

Not because honour, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, self-reliance, industriousness, or perseverance are bad words.

But because the package matters. The origin matters. The framework matters. The assumptions matter.

Modern Heathenry, especially in North America, has had to wrestle for years with white supremacist appropriation of its symbols and language. The Wild Hunt itself has reported Heathen voices saying that the tie between white supremacy and Heathenry in America goes back to the beginning of organized modern movements, and that modern Heathens have had to keep fighting the misuse of their symbols by extremists.

So I submitted an opinion piece to The Wild Hunt for consideration.

Partly because I think the question deserves to be asked.

Partly because “no frith with Folkism” cannot stop at rejecting obvious racism. It also has to examine inherited structures, moral frameworks, beginner materials, and community assumptions that may have been normalized through Folkish or far-right-adjacent spaces.

And partly, yes, to see whether this kind of internal critique will be given room.

It is one thing to say “we reject Folkism” when the target is safely outside the door.

It is harder to ask whether the floorboards inside the hall were cut from the same forest.

We shall see.

Below is the opinion piece submitted to The Wild Hunt for consideration.

No Frith with Folkism Means Reckoning with the Nine Noble Virtues

By Kevin McLaughlin
writing as Lugh Sulian

The recent Wild Hunt opinion piece “No Frith with Folkism” says something that needed saying clearly: Folkism has no rightful place in Heathenry.

I agree.

But I also think the statement opens a harder and more uncomfortable question. If there is no frith with Folkism, then what do we do with the parts of modern Heathenry that were shaped inside the same ideological weather system?

The Nine Noble Virtues are the obvious example.

Courage. Truth. Honour. Fidelity. Discipline. Hospitality. Self-reliance. Industriousness. Perseverance.

To many modern Heathens, these are treated almost like a sacred ethical foundation. They appear on websites, beginner guides, social media graphics, teaching materials, kindred pages, and personal practice statements. They are often presented as if they are ancient Heathen ethics handed down from the Viking Age.

They are not.

The Nine Noble Virtues are a modern construction. They were codified in the twentieth century, not preserved as a formal moral code from pre-Christian Germanic religion. The Wild Hunt has previously reported that the Nine Noble Virtues were created by John Yeowell and John Gibbs-Bailey of the Odinic Rite in 1974, and that Yeowell had ties to white supremacist and fascist movements. The Troth has also described the Nine Noble Virtues as the most famous modern attempt at creating a Heathen ethical code, originally developed by the Odinic Rite, while making clear that they are not Viking Age ethics.

That history matters.

It does not mean that courage is racist.

It does not mean truth is racist.

It does not mean honour, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, self-reliance, industriousness, or perseverance are bad things.

But it does mean the package deserves scrutiny.

When modern Heathen communities say “no frith with Folkism” while continuing to treat the Nine Noble Virtues as a central moral framework, they risk rejecting the visible racism while preserving some of the architecture that racism helped popularize.

That is the uncomfortable part.

The problem is not only who wrote the list. If that were the only issue, the solution would be simple: acknowledge the source, strip away the bad actors, and reclaim the useful pieces.

But the deeper issue is the shape of the code itself.

Why these nine virtues?

Why this emphasis?

Why courage, discipline, self-reliance, industriousness, perseverance, fidelity, and honour as the central moral vocabulary?

Where are compassion, humility, repair, interdependence, care for the vulnerable, accountability after harm, ecological responsibility, or the hard work of restoring broken relationship?

Hospitality is there, yes. But even hospitality can be flattened into a performance of courtesy if it is not tied to genuine openness, protection, and obligation toward the stranger.

The Nine Noble Virtues produce a particular moral atmosphere. It is hard-edged. It favours strength, endurance, self-mastery, loyalty, labour, and personal toughness. Those can be meaningful values. They can also sit very comfortably inside authoritarian, exclusionary, and Folkish ideas of struggle, hierarchy, purity, and worth.

That does not make every person who uses the Nine Noble Virtues a Folkist. It does not make every kindred that references them racist. Many inclusive Heathens have used them sincerely, often because they were presented as standard beginner material.

But sincerity does not erase origin.

And use does not make a thing ancient.

A community serious about rejecting Folkism should be willing to ask whether its inherited ethics still carry Folkish assumptions, even after the racial language has been removed.

That is where “no frith with Folkism” must become more than a slogan.

Frith is not merely the absence of conflict. It is right relationship. It is trust, order, obligation, and peace maintained through honesty and accountability. If Folkism has distorted modern Heathenry, then restoring frith requires more than disavowing explicitly racist organizations. It requires examining the ideas, habits, symbols, and teaching tools that were normalized through those same networks.

The Nine Noble Virtues should not be treated as Heathen scripture.

They should not be treated as the Ten Commandments in Viking clothing.

They should not be placed at the centre of beginner Heathen education without context.

At most, they should be taught historically: as a modern ethical construction, emerging from specific twentieth-century Odinist and Folkish-adjacent environments, later adopted and adapted by many people who often did not know or fully examine that history.

That is a very different thing from treating them as the moral backbone of the faith.

If inclusive Heathenry wants to build something healthier, it needs more than a cleaned-up version of inherited Folkish-era ethics. It needs an ethic rooted in reciprocity, hospitality, responsibility, and repair. It needs to honour ancestors without turning ancestry into ownership. It needs to value courage without glorifying domination. It needs to value honour without turning honour into ego armour. It needs to value kinship without narrowing kinship into blood purity. It needs to value frith without confusing frith with silence.

