Further Reflections on the 432,000 Einheriar

My readers will be aware that Walhalla is said to have 540 doors through which 800 warriors pass through each one, making a total of 432,000 Einheriar.

"Five hundred doors and forty

          I think there are in Valhall;
          eight hundreds of warriors will go together from one
          door
          when they go to fight the wolf."[Grimnismal 23, Elder Edda, Larrington translation]

In the very next verse we are told that Thunor`s hall Bilskirnir[which means `the one striking lightning with rays of light`-Simek or `suddenly illuminated by lightning`-Lindow] also contain 540 rooms.

"Five hundred daises and forty,

          so I think Bilskirnir has in all;
          of all those halls which I know to be roofed,
          my son`s I think is the greatest."[Grimnismal 24, Larrington translation]

Benjamin Thorpe translates `daises` as floors in his translation. John Lindow in his Handbook of Norse Mythology using the Clarendon translation refers to 540 `rooms`. The general scholarly consensus seems to be that it is rooms not daises nor floors that Grimnismal is meant to convey. Snorri Stturluson in Gylfaginning in the Younger Edda quotes from Grimnismal and refers to `apartments`:

"Five hundred apartments and yet forty more I think are in

           Bilskirnir in all. Of the buildings whose roofs I know, I
           know my son`s is the greatest."

Significantly then the number 540 is associated with both Woden[Walhalla] and Thunor[Bilskirnir]. The repetition of this number may be important as the ancients may have wished to emphasise some great teaching to us. It also could signify that despite who may be the reigning God of the Aesir at the time, whether it be [originally] Thunor or [latterly] Woden it is the number which is significant.

I cannot but help think of the words of the Nazarene in John 14:2: "In my father`s house are many mansions."
This is not a Jewish but an Aryan concept. One could just as easily say: "In All-Father`s house are many mansions."

Viktor Rydberg in Our Fathers` Godsaga states that the "Prose Edda perpetuates many errors" in referring to Bilskirnir as Thunor`s residence and that instead it is another name for Walhalla.

At the time of Ragnarok the 432,000 Einheriar[540 x 800] will march forth to do battle against the enemies of the Gods and men. Interestingly  the number 432,000 is the number of years that the Kali Yuga will last according to Hindu mythology. In Sumerian mythology 10 great kings lived a total of 432,000 years. In Mesopotamian belief 432,000 years lapsed between the crowning of the first earthly king and the coming of the deluge. Ragnarok therefore will be both the conclusion of the Wolf Age and the beginning of a new Golden Age.

"Valhalla presents yet another aspect which links it with Eastern scriptures of remote antiquity: Odin in Grimnismal tells his pupil that there are `five hundred doors and forty more` to Valhalla; and that eight hundred warriors issue from each when Odin emerges to war with the wolf. Further we are told that there are five hundred and forty halls in bulging Bilskirner (the shining abode), the largest being `my son`s`- the solar deity`s. Multiplying 540 x 800 we get 432,000 warriors and the same number of halls. In both Babylonian and Indian chronologies this figure occurrs in numerous ways. Multiples of it define specific astronomical cycles while, divided by various numbers, it applies to terrestrial events of greater frequency, even down to the pulse beat of the human heart, generally reckoned as 72 beats per minute. It is itself the length in human years assigned to the Iron Age, in Sanskrit the kali yuga, when the forces of darkness are most challenging."[The Masks of Odin. Wisdom of the Ancient Norse, Elsa-Brita Titchnell]

Hinting at a common Aryan source for this wisdom she states:

"Curious that this should be the number assigned to Odin`s champions. It certainly hints vigorously at some common source from which these widely separated traditions have descended and at some hidden meaning which makes this figure recur in them."  

The Aesir and the Vanir, a Reflection of the Megalithic and Battle Ax Peoples and Their Fusion

It is my contention that the megaliths of northern Europe were constructed by the forefathers of the Germanic peoples who are themselves a fusion of the Northern European Megalithic culture and the Corded Ware/Single Burial/Battle Ax Culture.

