The main topic at hand is the runes and Germanic paganism, or more specifically, Anglo-Saxon paganism.
And as was the case with my last interview, it's to satisfy my own curiosity.
And we'll get into the specifics of said curiosity later on.
But now I would like to invite our guest, Dan, a warm welcome to the show.
Hey, Marcus, good to be finally speaking with you.
Yeah, good to talk to you too.
So for anyone who isn't aware of your work, your music, would you like to introduce yourself?
Yeah, sure.
Okay, so my name's Dan, obviously.
I am a heathen from England.
And I'm probably most known for my musical work with a project called Walkensman.
And anyone who's seen any of Survive the Jives videos will recognize the intro song as my song, Sunnah.
Ah, it's an iconic and most glorious tune.
So well done on that.
Thank you.
Yeah.
No, it was a good kind of relationship that Tom and I struck up there.
We kind of had vague understanding of one another and he asked if he could use the song and obviously I was happy to let him.
So yeah, it's been good that.
And yeah, and in the last couple of years, I've also been running a Telegram and Odyssey and YouTube channel called The Fergan, which the idea behind that was to have a platform to express my more kind of socio-political as well as spiritual views to an audience that isn't my Wolkensman fanbase,
because I don't believe in forcing your personal views upon people just because they're fans of your music.
Yeah, makes sense.
Yeah, I think we've probably all had that experience where we have a musician that we really like and then they kind of open their mouths and start uttering things which we really don't like, don't enjoy.
So out of respect for my musical audience, I decided to create a whole new platform.
And I haven't really kind of promoted one platform on the other and vice versa.
I've kept them quite separate.
But I imagine that most people listening to this are probably familiar with the Fergen as well as maybe Walkensman.
So yeah.
Yeah, and I have shared some of your stuff on Telegram as well.
So the name may be familiar to everyone who is on my Telegram.
Ah, thank you.
Oh, my pleasure.
I always share good takes.
So yeah, you said you are a heathen.
Would you like to give an origin story?
So yeah, stretching back as long as you would like to tell, I suppose you started off as in England, of course.
Was it a religious household, Christian, atheist?
Give us the origin story of how you ended up being an Anglo-Saxon pagan.
Okay, well, I hope you're sitting comfortable because I am, I am.
I'll try and keep this as short as possible.
I know, take your time.
It's always interesting to hear the nuances of this journeys towards a spirituality.
So go ahead.
Okay.
Well, I was christened, but for no good reason because my parents are both agnostic or atheists.
So I grew up in a very non-religious household.
There are a couple of religious people, a couple of Christians in my family, but my branch of the family has always been very non-religious.
Nevertheless, I was very close with one of my cousins who was raised Christian.
And the reason I was christened was because he and I were born around the same time.
So my father and his father decided to do a combined christening.
But so I grew up very close with him and he was Christian.
I wasn't.
But I always felt that I always felt that there was more to existence than what meets the eye.
I just I could never, well, initially I kind of thought myself Christian just because I'd been christened and I was too young to realize anything else.
But when I got to my teenage years, I did what pretty much everyone in the kind of millennial or Gen X or younger generation does, which is, you know, discovers kind of rebellious things like atheism and communism and things like that.
So yeah, what went down a kind of wrong path there.
But it was really, I suppose, when I discovered black metal, which is a musical genre which I've had a long passionate relationship with since I was a teenager.
And through black metal, I was introduced to lots of esoteric and occult ideas, which is, I think that's one of the most important things that black metal offers.
It kind of it's because obviously when it first came out, you know, whether it be with Venom and Bathory and things, or whether it be in the 90s with the Norwegian bands, it was a rejection of Christianity.
So it kind of offered these other things.
Obviously, Satanism was there, which is not something that I ever got into because it's not really a proper spiritual tradition.
And I don't think any of those bands ever really saw it as such.
But there was one band who I was a huge fan of called Dissection, who's a fellow Swedish guys of yours.
And when the lead guy from the band, he went to prison for murder.
When he came out, he had this whole kind of Luciferian Gnostic belief system, which I think this was the first time that I ever really truly considered the kind of the metaphysical in a real tangible sense.
It's not a belief system that I adopted, but I was fascinated by it at the time.
And it was basically this anti-cosmic view, this rejection of the material world, this idea that we are divine sparks trapped in matter and that our goal is to escape the realm of matter, the cosmos, and return to Lucifer, who is the progenitor of the divine spark beyond the cosmos.
So I found this a really kind of fascinating idea.
It's not something, as I say, that I adopted.
And it was really, I suppose, I can, and, you know, I think there'll be a few people snigger when I say this, but really, I think I can credit Varg Vikanes for my discovery of heathenry.