There is an old temptation in modern Paganism to fill gaps quickly. When reconstructing broken traditions, we reach for lists, codes, symbols, slogans, and simplified teaching tools. That is understandable. People want something solid under their feet.

But not everything solid is sacred.

Sometimes the thing that feels like foundation is just old scaffolding from someone else’s project.

The Nine Noble Virtues may have helped some people articulate discipline, courage, and responsibility. That personal meaning does not have to be denied. But personal usefulness is not the same as communal legitimacy. A tool can be useful and still require retirement when its history and limitations become clear.

Inclusive Heathenry does not need to reclaim the Nine Noble Virtues.

It needs to demote them.

Study them. Contextualize them. Critique them. Understand why they spread. Understand why they appealed to people. Understand why they still appeal to people. But stop pretending they are ancient. Stop pretending they are neutral. Stop pretending they are the natural ethical centre of Heathen practice.

No frith with Folkism means no unexamined inheritance from Folkism either.

If the hall is to be rebuilt, we have to inspect the beams.

Not just the banner over the door.

References

The Nine Noble Virtues: Ancient Heathen Wisdom or Modern Viking Wallpaper?

Open aged book with a quote about the Nine Noble Virtues and symbols, feather quill in ink pot, and pendant on wooden table

THIS IS AN OPINION PIECE BUILT FOR REFLECTION, CAUTION THIS MAY UPSET SOME

Ásatrú. Heathenry. Norse Paganism. Odinism. Northern Tradition.

The names are not always interchangeable, and some carry considerably more political baggage than others, but sooner or later almost everyone exploring a Norse-based spiritual path encounters something called the Nine Noble Virtues.

They are frequently presented on posters surrounded by runes, ravens, axes and stern-looking Vikings. Sometimes they are described as the ancient moral code of the Norse. Occasionally they are treated almost like the Heathen equivalent of the Ten Commandments.

That raises a fairly simple question:

Are the Nine Noble Virtues actually ancient Heathen teachings, or are they modern reconstructionist crap dressed in a bearskin?

The honest answer is that they are modern—but that does not necessarily make every idea within them worthless.

What Are the Nine Noble Virtues?

The standard list is:

Courage — facing danger, hardship and uncomfortable truths rather than always choosing the safest path.
Truth — speaking honestly and refusing deliberate deception.
Honour — living in a manner worthy of respect and accepting responsibility for one’s actions.
Fidelity — remaining loyal to family, friends, community, commitments and chosen principles.
Discipline — controlling one’s impulses and doing what must be done even when motivation disappears.
Hospitality — welcoming and caring for guests while respecting the responsibilities between host and visitor.
Self-reliance — developing the ability to support oneself and not placing every burden upon others.
Industriousness — working productively, developing skills and contributing something useful.
Perseverance — continuing through hardship rather than abandoning every difficult undertaking.

As a collection of personal qualities, there is nothing immediately outrageous about them. Most would look perfectly respectable printed in a workplace handbook, a Scout manual or on the wall of somebody’s home gym.

The problem is not necessarily what they say.

The problem is what people claim they are.

No, They Are Not an Ancient Viking Code

There is no surviving Viking Age document called The Nine Noble Virtues. They do not appear together in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Icelandic sagas, a rune inscription or an ancient law code.

The code was formulated during the modern revival of Germanic Pagan religion in the twentieth century. It is generally associated with the British Odinic Rite and with John Yeowell and John Gibbs-Bailey during the early 1970s.

Its creators drew inspiration from texts such as the Hávamál and the Sigrdrífumál, but the nine-part list itself is modern.

That settles the basic historical question.

The Nine Noble Virtues are not an ancient Viking moral code.

They are a modern interpretation of values that modern Heathens believed could be extracted from the surviving Norse literature.

Strictly speaking, the word is reconstructionist, not recreationist—although considering how often modern inventions are marketed as secret Viking wisdom, the accidental wording sometimes feels appropriate.

But Are They Based on Anything Real?

Here the answer becomes more complicated.

The Hávamál is not merely a modern fantasy text. It is an Old Norse wisdom poem preserved in the thirteenth-century Codex Regius. Parts of it are believed to preserve ideas and oral material that may be considerably older than the surviving manuscript.

The poem contains advice about hospitality, generosity, friendship, reputation, caution, moderation, preparation, drinking, speaking wisely and knowing when it is time to leave someone else’s home.

It praises courage in some circumstances, but it also praises silence, observation and good judgment. It warns against pride, greed, drunkenness, foolish talk and trusting too easily.

So yes, several of the Nine Noble Virtues resemble values found in the surviving literature.

Hospitality is undeniably present. Courage is present. Loyalty between friends is present. Personal reputation matters enormously. Wisdom, preparation and productive effort are praised. The importance of continuing through hardship appears throughout the heroic literature.

But the ancient sources never gather those ideas into this particular list.

The Nine Noble Virtues are therefore not completely invented from nothing. They are better understood as nine modern labels selectively extracted from a much larger, messier and more contradictory body of literature.

That distinction matters.

What Was Left Out?

Whenever someone distils hundreds of verses and generations of stories into nine words, choices are being made.

Why courage but not caution?

Why self-reliance but not reciprocity?

Why industriousness but not wisdom?

Why fidelity but not justice?

Why perseverance but not knowing when to stop?

Why honour but not humility?

The Hávamál spends considerable time discussing moderation, restraint, friendship, mutual gift-giving, measured speech and the responsibilities created by relationships.