The controversy of where to locate the historic Urheimat of the Aryan peoples may never be conclusively decided. Using different scientific disciplines such as comparative linguistics, archaeology, comparative mythology and more recently DNA studies we can at least throw some light upon the subject.
One thing is more or less certain and that the Out of Asia theory is no longer popular and indeed even in the 19th century was not universally accepted. My personal view is that the undivided Aryan people, what scholars would call the Proto-Indo-Europeans originally lived as one people somewhere in Northern Europe. Apart from my own biased sentiments this location best fits the known available evidence. There will be many people who will read this and fervently disagree with me but they are welcome to do so.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans-I shall now instead use the shorter and more convenient term of Aryans are associated with three material cultures which are usually closely linked by scholars: the Corded Ware, Single Grave Burial and Battle Ax cultures. For convenience sake and out of personal preference I will use the term `Battle Ax people` as a collective noun.

We must be careful and not make the simple equation that language = race. Sometimes it does but more often than not it is not a reliable indicator of ethnic and racial origins. Prior to the arrival of the Battle Axe people there already dwellt a Nordic population in northern Europe.

"The arrival in the North of people of the Corded Ware-Single Grave culture made very little change in the physical characteristics of the inhabitants, since the bearers of this culture were Nordic, as were those of the Megalithic culture in the North. Chemical analysis of the preserved hair of the Bronze Age tree-trunk burials show depigmented, that is, blond hair." [The Germanic People. Their Origin Expansion & Culture, Francis Owen, 1960]. 

What therefore changed were not the racial characteristics of Northern Europe but their physical cultures.
Not only were the speakers of Germanic Nordic but so were the bearers of Proto-Indo-European.

"The original speakers of Indo-European must have been Nordic."[Owen]

 "At the same time the fact that the first Aryans were Nordics was not without importance. The physical qualities of that stock did enable them by the bare fact of superior strength to conquer even more advanced peoples and so to impose their language on areas from which the bodily type has almost completely vanished. This is the truth underlying the panegyrics of the Germanists: the Nordics` superiority in physique fitted them to be the vehicles of a superior language."[The Aryans, V. Gordon Childe,

The dominant physical type in Europe has always been Nordic and even today scholars are not in disagreement with this fact. The only physical culture that can be associated  with the Aryans in Northern Europe has its location in Saxony and Thuringia.

"This leaves only the Corded Ware culture of Upper Saxony and Thuringia to be associated with the original Indo-Europeans."[Owen]

 "On the basis of the archaeological and anthropological evidence the conclusion must be that the people of the Single Grave-Corded Ware-Battle Ax culture were the original Indo-Europeans."[Owen]

The bearers of this original Aryan culture expanded from the area of Saxony further north and towards the east into Russia. Many today speculate that the Aryan homeland is to be located in Russia but I contend that this is where the Aryans expanded into on their way to India, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan etc. The direction of movement was always to the east-Der Drang nach Osten!

"It is difficult to see how the bearers of this culture could have originated in Southern Russia. It is true that the kurgans in that region were Single Graves and certain examples of the Corded Ware pottery, but many of them belong to the Bronze and even to the Iron Age. The older graves would be the result of the expansion of the Single Grave-Corded Ware people into Southern Russia from the West as part of the general expansion described above."[Owen]

Professor Owen points out that in the Central Asiatic steppes "There is no evidence of the use of such a device as the Corded Ware technique, nor is there any indication of the presence of anything like the Single Grave, the facetted battle-ax or the boat-ax. This explanation is a survival of the traditional belief of ex oriente lux."

The dogma of ex oriente lux or light comes from the east survives to the present day and there is a prejudice amongst many scholars against any idea of civilisation coming from the north or the west. Thankfully these blind book worms are being proved wrong every day as new evidence continues to emerge of the northern origins of civilisation-an Aryan civilisation at that!

This Aryan culture of Single Grave burial can be traced right back to the Mesolithic and even the Upper Paleolithic and may have influenced the development of the Northern Megalithic culture.