Because throughout, you know, I was a huge fan of his music, Burton, in the late 90s when I discovered it.
And his CDs were covered in runes.
And, you know, he spoke in his writings on his website.
You know, before he had his YouTube channel and his blog, he spoke about the runes and Germanic paganism and things like this.
And this is where I really started to take an interest.
And then, you know, coupled with the fact that a few years later, I discovered my ethnic identity, initially kind of veering towards this kind of phantom Celtic identity that I thought I had just because I was British.
But then, you know, quite soon after a year or two, kind of realizing that actually, you know, my identity is not Celtic and it is Germanic.
And, you know, also my mother is Dutch.
So I'm Anglo-Dutch.
So this, this, you know, this, my identity is Germanic and it led me towards Germanic heathenry.
And so this was probably around, I guess, my early to mid-20s.
So I've been a I've been a heathen for about 15 years, I would say, and kind of, I would say, a practicing heathen, as in going to moots, meeting with other groups for probably 10, 11 years.
All right, right.
Yeah, that's pretty much it.
All right, awesome.
So would you say that I suppose your spiritual journey and your musical journey, they have gone hand in hand.
So is your music an expression of your spirituality?
Yes, yeah, very much so.
When I came up with the idea of Wolkensman, which was probably around 2011, 2012, so shortly after I'd become a practicing heathen, initially it was just for the love of the music.
I didn't create the project as an expression of my spiritual worldview, but it was out of love of that type of music, this kind of dark atmospheric folk music.
And I just wanted to make a demo at the time.
I just wanted to write a few songs and record them.
I had no aspirations beyond that.
But when it came to writing the lyrics, the only thing that felt natural was writing about heathen topics and expressing heathen and runic ideas through the lyrics.
Because, you know, lyrics are not something that have ever come particularly easy to me.
So, you know, if there's kind of like a ready-made whole, you know, foundation for them, if there's already a world out there that I can draw upon, then, you know, that makes my life easier.
Also, the fact that, you know, the music to me is very, that type of music has always been very kind of, I don't like using the word transcendental because it kind of suggests, you know, this desire to escape your existence, but it's always been very transportative.
And, you know, the atmosphere of the music has been very spiritual to me.
So it made sense to use spiritual topics in the lyrical matter.
So yeah, that's really where that came from.
And it just continued really.
And it just became a way for me to, you know, one of the things I like to say is that I believe that creation is one of the greatest acts of worship, you know, to use the talents that you have been granted by the gods and ancestors to the greatest effect possible.
So yeah, so to me, it kind of made sense that my music, which I guess was an emerging talent, would be in return honoring the tradition that the ancestors and the gods that I believe bestowed that talent upon me.
Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
And yeah, I completely agree.
For on a historical note, also the skull and the bard, they were always held up in high esteem in Germanic society.
So yeah, music is great.
So since we are on the topic, when you made the famous Survive the Jive intro, can you give us the backstory of that particular tune?
Yeah, sure, yeah.
Yeah, I was, I think I wrote that song when my first daughter, I have three daughters and my eldest is nine.
When she was, I think she was just one or maybe not even one yet.
And we were living in the south of England and on Saturdays, my wife would work like a part-time job in a tattoo studio and I would stay at home looking after my daughter.
And we also had two big dogs at the time.
So my task on that day was that I had to walk our dogs as well as take my daughter with us.
So I put her in the back carrier and I'd take the dogs out and we'd go on some nice long walks, you know, in a couple of hours.
And near to the house we were living at the time, there were some hills.
We used to walk up the hills and walk along the ridge of the hill.
And one time we were walking just as the sun was setting.
And I stopped and I said to my daughter, because I was very keen from an early age to kind of instill in her reverence of the sun and the moon and nature in general.
So I said to her, I said, look, the sun's setting, you know, like good night, son.
And she repeated after me, she said, good night, son.
She actually started to become very emotional.
She started crying because she didn't want the sun to go to bed.
And this is when I kind of thought, this is when it kind of hit me, the embodiment of the sun of Sunnah as this conscious deity.
And the idea for the lyrics of Hailing Sunnah.
And, you know, it's basically a hymn to the sun.
And it was inspired by the kind of emotional response that my daughter had had to the setting sun.
And that's why it's kind of, I mean, I don't know how people listening to it feel about the lyrics to that song, but it's quite childlike.
The lyrics are very, it's almost like a nursery rhyme.
And I was actually very, very reluctant to put that on the first Walkensman album because really reluctant because I felt that it wasn't sophisticated enough, like lyrically.
Ah, right.
And musically, to be honest.
It's a very, very simple song musically and lyrically.
And I felt like it was kind of too childlike in comparison to the rest of the songs on that album.
