Ich Hab's Gewagt

 "I was permitted to work for many years of my life under the greatest son whom my people has brought forth in its thousand-year history. Even if I could, I would not want to erase this period of time from my existence. I am happy to know that I have done my duty as a German, as a National Socialist, as a loyal follower of my Führer. I do not regret anything.
If I were to begin all over again, I would act just as I have acted, even if I knew that in the end I should meet a fiery death at the stake. No matter what human beings may do, I shall some day stand before the judgment seat of the Eternal. I shall answer to Him and I know He will judge me innocent."

RUDOLF WALTER RICHARD HESS 

 

Verses For The Dead

 

 When these gnerations are purged of dishonour
And hurl from their shoulders the shackles of bondage
And feed in their vitals the hunger for virtue,
The flashes of blood will illumine the millions
of graves of the fallen, then thundering armies
Will ride over clouds and the terror of terrors,
The third of the tempests will sweep through the country:
                 The dead turning homeward.

 

When men of this nation no longer are cowards
Or weaklings, but feel their vocation and mission,
Their hearts will decipher the message of heaven,
In dread beyond measure. Their hands will be lifted,
Their lips will be tunes to the homage of honour,
The flag of the king, the legitimate symbol
Will fly through the dawn and be lowered in praise of
                 The hallowed, the heroes!

STEFAN GEORGE Das Neue Reich (1928)

 

The Hamadryad Nymphs And Their Curse to the Destroyers of Trees

 

HAMADRYADS
The Tree Nymphs of the Hellenic Mythic Tradition

The Hamadryads were Nymphs/Spirits that were born and lived inside Oaks  and other trees. When the tree was cut down or destroyed the Hamadryad dies or goes to another tree and curses/punish the one who did it.

 

According to the mythical tradition, there was also a punishment by the Gods for those who do so. A known example in Erysichthon of Thesally. When he decided to build his palace in the sacred grove of the goddess Demeter, he ordered his men to cut down all the trees  included a sacred oak. The men refused so Erysichthon took an axe and cut the tree himself, killing the nymph of the tree. Her last words was a curse to Erysichthon.His punishment was eternal hunger.

Some names of Hamadryads are : 

Atlanteia, Chrysopeleia, Dryope, Byblis, Phobe etc

Also several trees in Hellas still names after Hamadryads. Some examples:

Karya (Walnut), Balanos (Oak), Ptelea (Elm), Morea (Mulberry), Kraneia (Dogwood) etc

 

SEE ALSO:

The Importance of Forest in European Religion

 

To Ride With The Wolves & Trolls

 

ULVER  Ulverytternes Kamp 1993/1994

Pagan Barbarism & Magic - The Unseen World of Heavy Metal

THE METAL QUESTION

By

Brendan Heard

 Let me tell you a very strange story. The story of one of those quirky facts that linger unseen in plain view, where moth-eaten ghosts hide in the trends of pop culture.

The story of the strange link between reactionary rightist values and heavy metal music.

That is, the illiberal spectre of pagan barbarism, paternal initiation ritual, and complexity-magic hidden in occidental male autism-culture. Specifically pop culture, or more specifically a former pop culture now all but vanished, or at least well hidden. Chiefly the hobbyist or lifestyle genres known as: heavy metal, prog rock, science fiction, fantasy, and role playing games.

The average person (the average idiot) thinks of metal-heads as pseudo-anarchists and limitlessly partying savages who listen to grating noise for the sake of rebellion. The partying part at least, might be true. A post-industrial conservative without imagination is immediately taken aback, annoyed, or confused by what he perceives to be strange hippy satanists disobeying rules of polite presentation. Some people think music is something you put on to aid in relaxation, and nothing more. Normies only identify an affinity for something if it has the sheen of mass approval (an inherently unmetal attitude). An atypical conservative type might be forgiven for thinking metalheads are liberals, but that is by and large not the case. You will find, generally, they are not among the politically correct, but intelligent and creative brutes who have been stirred to investigate arcane corners of art where lie the makers of myth, the shaman and the sea lord. Metalheads often have a natural understanding of nature’s Nietzschean underbelly, their music itself being an expression of strength and natural competition, with themes of fighting, death, conquering, and other worlds. And if they have no intellectual pretense, you’ll find a natural, instinctive creature who likes real things (seeks beyond the superficial) and who shuns comfort and relaxed feelings for risk and excitement.

