Apr
Heathenism in Spanish?
I had sent out an open letter a few months ago, and was surprised to find that someone had translated it into Spanish. Not only that, they distributed it for me. Here was my Heathen missive in Spanish, and it was amusing to see.
Spanish?
Yes. There are Spanish-speaking Heathens in North American and Europe. They see themselves as following the Visigothic tradition. They use Spanish because it is their everyday language.
I have said for years that Heathenism should not be caught up in a load of Icelandic buzz words, but stated in pure modern language. Only then can it become truly personal to you. We need to use the terms of the language we each speak everyday. For me, that is English. It would be modern German for Germans, modern Norsk for Norwegians and modern Spanish for Mexicans. (Imagine how Heathenism sounds in Dutch with all the oop-oops and oorts and other funny sounds they make.) If we insist on using an overabundance of words from Iceland, we lose the point. Besides, some of us are not Icelandic tradition, so why use those words? Things become all the more comprehensible when they can be expressed in plain modern language: your everyday language.
I encountered the Spanish-speaking heathens, too! All I can say is, Wyrd can be weird! Who says the Norns do not have a sense of humor? As weavers, they seem to delight at times in weaving quite baroque patterns of tapestry in ways that must completely annoy all the little purists out there! Here’s another example of that : the Kudrun saga-cycle of Germany is an important set of stories, one tale in which is called “Dukas Horant”. It so happens that our earliest manuscript of “Dukas Horant” is in YIDDISH, in fact one of the earliest written forms of Yiddish, and was discovered in the archives of a synagogue! Really it’s not surprising to me that people living close to each other would exchange stories, but it has a particularly poignant flavor to it, especially in the modern world!
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:58 am