And, you know, I just kind of went with it and it did end up on the album.
And I'm obviously very glad that it did.
And, you know, no one has ever come to me and said, oh, yeah, you know that song.
That's kind of incongruous.
It's quite childlike compared to the rest of them.
No one's ever said that.
So I think it's just me who feels that way.
Yeah, yeah, probably.
And I mean, for me personally, it's a very beautiful story, very beautiful backstory to the song.
So it's nice.
I suppose most of our listeners now are also fans of Survive the Jive.
I am, of course, I'm a good friend of his and also a great fan of his videos.
So I have good associations with the song as well.
That you know, when it comes on, you know, it's time for some good enlightenment.
So, uh, yeah, good, good song on all accounts.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So you mentioned, just as a short side note here, you mentioned Lucifer.
Have you read Utturan's books, Crusade Against the Grail and Lucifer's Court?
I have not, no.
Okay, no.
So basically, what he his theory is that Lucifer was connected to an ancient Indo-European sun god that was later vilified by Christianity.
Now, speaking of Tom Survive the Jive, I did actually ask him about it and he said that there weren't any historical evidence to back it up.
But I thought to mention it at least because the Lucifer's Court was one of the first books I reviewed when I started reviewing books.
So for everyone who has read all of those, it might be familiar at least.
So it's always interesting when Lucifer comes up in discussions.
But I suppose when you encountered him, that was more of a as in a satanic sense, right?
Yeah, initially, you know, those kind of, you know, the bands that I had become, you know, infatuated with musically, you know, as far as they were concerned, Satan was Lucifer, Lucifer was Satan.
You know, it was a very, very surface-level understanding.
I, I do, you know, I'm not well versed on the subject, but I do personally separate the two entities, Satan and Lucifer, very much so.
And I actually do equate Lucifer with possibly even with our God Woden.
You know, if we're to talk in these kind of, you know, in terms of comparative mythology and syncretism, yeah, I do, I do equate the two because, I mean, just in the name, Lucifer being the light bringer, I don't see how that can be negative.
So I would, I certainly would like to read those books that you mentioned, and I would instinctively agree with the premise that Lucifer has been corrupted by Christian sources.
Yeah, definitely.
My heart tells me the same.
Again, I am no scholar on the matter, so I won't say anything more about it.
Those who are interested, yeah, Uttaran's book, quite interesting.
Now, of course, he speculates quite a bit as well.
But as I posted yesterday on Telegram about the English, actually, fittingly enough, since we're talking about the English now.
So basically, sometimes I distinguish between more esoteric and spiritual matters and purely historical matters.
So it's good.
And I know that Steven Flowers, speaking of my book reviews again, I have read quite a few of his books.
Now, he goes under two names.
So his real name, Steven E. Flowers, PhD, and Edred Thorzon.
And he does this so he can separate his more scholarly work.
So he signs those books as Steven El Flowers and then his more magical works where he, yeah, he has a bit more license to go outside of the scholarly, purely academic.
Those he signed with Edred Thorson.
I also believe that there is a value to not being all too to not stare all too blindly at the purely scholarly, especially if we're talking about matters of metaphysics.
I mean, we need to sort of explore and experiment a bit and follow the heart.
What do our hearts tell us about this metaphysical entities?
So, yeah, interesting stuff for sure.
So, I thought to get into the main question at hand, which is regarding the runes.
So, for anyone who's been following my posts on my page and on Telegram, I have meditated upon the Elder Futhark.
So, that is the, it's not an alphabet because the runes, they are, they are much more than just letters, each contains a mystery, are tiltsing, and can be used in many different ways.
So, if we're saying that a rune, such as Fehu, so that's the first rune, that's why also it's called the Futhark, because it's the first letters of the, or the first runes of the runic alphabet.
So, it contains a tilting, a mystery, and you can use them in many different ways.
So, I am familiar with the Elder Futhark, and there's also the Anglo-Saxon Futhark, and I'm not familiar with that at all.
So, I thought that you could elaborate a bit on some of the runes that do appear in the Anglo-Saxon version, but they do not appear in the Elder Futhark.
So, I will just let you talk as much as you wish about this additional runes.
Okay.
Yeah, well, you know, firstly, I'll say that I'm no expert on it.
I'm sure someone like Tom Roussell could probably give a more academic, comprehensive overview.
But I mean, I'm mostly familiar with the Futhork, with the Anglo-Frisian runes.
And these are when I think, when I translate something to runes or something, I use the Futhork figures.
The interesting thing about the Futhork is that by the end of the English pagan era, there were 33 runes.
So partly this is because of the Latin, you know, because England was one of the first Germanic lands to be Christianized.