Now, metal is related in a sense to punk (being identifiable cultural modes tied to a style of music which encompass a look and lifestyle) but anyone who is old enough to remember recalls that these two were diametrically opposed, politically and conceptually, from their outset. Punk has none of the ‘burning down the village’ sentiment found in metal, punks roots are social unrest, in leftist anti-hierarchy agitprop, and if born today the Sex pistols would grow up as chavs listening to shitty UK gangster rap. Punks have roots in barely understanding their instruments, and peddling primarily an ‘attitude’. A frankly very contemporary-art-ethos. there is no real drama there, no tension of brute force and delicate skill, no hyper-imaginative vistas of evil warlords and alien worlds found in metal and prog. They do not risk the bombastic, their hearts are not on their sleeves. The punk, for all his rebellious pretense, stays firmly in effete social commentary and egoism, no viking invasions and lusty barbarian slave harems or kingdoms made of crystal for him.

 

Now they get a pass as cool by normies and above-normie-tier music fans, because their musical inability and leftism is hidden in ‘rebellion attitude’, which remained juvenile and grounded and thus does not cross the Bifröst line to sincere patriarchal power-creativity. But how can you tell when something has crossed that line? When its art contains an easily-mockable element; that is the hallmark of a genuine style in modern times. This superficial defenselessness is the manifestation of the required suspension of belief, which is the launch pad to the vale of giants. When an art form can be so easily labelled as cheesy by the unimaginative, when girls do not understand it, nor jocks, nor accountants, it may be of this ilk. When it appeals to the awkward young man of good breeding, who is alone (or if he’s lucky, with like-minded) then this young man under proper conditions can undergo the metal initiation, and enter an adult and deeply historic understanding of conflict, death, and the machinations of power, leaving behind somewhat outwardly those artifacts of imagination that in youth kept him ostracized from the greater tribe. A true understanding of nature and power, which may come more easily to the unthinking jock who has never questioned an impulse, will dawn on the initiate. He will learn that you can’t talk to women like they are men, or normies like aesthetes. 

As a youth my friends and I used to mark the genius level of a cult movie or a metal band by the degree to which our girlfriends would dislike them. We knew a band we had followed was now a ‘sell out’ and in demise when the sportsball teams began to sing along to their tunes in the locker room.

Of the musical genres I speak of, the two that are the most similar, and enjoyed by a similar audience, are metal and progressive rock. Most of what I have to say regarding metal can be applied also to progressive rock, although it contains less so the heathen aggressiveness, and moreso the exploration of complexity, which again is the hallmark occupation of the now-much-maligned occidental man, when they obsess about something and get trapped in a joyful autism-spiral. What music your unimaginative parents and normie friends smirk at derisively and cause you to doubt, you will notice a decade later is remembered as legendary creative achievement. It takes a long time for normal people to grow accustomed to groundbreaking cultural energies.They are 100% social and for them the art maybe does not have meaning, what matters to them is that they have heard multiple times from others that it is ‘good art’.

So what specifically is the link between a conservative traditionalism and heavy metal? I noticed this as anecdotal experience in the attitude of many of my fellow metalheads, and those inclined to such music generally. Let’s start by getting the obvious reasons out of the way. By ‘right wing’ in the modern context we really mean generally illiberal, that is natural skepticism towards equality as a concept, and an unabashed archaically masculine outlook to life. Most of the metal (of the classical period) is innately tribalistic and aggressive, in its presentation and outlook to life. There are many metal songs about pillaging enemy towns, viking warfare, overthrowing kings, ancient gods, horror themes, adventures in space, acquisition of women, and generally burning down the world. It is innately gladiatorial, as it is innately pagan (or at least feudal). In this way, it harkens back to very old tendencies, ancient attitudes to the world which lie buried beneath modern ‘reality’. Pre-enlightenment energies which are alive in their coffin, under heavy dirt-layers of technology and Modernism and generally emasculated, atheistic, egalitarian corporate culture. Somehow, this strange electric music overcame many centuries of conditioning to create an instantaneous emotional response in men (and some women) more akin to steppe horse-raiders than to corporate consumers.