Its world is not populated entirely by isolated warriors proving their personal toughness. People survive through households, kinship, friendship, reputation and reciprocal obligation.

Even hospitality is more complicated than simply opening the door to everyone. The guest has obligations too. A guest should behave properly, avoid creating conflict and leave before becoming a burden.

Hospitality is a relationship—not endless submission by the host.

There are also uncomfortable passages. The old poems contain mistrust, manipulation, sexism, violence and stories in which Odin himself acts deceptively.

That does not fit neatly onto a poster declaring TRUTH and FIDELITY in large runic letters.

The old stories are rarely that simple. They present choices, consequences and contradictions. They ask the listener to exercise judgment rather than merely obey a checklist.

The Political Baggage Cannot Be Ignored

There is another uncomfortable part of the story.

Some of the people and organizations involved in the early development of modern Odinism and the Nine Noble Virtues had connections to far-right politics, ethnic nationalism and racial ideology.

That does not mean everyone who has ever used the Nine Noble Virtues is a fascist, racist or white supremacist.

Plenty of ordinary Heathens encountered the list in a book, on a website or through another practitioner without knowing anything about its origins.

Guilt by accidental association accomplishes very little.

However, knowing the origin should make us ask why these particular qualities were selected.

Courage, discipline, fidelity, industriousness, self-reliance and honour can easily be arranged into a romantic image of the obedient, self-sufficient tribal warrior.

Generosity, compassion, curiosity, stewardship, mutual care and responsibility toward outsiders do not fit quite as comfortably into that image.

Modern Heathens themselves disagree about what to do with the list. Some continue to use the virtues as a practical ethical guide. Others reject them as historically misleading, politically tainted or inadequate as a complete moral system.

There is no universal Heathen position because there has never been one central Heathen church capable of declaring one.

So—Fact, Fiction or Reconstructionist Crap?

Here is my verdict.

Fact: The Nine Noble Virtues are genuinely used by parts of modern Heathenry.

Fiction: They are not an ancient Viking moral code handed down intact from the pre-Christian past.

Reconstruction: They were assembled by modern people who selected certain ideas from medieval Norse literature and arranged them into a convenient ethical package.

Crap: Only when someone lies about their origins, presents them as divine commandments or uses them to avoid reading the actual sources.

A modern spiritual teaching does not become worthless merely because it is modern. Every living religion interprets, adapts and creates.

The dishonesty begins when reconstruction is presented as archaeology and personal interpretation is presented as ancient law.

Putting the Virtues to Work

The virtues may still be useful when treated as questions rather than commandments:

Is this courage, or am I being reckless?
Is this truth, or am I using honesty as a weapon?
Is this honour, or merely wounded pride?
Is this fidelity, or loyalty to someone who no longer deserves it?
Is this discipline, or needless self-punishment?
Is this hospitality, or failure to maintain boundaries?
Is this self-reliance, or fear of accepting help?
Is this industriousness, or exploitation disguised as virtue?
Is this perseverance, or refusal to admit that the road is leading nowhere?

That is where a list of words begins to become an ethical practice.

I would not throw the Nine Noble Virtues entirely into the fire. There is wisdom within them.

But neither would I carve them into stone and pretend Odin delivered them to the Vikings on a mountaintop.

They are a modern map drawn from fragments of an older landscape.

A map can still be useful.

Just do not mistake it for the land.

Where Gael and Norse Once Met

Stone carving with Norse symbols including a Valknut, tree, cross, and runes

A McLaughlin of Clan Lachlan: Celtic Root, Norse Echo, Modern Path

As a McLaughlin of Clan Lachlan, I do not need to pretend there is an unbroken line of ancient Druids or Viking priests standing behind me. That would be more than the historical record can honestly support. The stronger truth is also the cleaner truth:

I am a McLaughlin of Clan Lachlan. My roots are Gaelic and Celtic, but my name carries the old Norse shadow of Lochlann. I do not need to pretend there is an unbroken Druidic or Ásatrú bloodline to honour both. The honest path is stronger: I stand where Gael and Norse once met — with clan, land, ancestors, honour, frith, story, and the old ways reinterpreted for today.

The Celtic Root

Clan MacLachlan, also known as Clan Lachlan, is historically rooted in the Highlands of Scotland, especially around Strathlachlan on Loch Fyne in Argyll. Clan history connects the line to Lachlan Mór, a 13th-century chieftain, and to older Gaelic traditions through Irish-Scottish ancestry. ¹

That gives the clan its strongest foundation: Gaelic, Highland, Celtic, and west-coast Scottish. The land, the kinship structure, the clan identity, and the older cultural memory are Celtic in character.

The Norse Echo

The Norse connection comes through the name itself. MacLachlan comes from the Gaelic Mac Lachlainn, meaning “son of Lachlann.” The name Lachlann is connected with Lochlann, a Gaelic term associated with the Norse or Scandinavian world. ²

This does not mean Clan Lachlan should be simplified into “a Viking clan.” That would flatten the truth. The better reading is that the name carries a memory of the old meeting place between Gael and Norse. Western Scotland, the Isles, Ireland, and the Norse world did not exist in sealed boxes. They traded, fought, married, settled, raided, converted, blended, and remembered each other.

Clan Lachlan gives me the Celtic root. The name Lachlan gives me the Norse echo.

