🇬🇧 text + link further down. 🇸🇪 Utförda Blot 2025: Blotlag Sleipner höll Midvinterblot 12 Januari 2025. Söndagen den 12:e januari så höll Sleipner blotlag sitt midvintersblot. Årets blot hölls vid Eriksbergs hällristningar utanför Norrköping, Östergötland. En plats med väldigt lång historia där många olika spår kan hittas, tex hällristningar från många olika punkter i tiden. Läs mer på: https://asa-samfundet.se/utforda-blot-2025-blotlag-sleipner-holl-midvinterblot-12-januari-2025/ 🇬🇧 Blóts performed 2025: Blót Kindred Sleipner held Midwinter Blót on January 12, 2025 On Sunday, January 12, Blót Kindred Sleipner held theirs midwinter blót. This year’s blót was held at Eriksberg’s rock carvings outside Norrköping, Östergötland in Sweden. A place with a very long history where many different traces can be found, such as rock carvings from many different periods in time. Read more at: https://asa-samfundet.se/en/blots-performed-2025-blot-kindred-sleipner-held-midwinter-blot-on-january-12-2025/

Bronze figure from Glasbacka in Halland, Sweden. The figure probably wears a mask with a hooked bird's beak. Late Bronze Age. S.Pollington in 'Woden - a historical companion' argues that this may be the earliest evidence for a one-eyed aviform character in Scandinavia. )Note the bulging eye on the right).

Just for fun, what's everyone's Genealogy? I myself have never done a DNA test, and I've thought about doing one to see what all pops up. However, I got a lot of family records, and of course my family living in different countries helps. As of now, my family is spread between 4 countries. Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and the United States. Though I've been told I have very distant family in Norway and Iceland. From my mom's side, from family and records, my family is of course Primarily Danish, and there's some North Germany in there, Swedish, and a little bit of Irish in there from certain family members. On my dad's side, it is Irish and Danish from my current living family. However based on last names, and down history we can find, we believe there's some Norman and Anglo-Saxon way down the line. But over the last 100 years in the family, Denmark and Ireland were places my family were around most, with some going back and forth from Sweden and Denmark, and my family that settled and stayed in Ireland on my mother's side. My dad's side had settled in Ireland quite a bit longer, with some of our records going back and forth from Ireland and Scandinavia for quite a while, with family from Denmark establishing themselves as early as 14th century if our records are correct. My dad was actually born and immigrated from Ireland which is kind of cool, because as much of a Dane as I am, since my mother's family immigrated from Denmark, I've always just known myself as a Danish American. I only met my dad in the last few years of my life and began learning all this information at least from his side of the family and it's pretty cool knowing and learning things about my family. All this information has made me want to get a DNA test and see what it says, and what I can piece together for a further back family tree. Though i may find out by blood im far less Danish than i think i am, which is a bit saddening lol, none the less, most of my family lives in Denmark, and I'll always stand by the good saying, Fuck Dig Jeg Er Dansker! 😁 Anyways show me some DNA tests and let's talk about some history!