 

When invovled in the genre it becomes paramount to express truth, in the form of playing and listening to ‘true metal’ and not being a ‘poser’. A poser being essentially a liar or a cuckold, someone who holds back in their metal sentiment to make easy or weaselly (dishonest) appeals to a mainstream. The first sell-out posers evolved into the entirely fake boy bands, who dance their sickeningly urban pop-and-click-sideways-hat shuffle upon the corpse mountain of artists who believed and struggled to achieve excellence within a genuine peered framework. A non-fake person (non-poser) can only witness this debacle with chagrin, and then grim determination, as he points his hatchet to the wind.

This strange timeless combative phenomenon regarding heavy metal is the same we see at work in aforementioned role paying games like dungeons and dragons and other similar hobbyist obsessions which are notably particular to the ‘sons of Prometheus’. Boys risk get teased for playing them, and to the unimaginative (sportsball enthusiasts, accountants) they seem lost in fairy worlds, reducing their sexual market value by being a step too far removed from reality. But in the role playing game or in the fantasy novel we also see the expression or communion with this dormant pagan-masculine-creative-complexity impulse. Tales of high adventure with creatures of ancestral myth. Recreating personal high adventure Tolkienesque epics with elves and wizards. It is the rumbling, primordial resonance of an ancient religious impulse, recalling days when going to the local temple was to hear your fix of cyclopses and dragons, to hear the adventures of Theseus or Thor, fighting monsters and evil kings. Very similar it is to the experience of heavy metal, though the games are less emotional and more taxing to your cool.

 

How does one describe the feeling metal induces in the listener? How does one define that appeal? Superficially it might be said to express/incite anger. But anger is not what the initiate feels – it is more like energy. It’s not negative, despite often violent or threatening lyrics, it is paradoxically jubilant and invokes a feeling of power. Like magic. The music invokes truth telling and Darwinistic conquest and demands of the listener discriminatory polarization against other modern musical genres with their less energizing (weak) evocations. It is about not showing compromise, and shames those that defer to hesitant or effete opinion.

 

The invigoration metal awakens is an energy which defies commodification (unless by album/ticket sales), which requires a genuine appraoch. This is why I think the media overlords soon abandoned it, after an early flirtation with cloaking it in ‘satanism’ and using it as a tool in their arsenal to whittle away at nuclear family ideals. When they realized it was channelling an ancient and dangerous vigour, it was dropped, and the glam metallers eventually faded into Maddona-esque choreographed dance routines and total hopeless despair of the fake and superficial. But the cult of prog rock and metal remained with us, and you can see initiates in the streets, here and there, looking more or less the same now as they did in the 70’s and 80’s. A hidden cult. The same might be said for fans of true science fiction and fantasy, though they are more readily indulged and now coddled into corporate perma-infancy with Marvel remakes and comic-con plastic-tits culture which would force Tolkien to commit ritual suicide.

 

The metalhead can occasionally feel lonely in his musical obsessions, but over time he will realise the fault lies with others, not with some peculiarity of bad taste on his part. The initiates knows that the uninitiated have simply not tried hard enough to get into it, for the reason that virtually everyone has the same initial reaction to it: (horrible noise, stress-inducing etc.) which fades with repeated listening. So the initiate, having started from the same position, knows he now inhabits a higher a plane the uninitiated do not. The metalhead sits atop this lofty precipice, strong in his mountain, and watches these lesser creatures flit to and fro on meaningless passions of trend.

 

 

I could go on, but this is too long already. The summary must be this: the obsessive hobbies of imaginative men will always return to their root. The root is archaic, metal is a bombastic bottom-line iron fist in a modern world full of diapered adult babies.

 Article taken from www.aureus-press.com

 

Villa & Grotto of Emperor Tiberius - A Roman Marble Insight Into Odyssey

 

 

The Sperlonga Archaeological Museum is annexed to the area of the famous Villa of Tiberius.  It was built in 1963 to house the valuable sculptural remains found in Sperlonga in 1957, during the excavations for the construction of the new Flacca coastal road.