So because of the Latin influence and having Latin characters, you know, sounds that weren't naturally within the Old English language were entering the language through the manuscripts and things like this.
So, you know, the common academic view is that runes were created to account for those sounds.
You know, we have like algis or Elksej as it's called in English, which is for the X sound.
And there is no X in the Germanic language originally.
So we have things like that.
But the thing that's always fast, you know, and I mean, you know, there are some other kind of changes as well, which, you know, I can't necessarily explain.
Like, whereas in the Elder Futhork Futhark, sorry, you had Othala to represent the O sound, whereas in the Anglo runes, The O sound became represented by the Os rune, which is like the kind of it's you know, to describe for the listeners, it's like the rune that looks like an F,
but it instead of having two straight diagonal lines, it had that kind of bent, both of them.
Yeah, so yeah, there are just some differences like this.
So, you know, for example, when I, someone who's more familiar with the elder Futhark would transcribe O using the Othala rune, whereas I would do it using the Os rune.
But the thing that's always fascinated me most about the English runes, the 33 runes, is the addition of some perhaps mystical runes which don't exist in any of the other runic alphabets.
And in the English runes, we have the halos, or the or as some suggest, possibly the grail runes.
So we actually have runes at the end of the row which represent objects from the grail mythos.
And we have the and sorry to interject.
I just have to voice my enthusiasm as I told you before.
And as probably most of my listeners know, I am a great enthusiast of the Grail legend.
So when I found out that there were runes connected to it, I got suitably excited.
So yeah, do continue.
I just wanted to interject with that.
Yeah, no, of course.
And actually, to tie into what you were just talking about, Edred Thorson, if you pick up his book, Alu, there's the final appendix in that book.
At the very, very end of the book, he writes a short chapter on this very subject, which is really one of my first introductions to this idea of the Grail runes.
So if anyone's interested in kind of learning more, I definitely recommend having a look at that.
But yeah, in essence, we have Kweoth, which is supposedly means fire twirl.
This is the kind of commonly accepted view of that.
It's kind of the rune that's tied to cremation or destructive fire, you know, a fire that destroys something, but also transformation.
But interestingly, and this is one of the kind of more speculative aspects of this.
But the heathen thinker and writer Wolf Ingersonu has suggested that Kweoth may actually be a mis writing of Swayoth, meaning sword.
So it may actually be a rune that represents the sword.
And that's kind of interesting in the context of obviously of the Grail mythos.
But more attested, we have the runes Kalk, which is chalice.
And we have Ga, which is spear.
And we have Stan, which is stone.
So there we have, you know, four or three, potentially four objects which are closely related to the Grail mythos.
And they're also known as the four halos, which relates to the Irish mythology of the Tuatha de Danan.
They had in the mythology of the Tuatha de Danan, they had the stone of Fal, the spear of Glu, the sword of Noada, and Dagda's cauldron, which obviously is kind of a cauldron, is like another kind of representation of the chalice idea, the cup, you know, a receptacle that's holding, you know, something.
Yeah.
So, yeah, these really started to fascinate me.
And actually, you know, to tie this into my musical exploits, I pretty much kind of based a whole album on this idea.
The second Wolkensman album, Fire in the White Stone.
Oh, right.
Yeah, the whole idea for that album came about because of particularly my focus on the rune calc, or as I think some say that it should be pronounced calch.
But strictly speaking, calc is chalk.
So I was thinking, well, you have calc, which is meant to represent chalice in its runic form, but also linguistically relates to the word chalk.
And then I started to look into this and found that originally in Old England, chalk was, it didn't refer to a specific type of mineral, but just to any white stone in general.
So then I was kind of thinking, right, we have within this one rune, we have the idea of a chalice and a white stone.
So then I started to think, well, you know, what else?
Who else has talked about white stones?
And I did some research and discovered that historically, you know, going back into time immemorial, back into antiquity, white stones have always been associated with the spirit world and have been held as sacred.
And there are, I found some documents of even like Christian priests and things who were using white stones for certain rituals back in Ireland.
And, you know, I don't know what it's like in Sweden, but here in England, you quite commonly, if you go to a graveyard, you'll often find that many of the graves are covered with white stones.
Yeah, yeah, same, same.
Yeah, yeah, small white stones.
So, you know, there's this connection between spirituality and religion and the idea of white stones.
There's something kind of symbolic there.
So I created this whole kind of my, I created my kind of, my own Grail story.
And, you know, I don't, it doesn't seem like many people realize that to accompany that album, I did write a short story by the same name, Fire and the White Stone.
And it's kind of my own little version of the Grail mythos, you know, taking in kind of all of these different esoteric ideas and kind of combining these more classical or Arthurian ideas with the Germanic ideas.