The Druidic Connection Today

The Druidic connection is best understood as a modern spiritual alignment, not a proven bloodline. Modern Druidry draws from Celtic mythology, bardic tradition, nature reverence, seasonal observance, story, poetry, and relationship with land, sea, sky, plants, animals, ancestors, and spirit. ³

For a McLaughlin of Clan Lachlan, that makes sense. A Gaelic-Celtic clan identity naturally speaks the language of land, kin, memory, place, and ancestral continuity. Druidry gives that inheritance a modern spiritual vocabulary.

But honesty matters. I do not need to claim that Clan Lachlan preserved a secret Druidic priesthood. I do not need to pretend that every McLaughlin carries some provable ancient religious office. The living truth is enough: Celtic land, Celtic memory, and a modern Druidic path rooted in reverence for nature, ancestors, story, and sacred place.

The Ásatrú and Heathen Connection Today

The Ásatrú connection is also modern rather than a direct medieval label. The National Museum of Denmark notes that Ásatrú, or Asatro, is a modern term. People of the Viking Age did not call their religion by that name; later, in contrast to Christianity, it was remembered as the “old way.” ⁴

That matters because it keeps the claim clean. I am not saying Clan Lachlan was secretly an Ásatrú clan. I am saying the name Lachlan carries a Norse resonance through Lochlann, and that resonance gives a modern McLaughlin a meaningful bridge into Heathen language: honour, oaths, gift-bonds, frith, ancestors, land spirits, and the old stories.

The Modern Framing

The strongest modern framing is not about proving a pure ancient line. It is about standing honestly at the crossroads of inherited memory.

As a McLaughlin of Clan Lachlan, I stand in a Gaelic-Celtic line whose name carries a Norse echo. My clan identity is Highland Scottish and Celtic, rooted around Strathlachlan on Loch Fyne, but the name itself reaches back toward Lochlann — the Gaelic memory of the Norse world. Spiritually, that gives me a legitimate modern bridge: Celtic land, Gaelic kinship, Norse ancestral resonance, and a contemporary path that can honour both Druidic and Heathen ways without pretending the historical record proves more than it does.

That is the important distinction. This is not a false claim of direct descent from Druids. It is not a claim that Clan Lachlan was historically Ásatrú. It is a modern spiritual inheritance built from real cultural pieces: Gaelic clan identity, Celtic land memory, Norse linguistic echo, and a living personal path.

The Plain Truth

Clan Lachlan gives me the Celtic root. The name Lachlan gives me the Norse echo. Modern Druidry gives me a land-based Celtic spiritual language. Modern Ásatrú gives me a Heathen language of honour, kinship, ancestors, oath, and frith.

Together, they form a modern spiritual inheritance — not a fake ancient pedigree, but a real and meaningful bridge.

I do not have to choose between Celtic and Norse. My own name already remembers that those worlds once touched.

Sources

Castle Lachlan, “History.” https://www.castlelachlan.com/history
FamilySearch, “McLachlan Surname Meaning.” https://www.familysearch.org/en/surname?surname=mclachlan
The Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids, “Druidry.” https://druidry.org/
National Museum of Denmark, “The Old Nordic Religion Today.” https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/religion-magic-death-and-rituals/the-old-nordic-religion-today/

The Sound of a Thousand Boots!

Soldiers marching blending into balanced sound waves

I was reminded of something tonight that my military training taught me years ago.

It is one of those simple things that seems obvious once you have seen it, heard it, and felt it in your bones. One person stepping forward makes almost no sound. One boot striking the ground is just a footstep. A knock. A tap. A single beat in the dark.

But twenty boots striking the ground at the same time?

That is different.

Fifty boots?

A hundred?

A thousand?

Now you are no longer hearing a footstep. You are hearing a wall. You are hearing force, unity, discipline, and intention made audible. That is part of the power of drill. Yes, marching in step teaches discipline. Yes, it teaches obedience, timing, teamwork, and control. But it also teaches something deeper: when many small sounds become one sound, the effect changes completely.

That is the part people forget.

A single sound does not need to be massive to become powerful. It only needs to be repeated in unison. One voice can be ignored. Many voices speaking together cannot be dismissed so easily. One drumbeat is a rhythm. Many drumbeats become thunder.

And that brings me to music.

Our modern music industry seems to believe that louder automatically means better. Louder means stronger. Louder means more exciting. Louder means more alive. So speakers get pushed harder. Cars rattle. Concerts roar. Festivals pump sound at levels that do not just fill the air, but assault it.

At a certain point, that is not music anymore.

That is pressure.

That is force.

That is damage dressed up as entertainment.

The truth is, you do not always need one massive speaker blasting at an absurd level. You could take many smaller speakers, place them properly, and let the sound carry through space instead of trying to bludgeon the space into submission. Thirty, forty, fifty smaller sound sources working together can create presence, coverage, and clarity without needing to make one source scream.

That is the lesson of the marching boots.

You do not create power only by increasing force. Sometimes you create power by increasing unity.

There is a difference between amplifying a sound and multiplying a sound. When you keep turning up one source, you eventually get distortion, harshness, and fatigue. The sound may become louder, but it does not necessarily become clearer. Often, it becomes worse. It loses shape. It loses texture. It loses the thing that made it worth hearing in the first place.

But when sound is spread properly, when it is balanced, when it is allowed to arrive from more than one place without being forced beyond reason, it can become fuller without becoming cruel.

That matters.

Because our ears are not disposable. Our peace is not disposable. The people around us are not disposable. The land is not disposable.

There is an arrogance in unnecessary volume. There is an arrogance in believing that because you want to hear something, everyone else must be made to feel it whether they consent to it or not. Sound does not respect fences. It does not stop at property lines. It does not ask whether the child is sleeping, whether the elder is resting, whether the animals are unsettled, whether the neighbours have had enough.