 
 The National Archaeological Museum was designed by the architect Giorgio Zamma to house the monumental marble groups found in the famous cave of Tiberius. It represents a fundamental hub of the Riviera di Ulisse Natural Park.
 The Archaeological Museum of Sperlonga, in addition to the visit to the Villa of the Emperor Tiberius, consists of large rooms created for the display of ancient Homeric marbles. 

For the moment, four main groups have been identified representing the exploits of Ulysses:
 

 • The assault of Scylla on the ship of Ulysses and the killing of six companions suffocated by the serpentine coils.

 

• The blindness of the Cyclops Polyphemus by the hero and some companions.

 

• The Rape of Palladio, by Ulysses and Diomedes, from the Trojan temple of Athena.

• Ulysses lifting the corpse of Achilles.
 

A marble Odyssey that constitutes one of the most fascinating testimonies for the knowledge of the myth of Odysseus in ancient art.

The sculptures found in the cave of Tiberius, in thousands of fragments, are the result of a long restoration work not yet completed.  It is likely that all the groups are the work of three famous sculptors from Rhodes: Atenodoro, Agesandro, and Polydero. 

The same people who created the famous Laocoon Group, kept in the Vatican Museums since 1506.

In the Archaeological Museum of Sperlonga you can also see other finds, mostly sculptural, which were part of the villa's ornamental apparatus.  Among these, in addition to celebratory works of the Gens Iulia, there are images of divinities, portraits of characters close to Tiberius and mythological subjects.

 

 In addition to furnishings and artifacts that document the uninterrupted continuity of life of the complex. These are generally replicas or reworkings in marble of archetypes, often bronze, of the classical and Hellenistic period (5th-6th and 3rd-1st centuries BC), although there is no lack of archaic or eclectic creations.  While four showcases on an upper level, which frame the ship of Scilla, display minute finds.  Such as Attic red-figure vases, architectural terracotta, ceramic containers, bronze and glass paste objects. The mosaic with the inscription "NAVIS ARGO PH" is also of particular interest. They document not only the taste for collecting of the owners of the complex, but also the uninterrupted continuity of life of the site up to the post-classical period.

The cave near the Villa of Tiberius was renovated by the emperor who transformed it into a mythological setting in honor of Odysseus.

The cave was partially transformed with masonry interventions. The entrance to the natural cavity was preceded by a fish pond, a grandiose rectangular basin filled with sea water. The pool communicated with a circular pool located inside the cave. Where was placed the sculptural group representing Scylla attacking the ship of Odysseus.  

 At the bottom of the indoor pool there was a niche that housed the sculptural group of the Blinding of Polyphemus.

 SEE ALSO:

The Villa Diodati

The Importance of Oaths in Tolkien's World - The Story of The Army of The Dead

 

---- Article by Evan Cooney ----

The Army of the Dead, were Men of the White Mountains who lived in the Dark Times during the Second Age of Middle Earth.

 While the Men of Numenor were made prosperous by the Valar for their fight against Morgoth in the first Age, the descendants of the House of Hador (stayed behind in  Middle Earth) and the Evil Men were left to the mercy of a newly emerged Sauron. Sauron quickly subjugated the men of Middle Earth, and the Hillmen of the White Mountains were easily absorbed in his domain. The Accepted him as their overlord and built temples in deep caverns under the mountains to worship him.

 

After the fall of Numenor, Isildur and his brother escaped to Middle Earth and established the Kingdom of Gondor.
Upon arrival they placed a Numenorean monument called the Stone of Erech atop a hill to commemorate the founding of a new kingdom.

 

It was at this stone that the King of the Mountain came down from his throne and accepted Isildur's rule as overlord. He then swore an oath to come to his call when they took the fight to Sauron. But when Isildur came to the Stone to summon the Men of the Mountain the king went back on his word and chose to stay and hide, for they feared to fight their former master.

Isildur filled with rage said these words to the king of the Mountain:


"Thou shalt be the last king. And if the West prove mightier than thy Black Master, this curse I lay upon thee and thy folk: to rest never until your oath is fulfilled. For this war will last through years uncounted, and you shall be summoned once again ere the end."

Fast forward about 2500 years.

