Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship was founded as a heathen community devoted to religious, cultural, educational, and social activities. At its heart are meaningful relationships and a shared commitment to our faith, our traditions, and one another.
Our purpose is to foster the practice of Ásatrú while exploring the deeper meaning of our beliefs and traditions and, most importantly, discovering how to bring their wisdom into our everyday lives. We are more than a community of like-minded individuals; we are a Fellowship, built on the understanding that we are here to support, encourage, and stand by one another.
Honor, family, courage, and an appreciation for the simple joys and enduring beauty of nature are among the values that define us—not only as Ásatrúar, but as members of Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship. Together, we seek to live these values, strengthen our bonds, and build a community in which everyone has a place and no one stands alone.
What do we believe?
When considering the belief structure of Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship, it is important to begin at the heart of the matter, the very center of our name itself –Ásatrú. While the term is more well-known today than it was in decades past, it is still fair to ask, “What is Ásatrú?” Asatru is a relatively modern Icelandic term describing an ancient faith. It is a compound of Ása meaning “of the Aesir Gods” and trú which is often translated as “faith.” Combined then, the term means “faith in the Aesir” or “faith in the Gods.” In his landmark volume, A Book of Troth, Edred Thorsson explains that the term trú is derived from the Proto-Indo-European term *deru that “gave rise to ‘troth,’ ‘truth,’ ‘trust,’ and ‘true.’ He explains that the terms faith and belief have different meanings and implications.
“The implications of ‘faith’ or ‘belief’ are different. Belief is the acceptance of an external authority that a given thing is true, and perhaps that some form of ‘salvation’ is dependent on this belief. Troth is based on experience. One trusts that the sun will come up tomorrow because this recurring phenomenon has been experienced in the past.” (A Book of Troth, 2.)
Therefore we might say that Ásatrú means “trusting in the Aesir” with an understanding that that trust is built upon personal experience. Today this term has become somewhat controversial in and of itself and many such groups have shifted to using other terms to describe their organizations and their religion. The most popular terms today tend to be “Heathen” or “Norse Pagan.” Other groups choose to use the term “Odinist” which has a long history as well.
Each term may be charged with having some meaning that outsiders (non-practitioners) or those who prefer one term to the other allege. These range from association with contemporary politics to inaccurate personal conceptions of each term’s meaning. I had one person tell me that they were an “Odinist” because they believed in the Gods but not the Land Wights, Elves, and other beings that Ásatrúars believe in. This was a unique and, I would suggest, a false view arrived at by an individual who was not a member of any specific kindred or organization and who had limited personal knowledge of Ásatrúars (and for that matter Odinists).
Likewise I have had people tell me that they practiced Vanatrú because they felt closely drawn to the Vanir Gods and that Ásatrúars don’t acknowledge them –but rather only the Aesir Gods. To set matters straight, Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship, and all Ásatrú organizations that I have had a pleasure to raise a horn with, fully accept and often hold rituals specifically dedicated to the most prominent of the Vanir Gods. The full acceptance of the Vanir as part of the greater pantheon of Gods generally identified as Aesir is agreed in antiquity. In fact, Snorri Sturluson who wrote The Prose Edda includes the names of Niord, Yngvi-Freyr and Freya in his lists of the Names of the Aesir and Asyniur in his Skaldskaparmal. In fact, it seems that while Ásatrúars fully accept the various Vanir Gods in their practice that it is the self-professed Vanatrúars who have a limited focus.
In general, I have found that the labels Ásatrú, Heathen, Odinist, and Norse Pagan are largely interchangeable. What differentiates them is not so much the terms themselves but rather the specific “personality” of the organization that selects such a name. Our Fellowship continues to embrace the term Ásatrú as it is quite distinctive and has gained recognition around the world. In fact, Ásatrú has been an officially recognized religion in Iceland since 1972. This is largely the result of the efforts of the Ásatrúarfelagidh (Ásatrú Fellowship) an Icelandic Ásatrú organization. While organizations calling themselves Ásatrú may only date back to the 1970s, the term itself was coined by the great Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) who used the word in his 1870 opera Olaf Trygvason. Still some could rightfully argue that the term itself has a modern origin, but it indicates something much older indeed.
If we consider the ancient pre-Christian religious practice of many of the people of Northern Europe (stretching from modern-day Ireland and Iceland and across to Russia) as well as the Germanic tribes that established settlements as far south as Portugal, Spain, and Italy, we find that no label or name was necessary for their “trust” in the Gods. Religion, culture and the day-to-day events that made up the mundane aspects of life (farming, hunting, etc.) were one. It is a modern development to differentiate the sacred from the mundane world. People did not choose their Gods or their faith, but rather were born into a family and a greater tribe that lived in a certain way –and that life included the element that we call “religion” in our fragmented view. What we consider today as “religion,” was simply one with other aspects of one’s life and life’s experience.
Today, with an almost endless array of choices in everything from beer to religion, labels have become a means of conveying meaning and identifying what we are talking about. Our communities are no longer necessarily composed of like-minded people who share the same church or faith. Some have come from distant lands, bringing their ancestral traditions with them. Others have embraced the Abrahamic religions, explored spiritual paths they consider exotic or unconventional, or chosen no religious affiliation at all. In such a diverse world, we find ourselves needing to name, define, and explain what we practice.
For those who may be unfamiliar with its history, Ásatrú is a modern term for the pre-Christian religious traditions of the ancient Germanic peoples, although they themselves would not have used this name. These were the peoples we know as the Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Marcomanni, Alamanni, Franks, and Irminones, among others. It was the faith of the Angles and Saxons who settled and conquered parts of Britain, and of the Vikings who sailed across the seas, explored distant lands, and left their mark on history.
Today, those who choose to practice Ásatrú discover a belief system that extends far beyond the worship of the Gods. It embraces the bonds of family and community, the enduring ties of ancestry and kinship, and the virtues of personal honor and courage. It also recognizes the natural world as sacred and acknowledges what we might call the spirits of the land—the unseen presences that connect us to the places we inhabit and the world around us.
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