Sound travels.

Sound enters.

Sound imposes.

And maybe that is the thought for today.

Power does not always need to be loud.

Presence does not always need to be aggressive.

Music does not need to wound in order to move people.

The old lesson still holds: one footstep is nothing. A thousand footsteps together can shake the ground.

So before you blast the car stereo, before you stand in front of that speaker stack, before you call 120 decibels “necessary,” maybe stop and ask yourself whether it really is necessary — or whether we have simply confused volume with value.

Just a thought to ponder.

Have a good day, and Godspeed.

Paganism in 2026: Faith, Activism, Reconstruction, and the Question of What We Are Becoming

Group of people standing in a circle around a fire near a lake holding signs supporting Indigenous land and water rights

By Buck Beggins

What does it mean to be Pagan in 2026?

That question is not as simple as it sounds. To some outsiders, “Pagan” still means something vague, suspicious, theatrical, rebellious, or politically charged. To others, it means witchcraft, tarot, festivals, drums, herbs, candles, runes, robes, mead, moon water, or a general rejection of mainstream religion.

Some of that may touch the edges of Pagan life. But none of it fully defines it.

Paganism is not one church. It is not one book. It is not one dogma. It is not one political party. It is not simply recreation, costuming, rebellion, fantasy, or nostalgia. It is a wide family of living spiritual paths that often include reverence for nature, honouring gods and goddesses, respect for ancestors, seasonal ritual, personal responsibility, land-based spirituality, and community practice.

In Canada, this question carries its own weight. We live on land shaped by Indigenous stewardship long before modern Pagan groups existed here. We also live in a country where institutional Christianity has declined sharply, where more people report no religious affiliation, and where alternative spiritual practices are becoming more visible in public life. In that space, Paganism is no longer only hidden in the “broom closet,” but it is also not always understood.

What Do People Think a Pagan Is?

Many people still meet Paganism through stereotype before they meet it through practice.

They may think Pagan means anti-Christian. They may think it means Satanic. They may think it means unserious, theatrical, rebellious, or politically extreme. They may think a Pagan is someone who dresses a certain way, votes a certain way, owns certain books, attends certain festivals, or performs certain rituals.

Some of these misunderstandings come from old religious prejudice. Some come from pop culture. Some come from social media, where “witchy” aesthetics are often easier to sell than disciplined spiritual practice. Some come from political movements that misuse Pagan symbols for purposes many Pagans reject outright.

That is one of the central tensions of modern Paganism: the public often sees the symbol before it sees the person. It sees the pentacle, the hammer, the cauldron, the horned god, the rune, the cloak, the altar, or the festival fire — but not always the ethics, labour, study, prayer, service, or community behind them.

What Do Pagans Believe Pagans Are?

Ask ten Pagans what Paganism is, and you may get twelve answers. That is not a weakness. It is part of the structure.

For some, Paganism is polytheism: the gods are real, many, distinct, and worthy of honour.

For others, Paganism is nature religion: the land is sacred, the seasons matter, and the human being is part of the web of life, not above it.

For some, Paganism is witchcraft: ritual, spellwork, healing, divination, and personal transformation.

For others, Paganism is Druidry: land, inspiration, poetry, ancestors, trees, myth, and the long work of wisdom.

For Heathens, it may mean honouring the gods, ancestors, land-wights, household, community, gifting, oath, and right action.

For Wiccans, it may mean worship of the Gods, seasonal celebration, ritual training, magic, and community temple work.

For solitary Pagans, it may mean a candle at the table, a small altar in the corner, an offering outside, a whispered prayer, or a quiet observance of the moon and seasons.

The mistake is thinking one of these cancels the others. Paganism is not a single lane road. It is a crossroads.

Paganism Versus Activism

There is a real question in 2026: is Paganism a religion, or is it activism?

The answer, I think, is that Paganism is not activism by default, but it often produces consequences that look like activism.

If you believe the Earth is sacred, environmental issues stop being abstract.

If you believe the body is not sinful by nature, then dignity, gender, sexuality, and personal freedom matter.

If you honour ancestors honestly, you eventually have to face history honestly.

If you honour the land, then in Canada you cannot ignore Indigenous presence, Indigenous law, residential schools, land dispossession, and the responsibilities of living on territory that was never empty.

If you believe in many gods, many paths, and many ways of being human, then religious freedom and pluralism become more than political slogans. They become spiritual necessities.

That does not mean every Pagan must become a protester. It does not mean every ritual must become a political statement. It does not mean Pagan spaces should be hijacked by party politics.

But it does mean Paganism cannot hide forever behind incense and say, “Nothing in the world concerns me.”

There is a difference between being political and being captured by politics. Paganism should resist being reduced to a campaign sign. But it should also resist becoming so afraid of controversy that it forgets courage, hospitality, truth, justice, and right relationship.

Paganism Versus Reconstruction and Recreation

Another tension is the question of reconstruction.

Some Pagans try to reconstruct older religious practices as accurately as possible using history, archaeology, folklore, language, and scholarship. This is common in many Heathen, Hellenic, Roman, Kemetic, Celtic, and other polytheist circles.

That work matters. It keeps us honest. It reminds us that the past is not just a costume box. It challenges lazy invention. It asks us to study before claiming authority.

But reconstruction is not the same thing as pretending we live in the Iron Age.