More info about the Dna article 'Norse Code' in Natue magazine. Prof Alice Roberts's (edited due to length) social media post: "My friend Pontus Skoglund and his colleagues have JUST published this incredible new piece of research into Viking-era migrations - using ancient DNA and a brand analysis called Twigstats. [......] This new analysis includes a new piece of information relating to [.....] the remains of 30+ individuals from a mass grave in Oxford, thought to have been slaughtered in the 1002 St Brice’s Day Massacre, [......]. Ancient DNA analysis is an incredibly powerful tool for understanding populations, migrations and families [.....]. This is really exciting science. And it’s really hard. First the archaeogeneticists have to take samples from ancient bones, then they extract DNA from the samples [......]. Ancient DNA might survive the ravages of time - but it’s usually broken up into tiny pieces, [......]. So the next stage is assembling those segments of code into a whole genome. It’s a mindblowingly huge puzzle which is only made possible with advances in computing power. But reconstructing an ancient genome is just the beginning. What the archaeogeneticists are really interested in is comparing lots of genomes - looking for similarities and differences. These are the key to understanding what was happening to populations in the past - and tracking migrations. Over time, genomes acquire new mutations. Those mutations will be inherited by descendants of the person in whom the mutation first arose. While most of the genome will be identical between two people, the pattern of these little differences is crucial for working out what happened to populations over time - and for tracking families. [.......]. Pontus told me that distinguishing different Iron Age Scandinavian groups, for instance, is MUCH harder. It’s not a perfect analogy, but imagine trying to tell if someone is Norwegian or Danish by the appearance - it’s hard. But Twigstats works by focusing on salient differences - and these are ones related to relatively recent mutations [......]. It ignores older mutations which have been sifted and sorted through populations over time, creating confusing ‘noise’. So it’s a bit like snipping a twig off a gene tree so you can focus on just those branches - ignoring the rest of the tree. Hence the name: Twigstats. This means you can now spot subtle but important differences between populations that are quite genetically similar. And then this also means you can spot when in time a population starts to look more similar to another one - implying that those populations have merged with each other. In other words: some people have migrated and settled in a new place and started to mix with the population already there. Pontus and his colleagues tested their new technique on simulated data to make sure it worked - which it did, very well. Ten times better than anything else they’d tried before. They used it to look at some real samples, looking at modern human and Neanderthal DNA - to test a criticism of the theory that these species interbred with each other in the Palaeolithic. Now this is something I’ve been following for years, ever since my first big landmark series for the BBC, The Incredible Human Journey. Back then, in 2008, there didn’t seem to be any evidence of modern humans (Homo sapiens) and Neanderthals mixing. At least, fossil bones weren’t providing a suggestion of interbreeding. But then ancient DNA came along - with the first Neanderthal genome published in 2010. And then it seemed there was evidence for interbreeding, around 60,000 years ago. But a few scientists have criticised this claim, saying that the patterns in the modern human DNA could have happened another way, just through genetic variants being sorted over time, creating a sort of mirage of an interbreeding event with Neanderthals. Most archaeogeneticists still thought that interbreeding explained the pattern. But there was an element of doubt. [....] Twigstats finally puts that doubt to bed. Neanderthals and modern humans definitely met up and swapped genes with each other (delicately put). [.......] The main focus of the study was the later first millennium - the Viking Age. And here, Pontus and his colleagues were able to use Twigstats to track migrations of different populations that have been difficult to ‘see’ before, they’re all so similar. They found evidence for migrations of Germanic people southward into Poland and Slovakia, as well as into south-central Europe and Britain. And then later, those people that ended up in Poland were themselves replaced during the Slavic period. They also found evidence of a previously unknown migration into Scandinavia, before the Viking Age - transforming the ancestry of Denmark and southern Sweden. Interestingly, this seems to coincide with a change in runic script and language - establishing Old Norse and the Younger Futhark."

🇬🇧 Come and celebrate the Summer Blót with the Nordiska Asa-samfundet (Nordic Asa-community). On Saturday, July 12, 2025 at 14:00, it is once again time to celebrate the summer with gods, goddesses and the beings of the place with a big blót at the Rök Runestone in Ödeshög, Sweden! The Summerblót is a time when hundreds of norse heathens from all over Sweden and other parts of Midgard gather in Rök, Ödeshög in Sweden and celebrate the summer around the original time of Midsummer with a big blót at the fantastic Rök Runestone. In addition to Saturday’s blót, various activities are organized throughout the day at our campsite located next to store Röks Lanthandel (Lanthandlar´n i Rök). The evening ends with a guild. More information about the various activities, camping and the guild check out the link below. The Summer Blót is a public event where everyone is welcome to attend regardless of membership in the Nordiska Asa-samfundet (Nordic Asa-community) or not. More info & booking: https://asa-samfundet.se/en/events/summer-blot-2025/

Fellow Danes may want to tie a rock to me and throw me in the Sea for giving props to Sweden on languages but I'll say, the limited Danish I did speak growing up of course had all the curse words and naughty words, but with that, I always liked to say the Swedish 'Helveta' instead of the Danish Helvede, because I liked the sharpness of 'Helveta'. Don't hate me guys! Haha, Good Morning Folkrealms! :)