And that's something as well that I think few people seem to be aware of.
Like, for example, we also have the in Volfsunga's saga, we have Sigmund pulling the sword from the Barnstocker tree, from the oak tree, which obviously is highly similar to the, you know, Arthur pulling the sword from the stone.
Yeah.
There is this connection between Germanic legend and Arthurian legend.
And in Fire and the White Stone, I was trying to kind of bring them together in my own way, focused mostly upon this particular rune, the Kalk rune.
So yeah, that's, yeah, I've talked for quite a long time now.
All right, awesome.
Yeah, really interesting stuff.
Really, really appreciate it.
So would you say that these common themes in both British and Germanic lore, would you say that they go back to a shared Indo-European ancestry and spirituality?
I'm not entirely sure about that, but I will add that Edward Thorson mentions in the aforementioned appendix to his book Alu, he mentions that these concepts may have come to the very northern part of England because these runes arose in Northumbria to begin with, in the very northern part of England near the border with Scotland.
And this was an area where the Romans actually had certain mercenaries who were drawn from the Eastern world and they had Alans there, you know, from the Alan tribe, the Alanic tribe, who were closely related to the Scythians.
And in Scythian lore, at the origin of the world, certain objects came down to mankind, the plow, the yoke, the battle axe, and the cup.
So obviously, again, we have this kind of echo of the Grail objects of the Hallows there, of the Tuathadanan.
So Edred Thorson suggests that these ideas may have been brought to the far north of England, to Britain in general, even, by the Scythians via the Alans.
Yeah, which is an interesting thought, but I mean, I think I would suggest that these ideas go back much further than the Roman era, which is when these Alans would have been stationed in Britain.
So, yeah, I don't know whether there was some earlier contact with the Scythians or whether, you know, as certain philosophers have suggested, that these kind of Indo-European ideas actually went from west to east rather than from east to west.
You know, there are people who believe that.
So I can only speculate on where the origin is, but there does seem to be this commonality between the ancient beliefs of the Scythians with the ancient beliefs of the Irish, as well as obviously the Norse sagas with Volsunga's saga and the Barnstocker tree and Sigmund.
These Arthurian ideas seem to crop up in various places across Europe.
I'm actually currently reading a book called Tales of the Nauts, which is a collection of stories of the ancient Ossetians, who are the people who inhabited the land, I guess, east of Crimea, kind of where the modern day Georgians are.
Yeah.
And I'm not far into the book, but in the introduction to the book, the translator suggests that actually many of the ideas of Celtic Britain originally came from Ossetia.
So I'm kind of very curious to see, as I go on further with the book, to see which similarities crop up, you know, maybe whether any of these Grail ideas crop up in this book, The Tale of the Narts, as well.
So yeah, I mean, I've always been very interested in comparative mythology, you know, the work of Joseph Campbell and things like that.
To me, I've always felt that when you have the same ideas being affirmed by, you know, seemingly unrelated cultures, then there you can find the truth because, you know, there's no such thing as coincidence when it comes to things like that.
These important spiritual ideas are arising in various places at the same time, then I think you're getting close to the truth.
Yeah, I definitely completely agree.
So, just on a personal note, I thought to mention the following, because I know there are always some misunderstandings when I post about Hinduism or Vedic spirituality or different religious traditions.
I'm not doing it to sort of fetishize an exotic other.
I'm doing it to gain a deeper understanding of the Indo-European spirit.
So, I want to get as deep as possible into that sacred spirit of the Indo-Europeans.
And that's also why I find comparative mythology so interesting.
If we can find the same story in Ireland, in Scandinavia, in India, and then we can derive, go back even deeper to the original Indo-European spirit.
So, that is why I, yeah, if someone follows me on Telegram or Instagram or whatever, sees me post about some cool esoteric teaching from the East, and it's not because it's from the East, but because it's a pathway leading back to the Indo-European spirit.
So, yeah, that's also why.
Isn't it funny how people get so het up about that?
You know, I have the same kind of accusations thrown at me.
And, you know, I can understand people are obviously very protective over their native indigenous culture and we don't want this kind of outside, unnecessary outside influence.
You know, I fully understand that, but I think, you know, like Marcus and myself, the idea, I can't speak for you, but as far as I'm concerned, if a concept from the East is incompatible with our native Northwestern European tradition, then it gets rejected.
Absolutely.
We're not trying to shoehorn these alien concepts into our tradition.
It's just that if we can find something that reaffirms or backs up or maybe sheds new light on something that already exists within our tradition, then that gives it a richness, I would say.
And to me, it's about being able to put your cultural veneer on top of timeless concepts.