We are modern people. We live with electricity, labour law, climate change, social media, reconciliation, mass migration, scientific medicine, and global crisis. A living religion cannot only recreate the past. It must also answer the present.

So the healthier question is not, “Can we perfectly copy the old ways?”

The better question is, “What can we recover, what must we adapt, and what must we refuse to carry forward?”

That last part matters. Not everything old is sacred. Some things belong to the past because humanity outgrew them. A modern Pagan path must have the courage to honour the ancestors without becoming enslaved to every assumption the ancestors held.

Paganism and Political Movements

This is where things get uncomfortable, but it needs to be said plainly.

Pagan symbols have been misused. Heathen symbols have been misused. Runes have been misused. Norse imagery has been misused by white supremacist, nationalist, and extremist movements.

That does not make Heathenry racist. It does not make Norse Paganism racist. It does not make runes racist. But it does mean responsible communities have to speak clearly when symbols are hijacked.

Silence creates a vacuum. If healthy Pagans do not define their own symbols, unhealthy movements will define them for us.

That is why inclusive Heathen groups in Canada matter. That is why Wiccan churches, Druid orders, Pagan federations, local groves, public rituals, study groups, and festivals matter. They do not just provide community for insiders. They also tell the public, “This is what we are. This is what we are not.”

In Canada, Paganism must be especially careful not to import every American culture-war frame as if it belongs here unchanged. We have our own history, our own wounds, our own land questions, our own Charter framework, our own multicultural reality, and our own responsibilities.

What Paganism Is Becoming in Canada

The Canadian Pagan picture is scattered, regional, and often hard to count. Some people identify openly. Some remain private. Some call themselves Wiccan, Druid, Heathen, Witch, Polytheist, Animist, Reconstructionist, Eclectic, or simply spiritual. Others may practice in Pagan-adjacent ways but report “no religion” on a census form.

That makes Paganism difficult to measure, but not meaningless.

In practical terms, Canadian Paganism exists in public Wiccan temples, Druid groves, Heathen kindreds, Pagan festivals, online circles, prison chaplaincy efforts, interfaith work, bookstores, kitchen tables, backyards, forests, and solitary altars.

It is not only a belief system. It is a practice system.

It is what someone does when they light the candle.

It is what someone does when they pour the offering.

It is what someone does when they keep their oath.

It is what someone does when they refuse racism dressed up as ancestry.

It is what someone does when they honour the land without pretending they own its whole story.

It is what someone does when they gather with others in good faith.

It is what someone does when they stand alone and still keep the holy.

So What Does It Mean to Be Pagan in 2026?

To be Pagan in 2026 is to live at the edge of old and new.

It is to remember that the world is alive.

It is to reject the idea that spirit only lives in buildings, books, or institutions.

It is to understand that ritual is not escapism when it returns us to responsibility.

It is to know that nature is not scenery. It is kin.

It is to know that ancestors are not props. They are memory, warning, inheritance, and obligation.

It is to know that gods are not fashion accessories. They are powers to be approached with respect.

It is to know that freedom without responsibility becomes vanity.

It is to know that community without boundaries becomes chaos.

It is to know that politics may touch the Pagan path, but politics must not replace the Pagan path.

It is to know that reconstruction without life becomes museum work, while spirituality without discipline becomes consumerism.

Maybe that is the real answer.

A Pagan in this century is not someone trying to flee the modern world.

A Pagan is someone trying to re-enchant responsibility within it.

We do not need to become a political movement to have ethics.

We do not need to become historical reenactors to honour the old ways.

We do not need to become influencers to be visible.

We do not need to become dogmatic to be serious.

We need roots. We need practice. We need courage. We need humility. We need better public understanding. We need community that can hold difference without collapsing into nonsense.

And perhaps most of all, we need to stop asking whether Paganism is real enough for the modern world.

The better question is whether the modern world is ready to remember that it is alive.

Thanks and Godspeed.

Research notes: Statistics Canada’s 2021 religion classification includes Pagan, Druidic, Neopagan, Wiccan, and related Pagan categories, and its census reporting shows Canada’s broader shift away from institutional religious affiliation. Public Canadian-facing Pagan sources emphasize reverence for nature, personal responsibility, the diversity of paths, and community-building, rather than a single central doctrine, including Wicca, Druidry, and Heathenry. Canadian Heathen sources and reporting strongly underline inclusive Heathenry and the need to reject racist misuse of Heathen symbols. The Wild Hunt’s recent coverage also points to Paganism’s growing visibility, the risk of public distortion, and renewed Canadian interest in witchcraft and Pagan-adjacent spirituality.

When the Rave Comes to the Knoll

People standing in a ritual circle around a campfire with tents and festival decorations in a forest clearing at dusk

Author’s note: I have not had direct conversations with the owners, stewards, or current administration of Raven’s Knoll about KN¿WHERE Festival. I am not speaking for Raven’s Knoll, Kaleidoscope Gathering, Hail and Horn Gathering, KN¿WHERE, or the wider Pagan community. These are my own personal reflections, and mine alone, based on public information, memory, history, and concern for land that has meant a great deal to many of us.

There is a strange spell moving over Raven’s Knoll this year.

KN¿WHERE Festival is scheduled for early June at Raven’s Knoll, bringing a large electronic music and camping festival onto land that many Pagans and Heathens do not see as just a campground.

That distinction matters.

Raven’s Knoll has been many things over the years. It has been a campground. It has been a festival site. It has been a work site. It has been a business. It has been a gathering place. It has been, for some of us, home.

But it has also been sacred land.