This may be a strange post, and I'm not sure how to categorize it exactly. Its about Norse Paganism, and Being Danish. My own weird thoughts, emotions and so forth. That maybe others may relate to, or maybe you'll be like, man why would you bother posting this? I'll start though for the record I believe that anyone, from anywhere can choose to follow and be apart of Norse Paganism, follow and honor the spirituality and culture. However, I've never been able to accept this for myself. I've had thoughts that I don't hold any validity as a Norse Pagan, because I am not Danish enough or not Scandinavian enough to follow Norse Paganism, because I wasn't born in Denmark, my family moved away from there and came to America, so nationally I'm not a Dane, I'm only a Dane in my blood. I'm not sure how to explain this in a concise manner, but I shall try. But for some reason my brain likes to directly correlate my own amount of being Danish with how much that makes me a Norse Pagan, despite the fact I know better, and acknowledge the fact that anyone can choose Norse Paganism. Some days I just feel like an imposter in both. Aside from my slight accent, I only knew a few words in Danish and a song growing up, and didn't start learning the language until I was an adult, and didn't start really following Norse Paganism until I was 21 (I'm 25 going on 26 now.), plus my family never really wanting much to do with me because of my spiritual followings, and now the few family members I do talk to once in a blue moon in Denmark and Sweden, I at this time can't keep up as well in conversations using their language, a language I should be fluent in and know well... It all just makes me feel like an imposter. Here I am a "Dane" if I really can call myself that, studying the old history and spirituality of my heritage, and I can't even connect with my own family and people in modern Nordic culture. And it sometimes makes me feel like maybe I don't belong. However there's also the whole factor, that my family would accept me and see me as one of them, if I ditched paganism and converted to Christianity which of course will never happen. I'm very much rooted in my ways of Forn Seð, and my overall exploration of esoteric and spiritual topics and paths on my quest for knowledge. But man sometimes my mind betrays me with these thoughts of invalidation. Maybe it is the winter time, the depression that hits, as much as I love winter, it is the time I spend the most alone, especially with my job working nights, by myself I get plenty of time be stuck in my head and contemplate everything. Anyways, I apologize for this jumbled mess of thoughts and feelings? I like posting about my thinking on these things in my life experiences and journey as a follower of Forn Seð, as it's something real, even if it's a bit weird, awkward, sad even? Because maybe you relate to it, maybe you also experience times of depression, disconnection and not feeling like yourself. As we are all human, and have strange thoughts, and feelings, that put us in strange places, and I think out letting and sharing these at times helps us connect, heal, and gain greater understanding, especially in the strange complexities of the human mind. Also here's a picture of some deer I came across :)

These are some pictures from my 2020 trip to Gamla Uppsala, Sweden. In the 3rd century AD and the 4th century AD and onwards, Gamla Uppsala it was an important religious, economic and political centre. Early written sources show that already during prehistory, Gamla Uppsala was widely famous in Northern Europe as the residence of Swedish kings of the legendary Yngling dynasty. #uppsala

Gloomy morning vibes in Sweden. Taken on a roadtrip in October.🍂 #sweden #whitedress #redhair #autumn #ruins #forest

When amateur archaeologist and metal detectorist Morten Skovsby uncovered this tiny silver figurine near the village of Hårby in the southwest part of the Danish island of Funen, he knew exactly what to do. He documented the findspot immediately, and then took the artifact to the City Museum in nearby Odense. When the museum’s curator, Mogens Bo Henriksen, saw the figurine, he knew what it was. “There can hardly be any doubt,” he says, “that this depicts one of Odin’s valkyries.” Norse myths, called sagas, tell of female figures called valkyries (from the Old Norse valkyrja meaning “chooser of the slain”). The valkyries were sent to battlefields by the god Odin to select which fallen warriors were worthy of afterlives in Valhalla, filled with feasts of wild boar and liquor milked from goats. Despite their prevalence in the sagas, depictions of valkyries are relatively rare. They are confined to Swedish picture stones dating to about A.D. 700 and a handful of Early Viking fibulae (brooches) from Sweden and Denmark. So this three-dimensional representation is unique. The figurine, which would probably have been a pendant, is partly gilded, while other areas are colored black by niello, a mixture of copper, silver, and lead sulphides used as an inlay. The valkyrie wears a long patterned dress and carries a double-edged Viking sword in her right hand and a shield protecting her body in her left. Dating to about A.D. 800, the figurine was recovered near an excavated area known to have been a metal workshop. Perhaps, says Henriksen, it was discarded as waste. Or maybe it was raw material on the way to the melting pot. “For some unknown reason it didn’t make it that far—and that’s our good luck.” Source: JA Lobell. Archaeology Magazine