asatru

My Runes/Poetry Course Starts Tomorrow!

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If you’re the sort who likes waiting until the last minute, then now’s the time, because the last minute has arrived!

Tomorrow morning (that is, Wednesday at 800am), my online course in rune-writing and simple alliterative poetry starts. It’s called “Sacred English,” and with the combined powers of runes and poetry, you can make your English magical.

Join the American Futharch Revolution, and learn to write runes the way the ancient runemasters wrote them, and with the traditional poetic key.

In Hávamál 144, Odin challenges us to know how to write and read the runes. Are you ready to answer that challenge in the most authentic way possible in over a thousand years?

Not sure if you’ve got the time? After all, it is a cohort-course with a schedule to it. But as part of that, you’ll get plenty of my time—I’ll review the exercises, answer your questions, and prepare the four review lessons based on how the students are doing with the material. That could even include me creating additional teaching materials to address specific needs. It’s a unique opportunity to pick my brain on all this.

And everything will be pre-recorded, so you can fit it in your schedule however you like. Not to mention that you’ll also get to keep a large amount of videos, slides, audio, and guidebooks from the course.

For more details, see the page on my American Futharch website:
https://americanfutharch.com/sacred-english

or just jump straight to the course page and enroll at my new Skaldic Eagle Flight School:
https://skaldiceagle.thinkific.com/courses/sacred-english

Enjoy!

My first online course is here!

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I’ve finally entered the world of independent online teaching with my first course on Runes and Poetry!

This course is my big epiphany in its most significant manifestation so far! Over three years ago, I had the lightning-strike idea that the rune names and futhark order for the Elder Futhark runes preceded the existence of rune-staves and runic writing. How could that be? Only one possible way: as tool to codify, teach, and promote the nascent system of early Germanic alliterative poetry, which certainly originated before the Proto-Germanics had writing. Having developed a poetry built on matching stressed sounds, it would be natural for the Proto-Germanics to name the sounds of their language in order to talk about them. (E.g., “This line alliterates on Hagalaz with a final stress on Tīwaz.”) The poetry itself would be the natural method for handing these names down the generations, in the form of the first “rune” poem. And when the early Germanics finally chose to adopt writing at some later time, these names for the sounds—and a canonical order for them in their “rune” poem—were already on hand to be applied to the rune-staves. (I’ve got an academic article eventually coming out that discusses this in more detail.)

I immediately recognized that all this was a great idea for modern alliterative poetry. Indeed, the sounds of modern English also had be named so that today’s alliterative poetry could become all that it could be, and the runes were equally an ideal vehicle for this. And so by reforming the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, I created the American Futharch, the first full-fledged runic system in centuries, fully integrated with alliterative poetry, just as I envisioned it for the Elder Futhark and its oral precursor.

And now you can join me in my new course and learn runes integrated with the traditional poetic key. It’s called “Sacred English: American Runes and Alliterative Poetry,” and it’s a great way to turbo-charge your rune-writing knowledge of authentic rune writing with the American Futharch, while simultaneously learning to write simple alliterative poetry.

Instruction starts September 25, and last day to enroll this semester is September 27.

For more details, see the page on my American Futharch website:

https://americanfutharch.com/sacred-english

or just jump straight to the course page and enroll at my new Skaldic Eagle Flight School:

https://skaldiceagle.thinkific.com/courses/sacred-english

Enjoy!

American Futharch on Random Heathen Ramblings

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I’ve recently made my first podcast appearance with the American Futharch, and it’s on Random Heathen Ramblings, by Midgard Musings. It’s S5, EP18 – Introducing the American Futharch Runes.

The audio-only form of the podcast is free, and available on many platforms, including:

The video-version of the podcast is available to his subscribers at Patreon. 

Enjoy!

Presentation at East Coast Thing 2024

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In just a few weeks, the American Futharch will come to a public heathen event for the first time. That will be the annual East Coast Thing, which is one of the longest-running heathen events in the country. I’ll be presenting a one-hour workshop on the American Futharch there, at some point during the four days of the festival, May 16–19.  (The exact time slot has yet to be determined.)

The deadline for registration and payments is May 10, so you still have some days to register. https://eastcoastthing.org/

Since last year, it’s been in Maryland, not too far from Deep Creek Lake. I’ve been attending the event since the mid 00’s, and it’s always been great.

Here’s the title and abstract for my presentation:

The American Futharch: Runes That Speak Your Language!

Write exactly like an ancient runemaster! The original Elder Futhark was perfectly fit to its language, Proto-Germanic, enabling PG speakers to write anything they said as a precise, phonetic transcription—the magic of concertizing their speech directly into material forms. By reforming the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, I have created the American Futharch, a new system of 33 runes with that same perfect fit to American English, and the rune names are all from today’s English.