That is the part I keep coming back to.

The Knoll was never just land

For many Pagans in Ontario and beyond, Raven’s Knoll became a home space around 2010, 2011, when Kaleidoscope Gathering found a permanent site there. Before that, Kaleidoscope Gathering had a more transient nature. It moved. It lived where it could live. Bob’s land. Gina’s land. Whispering Pines. Other places. It was carried by volunteers, by people showing up, by folk doing the work because the festival mattered enough to keep alive.

In those earlier days, my memory of KG is that the goal was simple: make enough money to run again next year.

That was the business model, if we can even call it that.

Survive. Gather. Feed the thing. Keep the doors open for next year.

Over time, that changed.

Kaleidoscope Gathering became tied to Raven’s Knoll as a permanent home. Raven’s Knoll itself became more established. The land developed. Sacred spaces were created. Structures changed. Policies changed. Leadership changed. The feel of things changed.

And somewhere along the way, at least from my own perspective, KG moved from being a festival shaped heavily by the people who attended it toward being a festival shaped more clearly by the people who run it.

That is not automatically evil.

Large events need structure. Land needs maintenance. Insurance exists. Hydro exists. Roads, toilets, wells, equipment, staffing, emergency plans, vendor systems, ticketing, food safety, fire rules, and municipal expectations do not magically take care of themselves.

But something changes when a folk gathering becomes a managed entity.

Something changes when a community space becomes a venue.

Something changes when sacred land also has to function as a business property.

And I think we need to be honest enough to sit with that tension.

Hail and Horn has changed too

The Heathen festival I was referring to was Hail and Horn Gathering.

That matters because Hail and Horn is not just another event on the calendar. It is tied directly to the Vé, to god-poles, to blót, húsel, symbel, the raising of sacred structures, and the maintenance of a Heathen sacred enclosure.

Looking at recent public materials, Hail and Horn itself appears to have gone through visible changes over the last few years. There have been changes in scheduling, volunteer structure, feast logistics, recognition practices, accessibility, non-alcoholic participation, and the way community decision-making is handled.

Again, change is not automatically bad.

Sometimes change is needed because a thing has grown.

Sometimes change is needed because the old structure can no longer carry the weight.

Sometimes change is a sign of health.

But sometimes change also leaves people wondering where the centre is now.

Who is the land for?

Who gets heard?

Who is considered part of the folk?

Who is a volunteer?

Who is staff?

Who is family?

Who is a customer?

And who gets called “not a team player” when they no longer fit the direction things are going?

My own sore spot

I need to name my own baggage here.

I volunteered at Kaleidoscope Gathering for roughly eight years. I volunteered at Raven’s Knoll. I lived there for a time. I worked. I helped. I cared about the place.

Then it became time for me to move on.

About a year after that, I was deemed by the owners to be “not a team player” and removed from staff at Raven’s Knoll and from staff at Kaleidoscope Gathering.

That is a sore spot for me.

I would be lying if I pretended otherwise.

And because it is a sore spot, I have to be careful. My hurt is not evidence of current wrongdoing. My personal history is not proof of anyone’s present motives. My experience does not give me the right to turn this into a revenge piece.

But it does shape the question I keep asking:

What does “team player” mean in the current Raven’s Knoll structure?

Does it mean someone who serves the land?

Does it mean someone who serves the community?

Does it mean someone who supports the owners?

Does it mean someone who does not question the direction?

Does it mean someone who helps keep the machine running?

I do not know the answer.

But when sacred land is also a business, the meaning of loyalty can get complicated very quickly.

Now KN¿WHERE enters the picture

This is where KN¿WHERE Festival becomes more than just another booking.

A rave-style bass music festival at Raven’s Knoll is not automatically a disaster. I want to be clear about that.

Rave culture, at its best, carries its own forms of community, embodiment, music, movement, release, care, chosen family, and ecstatic experience. Pagans should not be too quick to sneer at dancing, altered states, night music, drums, lights, or people seeking freedom in a field.

We have our own versions of that.

So this is not “ravers bad, Pagans good.”

That would be lazy.

The issue is not the music.

The issue is not the dancing.

The issue is not outsiders coming onto the land.

The issue is whether sacred land can host a large non-Pagan festival without having its sacredness reduced to atmosphere.

That is the line.

Sacred space is not scenery

Raven’s Knoll contains sacred gardens, art, ritual spaces, installations, shrines, the Vé, the Sacred Well, and places that have meaning because people have returned to them again and again with devotion.

Those spaces are not decorations.

They are not photo backdrops.

They are not “cool forest features.”

They are not interactive art unless they were created to be interacted with.

They are not rave infrastructure.

They are not there to add mystical branding to someone else’s weekend.

Most damage to sacred things does not begin with malice.

Often, it begins with ignorance.

Someone wanders somewhere they should not. Someone takes a picture they should not. Someone climbs something they do not understand. Someone leaves garbage. Someone thinks a shrine is an art piece. Someone thinks a god-pole is a prop. Someone thinks a sacred boundary is just rope.

And by the time everyone agrees that it mattered, the damage is already done.

The Witches’ Sabbat memory

Some of us remember Witches’ Sabbat at Raven’s Knoll.

Some remember it fondly. Some remember the way it ended. Some remember the spiral. Some remember the spitting incident. Some remember the rupture that followed.

I am not going to re-litigate that here. I was not in every room. I do not know every side. I am not turning memory into courtroom testimony.

But I will say this: Raven’s Knoll has already seen what happens when sacred space, conflict, public festival culture, and community trust collide.