It's the cultural veneer which makes the difference.
There are certain fundamental truths to existence, but each ethnicity sees those truths through a different lens.
And to me, that's the important thing.
It's not like we're going to start referring to Shiva and Shakti and things like that.
It's that we can look at the mythology of the Vedic tradition or the Ossetian tradition or, you know, in my case, the Gnostic tradition or whatever.
And we can say, okay, well, that aligns quite closely with what already exists in our tradition.
And that can kind of give us a sort of confidence in what our tradition is presenting to us.
Yeah, definitely.
Beautifully stated.
Now, I read Julius Evola's The Doctrine of Awakening, and he makes the case in the entire book that Buddhism is basically an Indo-European spirituality that later on has been, of course, altered by contact with non-Indo-European influences.
But originally, just as originally the Vedic tradition, it was a product of Indo-European spirituality.
So, of course, we can say that sort of similar to Christianity, how Christianity was originally a non-European spirituality, but then it was so infused, especially during the Middle Ages in Europe, in the Germanic lands, it was very altered.
So, we can say that it's something different now, just as Hinduism is different now than it was when the Indo-Europeans first conquered India.
But that doesn't mean that the origins of it is foreign to us.
So, for me, I view it as a spirituality that can be traced back to the Indo-European conquests, and that is of particular importance or interest to me at least.
So, when I look at these ancient traditions, I am not necessarily saying that how Hinduism looks today in India.
That's not necessarily what I'm looking at.
I'm looking at the deeper path of it.
So, and yeah, as you say, if we look at it in a perennialist, from a perennialist perspective, if something has been true always, everywhere for everyone, yeah, there is probably some truth to it, regardless, by the way, of ethnicity.
Then, of course, for me, genetics and ethnicity, it's interesting and important, but there is also the perennialist aspect of metaphysics where we can look at different traditions, such as religions from all over the world.
If they say that there is a fundamental truth, a fundamental underpinning of the world, then it's most likely the case.
So, yeah, interesting stuff.
Yeah, and on that note of Buddhism, another thing that I've been learning in reading this book, Tales of the Nats, about the ancient Ossetians, is that many of the names of the characters in that book are heavily influenced by Mongolian culture.
So, the Ossetians who were closely related to the Scythians, they were looking both kind of east and west.
You know, it seems like they had a close contact with the Mongolians, to the east of them, who is coming close to the origin of Buddhism, but they also had an influence upon the West.
And there are some strong similarities in the Ossetian mythology to Celtic and Germanic mythology.
So, yeah, I think there's a lot to be uncovered with regards to stuff like that, to the Indo-European possible Indo-European origins of Buddhism and things like that.
I think there's still a lot that we don't know, and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't investigate these things.
Yeah, definitely.
So, tracing back to the initial question of the Anglo-Saxon runes, so you have a good few additional runes in the Anglo-Saxon Futhork.
Would you say that those additional runes have developed specifically as a result of the Saxon relationship with Britain and the Britons?
Or do you have any specific take on the relationship between the spiritual relationship between the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons?
That's an interesting topic, and it's one that I dwell on quite a lot, seeing as how about a month and a half ago I actually relocated to Wales.
Oh, right.
So I actually live in the Brythonic lands now.
And so it is of interest to me to uncover any perhaps similarities, some commonalities.
But I would have to say that from what I am aware of, I don't think that there was any Brythonic or Celtic as such influence upon the Anglo-Saxon runes.
I think that the additional runes of the English rune row of the Futhork, I think that comes more from the influence of Latin manuscripts into England at quite an early point.
As I said, you know, there are sounds and letters in Latin which didn't exist in Old English.
So I think that I guess, you know, to speculate and, you know, someone who's more knowledgeable might be able to verify this.
But I guess in the early days of the translation of the Latin manuscripts, they were probably first written in runes or certainly partly in runes.
And I know that there are examples of codexes which are written in the Latin alphabet, but have runes interspersed in the language.
So I think that the extra runes comes from this early relationship between the Latin world and Germanic England and the need to account for certain sounds and letters which didn't exist in the Germanic language.
As I said, Algiz is an example and it became X, which is not a letter that was found in English to begin with.
Yeah, and other sounds like, yeah, to separate the A sound from A, we have the Ark rune and the Ask rune, you know, oak and dash and different, just to account for these nuances.
So I think that the additional runes come from two areas.
I think it's partly the Latin influence and I think it's partly possibly this grail, these hallows, which, as I say, may have come from being influenced by Irish mythology or British mythology.
May even have come via the from the Scythians via the Alans.