In this workshop, you’ll learn the American Futharch, the path to mastering the mysteries of your speech, and the three-step process to use with it so that you, too, can write exactly like an ancient runemaster. But writing with them is only the beginning: they are built for magic, divination, esotericism, poetry, and more, and some of these topics will be touched on. These Runes can truly Do All The Things! This is the debut public heathen event for the American Futharch, where it will be the “œpandi nam” heard ‘round the world!

It’s Here! Now Available in Print!

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Viking Poetry for Heathen Rites:
Asatru Liturgy in Traditional Verse
Copyright © 2017 Eirik Westcoat
Skaldic Eagle Press. xxiv, 218 pages
Cover art by Jesseca Trainham

It’s finally here: my first book of poetry, with many poems never seen before on this blog. Now available in paperback, hardcover, and digital formats. What’s more, there’s also a companion album of audio recordings of many of the poems from the book!

Here’s the short version of where to find it.

This Amazon link will take you to the paperback, along with the casewrap hardcover and kindle editions.

Here’s the Apple iBooks link and B&N Nook link for the EPUB ebook.

Here’s the Lulu link for the PDF ebook.

This BandCamp link will take you to audio recordings of 25 of the poems.

For further details, including other store links and a brief table of contents, see my Press / Books page.

Wassail!

Coming Soon, Very Soon!

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Viking Poetry for Heathen Rites:
Asatru Liturgy in Traditional Verse
Copyright © 2017 Eirik Westcoat
Skaldic Eagle Press
xxiv, 218 pages
Cover art by Jesseca Trainham

It’s almost here: my first book of poetry, with many poems never seen before on this blog. I’ll make further posts when the various formats become available for purchase. The rollout should be complete by the end of July.

Call to Thor

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I’ve posted a call to Thor previously on this blog, but like all the other ritual calls, it was two stanzas of ljóðaháttr. (See the Minor Poems list for the rest of the calls I’ve posted so far.) Since there is a lot of surviving lore about Thor, a longer call is possible. So today I present a seven stanza ljóðaháttr call to Thor. Like much of my poetry on my blog, it will be included in my upcoming book. It is titled “Call to Thor.”

Thunderous Thor,
threat-destroyer,
Asgard’s chosen champion,
we boast of your might
and bounty of main
in the call we declare today.

Continue reading →

Prayers to the Gods, Part 2

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Woot! I’ve finished NaPoWriMo on schedule, having written a poem a day for each day of the month. As mentioned in my last post, I chose to write these 30 poems as prayers to various gods, goddesses, and wights of Asatru, each exactly nine-lines in the style of Anglo-Saxon continuous verse. Today I present another three prayers from the fifteen that I wrote in the second half of the month. They are prayers to Forseti, Jörð, and the Ancestors.

Continue reading →

Prayers to the Gods, Part 1

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April is the time of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), an annual event for encouraging poets to write a poem a day for each of the 30 days of the month. It was modeled after the more famous National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). (See the site of NaPoWriMo’s creator or the Wikipedia page for more details.)

This year, I decided to join in the fun for the first time and take up the challenge myself. I’ve resolved to write a poem each day of the month and chose to write the thirty poems with a common theme and structure. Each is a prayer to one of the gods or goddesses of Asatru, and each is exactly nine lines in the style of Anglo-Saxon continuous verse that is not broken into stanzas. (I first featured this meter over a month ago in my “Beer in Midgard” poem, and it is like my usual fornyrðislag except for the changes in line and stanza breaks.) The prayers are written in plural form, and like the Calls to the Gods on this blog, they (usually) can be changed to singular without damaging the meter or the sense. It should be noted that prayer is not a requirement in Asatru, and many (most?) Asatruar don’t pray. I think it is something that individual Asatruar can experiment with if they feel so inclined. However, beyond such brief remarks, this blog is not the place to enter into the debate on the matter.

As I prepared this post, I was halfway finished with NaPoWriMo, having written 15 poems, one on each of the first 15 days of the month. Today I present three prayers from those written so far. They are prayers to Iðunn, Thor, and Eir.
Continue reading →

Audio: A Triad of Sumbel Toasts

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I present more audio for the blog. Here is a triad of sumbel toasts, which first appeared as text in this blog back in October 2012. Though it is the eleventh recording for this blog, it is only the first set of toasts to be recorded for it. The toasts are first to the gods and goddesses, then to the ancestors, and then to the kindred I’m in, the Hearth of Yggdrasil.

Here is the downloadable file of me reciting the poem:
Eirik Westcoat – A Triad of Sumbel Toasts

And here is the inline player:

Enjoy! Feel free to share the file. For details, see the Creative Commons link below.

This post is:
Copyright © 2014 Eirik Westcoat.
All rights reserved.

The linked audio file of A Triad of Sumbel Toasts is:
Copyright © 2014 Eirik Westcoat.
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives License.