You can repair a physical object.

You can clean stone.

You can rebuild a path.

You can replace rope.

You can replant a garden.

Trust is harder.

Trust is the real sacred infrastructure.

What happens if something is defaced?

This remains the question I cannot shake.

What happens if one of the sacred spaces is defaced?

What happens if multiple sacred spaces are disturbed?

What happens if someone wanders into the Vé?

What happens if someone messes with the Sacred Well?

What happens if someone treats a shrine as festival décor?

What happens if there is spray paint, stickers, carving, broken glass, garbage, bodily fluids, or some “funny” social media moment that is not funny to the people who hold the land sacred?

And more importantly:

Is there a clear plan before anything happens?

Because if there is a plan, then this is a managed risk.

If there is no plan, then this is a test of luck.

Sacred land should not be protected by luck.

What I would hope is in place

I do not know what has been arranged between Raven’s Knoll and KN¿WHERE. There may be strong protections already in place. There may be maps, signage, security, restricted areas, and staff briefings I know nothing about.

I hope there are.

If I were looking at this as someone who cares about the land, I would hope for at least the following:

Clear maps showing which sacred spaces are fully off-limits.
Physical barriers around sensitive areas, not just vague instructions.
Visible signs explaining that these are sacred sites, not decorations.
Security or land stewards assigned specifically to sacred-space protection.
A sacred-site orientation for KN¿WHERE staff, volunteers, and security.
A written removal policy for anyone crossing those boundaries.
A post-event inspection of all sacred spaces.
A restoration protocol if anything is damaged.
Transparent communication with the Pagan and Heathen community if something goes wrong.

That last one matters.

If something happens and the response is silence, minimization, or “it was just a festival,” the wound will be larger than the damage itself.

What does the Pagan community think?

That is harder to answer.

From what I can find publicly, much of the visible discussion around KN¿WHERE is not coming from Pagan spaces. It is coming from local residents, municipal concerns, rave communities, and festivalgoers trying to decide whether they trust the event after previous issues.

Some people seem excited.

Some people seem skeptical.

Some people want Ontario to have a strong bass music festival.

Some people are worried about logistics, trust, noise, safety, fire, refunds, and whether the event is ready.

But I have not seen enough public Pagan commentary to say, “the Pagan community thinks this.”

And maybe we will not really know until after the event happens.

That may be the uncomfortable truth.

The deeper concern

My concern is not only KN¿WHERE.

My concern is the direction of the land.

Over the last five years, Raven’s Knoll has changed. Kaleidoscope Gathering has changed. Hail and Horn Gathering has changed. The land itself has changed. The language around events has changed. The structure has changed.

Some of those changes may be necessary.

Some may be good.

Some may be overdue.

But change always raises a stewardship question:

What is being preserved while the structure evolves?

If Raven’s Knoll becomes more financially stable but less spiritually rooted, is that a win?

If more people come to the land but fewer understand what the land is, is that growth?

If sacred spaces remain physically intact but become background scenery for non-Pagan branding, have they really been protected?

If the land survives as a venue but weakens as a home space, what exactly has been saved?

Hospitality without surrender

I do not believe the answer is to close the gates forever.

I do not believe every non-Pagan event is a threat.

I do not believe Pagans should respond with panic, purity politics, or mob behaviour.

Hospitality matters.

Shared space matters.

Financial survival matters.

But hospitality without boundaries is not hospitality.

It is surrender.

If Raven’s Knoll is going to welcome large non-Pagan events, then the sacred identity of the land has to be made plain. Not hidden. Not assumed. Not whispered among those who already know.

Plain.

This land has sacred spaces.

This land has gods and spirits honoured on it.

This land has community memory embedded in it.

This land is not blank.

Come dance here if you are invited.

Come camp here if you are invited.

Come celebrate here if you are invited.

But do not mistake welcome for ownership.

Do not mistake beauty for permission.

Do not mistake sacred space for scenery.

What questions should be asked?

I think respectful questions are fair.

Which sacred spaces will be off-limits during KN¿WHERE?
How will those boundaries be marked?
Will attendees be told Raven’s Knoll is Pagan and Heathen sacred land?
Who will monitor the Vé, sacred gardens, ritual spaces, and Sacred Well?
Are KN¿WHERE staff and volunteers being briefed on the sacred nature of the site?
What happens if someone crosses a boundary?
Will Raven’s Knoll inspect and publicly report on the condition of sacred spaces afterward?

Those are not hostile questions.

Those are stewardship questions.

If a place is sacred to a community, the community is allowed to care how it is protected.

My hope

My hope is simple.

I hope nothing bad happens.

I hope KN¿WHERE comes and goes cleanly.

I hope people dance, camp, listen to music, respect the land, respect the rules, and leave Raven’s Knoll no worse than they found it.

I hope the organizers understand they are not just renting a field.

They are stepping onto land with history.

Land with memory.

Land with devotion.

Land with wounds.

Land with gods.

Land with community ghosts, living and dead.

I hope Raven’s Knoll remains Raven’s Knoll.

Not just a venue.

Not just a brand.

Not just “a cool place for a festival.”

A Pagan home space.

A Heathen home space.

A place where sacred things still mean something.

Final thought

The real test is not whether Raven’s Knoll can host a rave.

The real test is whether Raven’s Knoll can host a rave and still be recognized afterward as sacred land.

That is the spell being cast.

And like all spells, the result will depend on preparation, intention, boundaries, and what people are willing to protect.

Godspeed.