 

Brego, the 2nd king of Rohan (Land that was granted to Eorl the Young for aiding Gondor against the Wainriders) was exploring the boundaries of his kingdom when they came across a dark door. The door was at the base of a mountain, there they found an old man who called to them  and said "the way is shut, it was made  by those who are dead and the dead keep it, until the time comes, the way is shut" startled they returned home without entering the door. 

 

Later Prince Baldor was attending a party thrown by his father. Baldor and he became drunk. In his drunkenness he swore a public oath to enter the "haunted mountain" that lay on Rohan's Southern border beyond the dark door. The next day he departed, and never returned.

Around this time also, there was a prophecy given to Aragorn's ancestor and last king of Arnor. This prophecy foretold of a reunited kingdom of Gondor and Arnor and the man who would do it will lead the Oathbreakers.

"Over the land there lies a long shadow, westward reaching wings of darkness.
The Tower trembles; to the tombs of kings doom approaches. The Dead awaken;
for the hour is come for the oathbreakers:
at the Stone of Erech they shall stand again
and hear there a horn in the hills ringing.
Whose shall the horn be? Who shall call them
from the grey twilight, the forgotten people?
The heir of him to whom the oath they swore.
From the North shall he come, need shall drive him:
he shall pass the Door to the Paths of the Dead. "


Fast forward another few centuries and we are left with Aragorn trying to figure out how to fight a two front war.
Elrond sent his two sons, and the remainder of the Rangers of the North to remind Aaragorn of the Paths of the Dead and the prophecy that was foretold in Arnor.

 

 

Aragorn agrees. Desperate to find reinforcements, he leaves Theoden and ventures into the Mountains to fulfill this prophecy.

If you haven't read this chapter of the book I highly recommend it because its so much more satisfying then how it's portrayed in the movie.

 

Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, the sons of Elrond, and about 30 of the Dunedain Rangers enter the Dark Door at Dunharrow. Every step they are stalked by a multitude of whispering voices, a dark presence follows them down each corridor. They walk through the old underground wicked city. The come across a skeleton. The body of once great man, kingly armor and a golden helm. The skeleton lay strewn about in front of a locked door, he died clawing at it, as if trying to escape whatever horror was chasing him, trying to get out. It was Prince Baldor of Rohan.

 

Aragorn  then yells out to the whispering voices that follow, "let us pass, and then come! I summon you to the Stone of Erech!" In this moment the voices stop, and the path leads them to a door that exits to the other side of the mountain.

 

They make their way to the base of the mountain followed slowly by a multitude. 

 

"The Dead are following. I see shapes of Men and of horses, and pale banners like shreds of cloud and spears like winter thickets on misty night. The Dead are following." - Legolas

The company arrives at the Stone of Erech and Aragorn turns to the multitude and says, "Oathbrakers! Why have ye come?" and a voice was heard out of the night saying "To fulfill our oath and have peace." Aragorn then responds with a oathof his own, "The hour is come at last. Now I go to Pelargir upon Anduin, and ye shall come after me. And when all this land is clean of the servants of sauron, I will hold the oath fullfilled."
 

Aragorn, with his company and the Army of the Dead then descend on the city of Pelargir NOT MINAS TIRITH where they beat the Haradrim and Corsairs. The Haradrim fled before the Army of the Dead. The battle was won and Aragorn told the Dead King to "Depart and be at rest"

 

Two Important takeaways here:

1. Tolkien never actually says the Army of the Dead killed anyone. He states "the dead needed no longer any weapon but fear" so this idea that Aragorn could have used the Army of the Dead to take down Sauron is wrong. They weren't able to just melt armies like in the movie, thei weapon was fear. The men killed in that battle died drowning in the bay and river running away from the ghosts.

2. Even more important than point one

Tolkien is teaching a lesson about oaths.

1. The oath of the King of the Mountain
2. The drunken oath of Prince Baldor
3. The oath Aragorn took to let them go after the battle

In Tolkien's world people live and die by their oaths. Promise keeping was important to the fabric of Middle Earth and oaths governed the rules of the world.

SEE ALSO:

The Nordic Origins of Tolkien's Balrog

Tolkien's Middle Earth - A Historical Resemblance

Wolfhead, Tolkien and The Primal Fear of Man