But yeah, I don't think there's, I mean, it's, you know, even though a lot of people consider England, you know, a partly kind of Celtic country and genetically we are, you know, roughly half and half Celto-Germanic, but linguistically and culturally, we are almost entirely Germanic.
I mean, if you look through the, the, you know, if you, if you take the English vocabulary and you take out all of the French and Latin words which came in via the Normans, there are hardly any Celtic words in the English language.
You know, I mean, one common example is the word dad for father, which comes from Welsh origin.
But other than that, there are very, very, very few Brythonic words in the English language.
And speaking as someone who now lives in, you know, a part of Britain where people regularly speak Welsh, it is a very, very alien language to me.
You know, I mean, I love the sound of it and I hope to learn some simple Welsh, but it's very, very different from English.
All right.
Yeah, no, makes perfect sense, the explanation of the additional runes.
So you have a rune on the Wolkensman profile picture or the album.
Which rune is that?
Oh, on the first album, that's the bind rune for, which represents the name Walkensman.
So that's my kind of logo.
That would be.
I assume you're referring to the rune that's in the center of um songs from the Fergan, as kind of like a snowy woodland uh picture with a golden rune in the middle.
Uh yeah, that's the, the bind rune, which is serves as my logo for Walkensmann, and that's a um, that's a bind rune combining uh, the man rune, uh the Tyr rune and the Ken or Kenaz.
So um yeah, that the reason that i'm assuming you're interested in knowing why I chose those runes.
Yeah yeah definitely yeah, those came about because I was trying to represent the concept, concept of Walkensmann, in runic form.
Uh, walken comes from the old English word meaning the heavens or the clouds uh, and in middle English that became welcomed, uh.
So you know this.
This is again, this is a word that I was introduced to via black metal because uh, the well-known black metal band Emperor have an album called Anthems to The Welkin At Dusk, and I was always, you know, curious as to what, what a welcome was um so yeah, that that was a word that I became quite interested in and it came to influence the name of my project, but I went back to the old English form of the word, which is walken.
So essentially, Wolkensman means men of the heavens or men of the clouds um, and so in, in seeking to represent that in runic form obviously, I have the Man rune to represent men.
I have the uh Tyr rune to represent sky.
You know, I know it's debatable as to whether tyr is the sky father or or not but uh, you know, at the time that I came up with it, that's that was my thinking.
Yeah, and then I have the Ken or Kenas rune um, because that's the rune of guidance.
So um, kind of represents the whole idea of the project, is it's about kind of guiding um, guiding men to a more noble mindset or a more noble sense of spirituality.
Yeah makes uh, makes perfect sense.
So uh, for anyone who's listening now and uh yeah, who's interested in uh starting with the runes, starting to get uh, you know uh, an introductory understanding of them, where would you recommend starting?
So there are certain books which I would recommend.
Uh, what the book that I probably go back to most often is called uh, rudiments of rune law by uh, Stephen Pollington, and uh, he's an English guy who's wrote, you know, many great books on uh, you know, Old English and old uh, Heathen English culture and it's a very, very thin book.
It's it's not a big book at all but it's uh, absolutely packed full of excellent information.
You know, it reproduces the the main rune poems, the Norwegian, the Icelandic uh, the English.
Um, it represents the rune poems.
It also gives some examples of runic inscribings on swords and things like that.
Um, it discusses the Alu runic formula, which is also something I drew heavily on upon for my second album, Fire And The White Stone.
Um, that's probably like a whole other topic.
Um, that could, you know, take time to get into, but anyway Yeah, Rudiments of Rune Law by Stephen Pollington is a book that I highly recommend.
And Edred Thorson, he kind of divides people.
He's divisive.
There are some people in our heathen circles who really don't like him, don't approve of his work at all.
Personally, I think that his books, Futhark and Alu, if you just take them in isolation and separate them from him, I think that most of the information, most of the knowledge in those books is highly valuable.
I think you can get a very, very good understanding of the runes and particularly the esoteric side of the runes from those books.
Whereas Stephen Pollington's book, Rudiments of Rune Law, is a bit more academic.
It's a bit more kind of on the nose.
It doesn't veer into esoteric or speculative territory too much.
I will say, though, sorry for interjecting.
I must come into the defense of Stephen Flowers.
I know I have heard some criticism of him as well.
But from my perspective, as a pagan, as someone who's interested in our ancestors, someone who's interested in magic, esoteric matters, for me, he's one of my favorite authors and I read quite a lot of books.
And I am very thankful for him for having given me all of this enlightenment in his books.
So I know, of course, he has, you know, as an esoteric seeker, we could call him, he will, of course, have come into contact with some less than glorious occult traditions.
But that's what happens when you are a seeker.
Same thing if we're talking politically speaking.
For someone who's a political commentator, it's inevitable that they will eventually talk to someone with political views that are quite different.
So for me, Stephen Flowers, he's a seeker.
And as such, he was always bound to come into contact with stuff that perhaps is outside of the interest of a practitioner of paganism.
So for me, I'm a fan of Stephen Flowers.
I don't know him personally, so I can't vouch for everything he has said and done.
But just looking at his books, so the books signed as Stephen Flowers and Edred Thorson, I think they are great.
And yeah, I can recommend most of them.
I haven't read all, of course, but the ones I have read are great.
Yeah, sorry, continue.
No, that's really well put, Marcus, actually.
I mean, I think that's an important distinction to make.
You know, if someone is a seeker, I mean, you know, we have a phrase in the kind of Germanic heathen world, Rein Tilruna, seek the mysteries.
And I believe that may even be something that came from Stephen Flowers, Edred Thorson.
Or certainly I've seen him use that phrase.
And that's something that I've always stood by.
If you are truly going to uncover the truth of this existence, then you are going to venture into murky territory.
It's inevitable, as you say.
And we need to separate the willingness to do that from actually condoning those things which you explore.
Just because you have touched upon a certain subject or spoken to a certain person, that doesn't mean that you condone it.
And I think people in our circles are often too quick to accuse someone of guilt by association.
Yeah, definitely.
Whereas I don't see anything wrong with speaking to someone who you may even fundamentally disagree with on certain things.
But you can find those commonalities.
So yeah, I agree.
I think Edred Thorson's work is pretty valuable.
When I was on Facebook years ago, I was a Facebook friend of Stephen Flowers.
And he was actually quite helpful.
If I posted something that related to his area of expertise, he would often comment and offer quite insightful remarks.
So, yeah, I think he's, I think, I think he means well.
I think he's, yeah, he's maybe ventured into areas which you or I may not be interested in or approve of.
But as you say, he's a seeker.
So it's inevitable.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Speaking of which, I might as well say this now because the last, my latest book review was of Aleister Crowley's four books of magic.
And obviously, obviously, I don't condone of Aleister Crowley's life.
I have been quite outspoken against degeneracy overall over the last five, six, seven years.
So, of course, I don't condone of Aleister Crowley's lifestyle of hedonism and drug abuse.
Just I didn't think I needed to say this, but apparently, still, as soon as I post something, there will be certain people who just automatically assume that I, for that sake, endorse the book I'm reading.
So, I don't endorse Aleister Crowley.
I read his book because I was interested in hearing his take on magic and metaphysics.
So, that's the reason.
Yeah.
It's a shame that you have to even declare that, but you know, yeah, I mean, for most people, I don't, but I always get the comment and yeah.
So, but anyway, we are coming to a close of this great interview.
It's been really nice talking to you.
Really nice getting some deeper insights into the Anglo-Saxon runes as well.
As I said, I mainly focused on the elder Futhark, but I'm definitely interested in meditating upon the Anglo-Saxon ones as well.
So, for anyone who's interested in your work, where can they find you?
Well, yeah, firstly, yeah, real pleasure to finally speak with you, Marcus.
You know, I've followed your work for years and I've always admired what you do and the messages that you convey and things like that.
So, yeah, it's been an honor speaking with you.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
No, you're welcome.
And yeah, I mean, for those interested in my music, wolkensman.com.
That's W-O-L-C-E-N-S-M-E-N.com.
That's got links to everything relevant.
My band camp page where you can hear and, you know, if you feel like it, buy any of my music.
There's also a Wolkensman channel.
I've got videos on there, such as the live performances from Pagan Futures earlier this year.
Those who are more interested in my heathen or philosophical or socio-political musings might be interested to follow the Fergen on Telegram or on Odyssey or YouTube.
I don't really post too much to Odyssey or YouTube anymore.
My main focus has been on the Fergen podcast, which I've been doing now for several months.
And I'm on episode 18 of that.
The whole idea of that was to give because I've been quite aware of the fact for a long time that those who are interested in heathenry or paganism, it can seem very daunting.
You don't know where to begin.
You don't know if you're doing things wrong.
You're worried about doing things wrong.
So I try to kind of create, particularly with the first two episodes of the podcast, I try to create a kind of beginner's introduction to paganism as I see it, just my kind of own view on it and how I came to this onto this path.
And the feedback has been very positive.
People have, you know, I've heard from lots of people that they found the episodes very useful.
And then there are some episodes where I speak more about kind of the current thing, so to speak.
So, yeah, those are where people can find me.
And yeah, thank you very much for inviting me on, Marcus.
All right, awesome.
And I will put all the links in the description box below so you can follow Holkensman and listen to those interesting sounding episodes.