"That the people of the Single Grave-Corded Ware culture in their original home in Upper Saxony and Thuringia were physically of the Nordic type can scarcely be disputed, and this is equally true of all the areas into which these colonizers carried this culture, either by peaceful expansion or military conquest."[Owen]

The Aryan Nordic Battle Ax people emerging from the Saxon heartlands merged with the Nordic Northern Megalithic people to create what we now know today as the Germanic or Teutonic peoples. This actual prehistoric event is reflected in Germanic mythology in the war between the Aesir and the Vanir, the Aesir being the Battle Ax people who worshipped the Sky God whose symbol is the ax, later to become the hammer of Thunor, and the earth deities of the Vanir of which Nerthus is an early example.

"The amalgamation of the peoples and cultures of the Northern Megalithic and the Single Grave-Corded Ware-Battle Ax cultures which resulted in the formation of the Germanic people, was followed by a relatively long period of internal development before the first phase of Germanic expansion began."[Owen]

"The religion of the Sky God was introduced into Northern Europe by the Indo-European bearers of the Corded Ware culture."[Owens]

The union of the Aesir and Vanir reflects the intermarrying that took place between these two Nordic peoples to create the Germanic peoples.

"Thus Othin[Woden], who in the early developments of Teutonic religion probably was a Sky-god, was the husband of Jord, the Earth-goddess and mother of Thor, the thunder-god."[The Rites of Old Europe 12,000-3,500 BC, E.O. James]   

Founding wars between two opposing pantheons of Gods may of course be found amongst other Indo-European peoples of course, reflecting similar prehistorical events but it is in the Eddas that we gain valuable literary primary evidence for the origins of the Germanic peoples which is supported by archaeology and other disciplines. The supreme meeting between the Battle Ax and Northern Megalithic cultures is best represented in England`s Stonehenge with its numerous Bronze Age axe carvings in the sarcens. Thus these two symbols: the ax and the megalith are sacred to the Aryan Germanic peoples today just as they were thousands of years ago.

"The new Temple of the God of the Sky stands where the festivals of the Great Goddess used to be held before the warriors with their battle-axes came across the sea from the east with their new god whom we could see was more to be feared."[Stonehenge of the Kings, Patrick Crampton, 1967]

 "And these battle-axe users seem to have played a powerful role in the fusion of cultures which led to the extraordinary upsurge at the time of the final building of Stonehenge."[Crampton]

It is interesting that the author of Atlantis of the North, Juergen Spanuth also comes to a similar conclusion and points out that the oldest dolmens are to found in Schleswig-Holstein, the "heartland of the Nordic Megalithic" culture which he says spread eastwards and sounthwards. He also points out that the oldest axes in the world are to be found in northern Europe and draws a connection between the axe and the megalithic culture. Like other scholars Spanuth believes that the war between the Aesir and the Vanir referred to in the Younger Edda and the Heimskringla[both works by Snorri] is a mythologising of an actual event that took place in northern Europe; a clash between invading Battle Ax people and the more indigenous Megalithic people which ultimately led to their fusion into a single people: the Germanic people. This is reflected in the fusion of the Aesir and the Vanir, the Vanir being subsumed to the the Aesir who were clearly more dominant.

"The gods of the two peoples, the Vanir of the megalith builders and the Aesir of the Corded-ware People, also amalgamated with one another."[Spanuth]

Polar Symbolism and the Immoveable Centre in Aryan Tradition

The idea of the sacred centre in an important feature in Germanic, Celtic and other Indo-European spiritual systems. This is most clearly evidenced in Ireland and Iceland, both of which are islands in the outer perimeter of the Aryan European centre. This may be significant, the idea of an island in the middle of the sea.

In Iceland shortly after its colonisation from Norway the island was split into four quadrants, each governed by a Thing, the Germanic legal assembly in which laws were made and recited and cases brought before the law for settlement. The centre of the four Things is where the annual All-Thing was held at Thingvellir where the most important cases were settled. In Ireland we also have a similar sacred centre at Tara which was surrounded by the four Irish kingdoms of Ulster, Connact, Leinster and Munster. This centre like Thingvellir in Iceland had both a sacral and legal aspect. This was the symbolic centre of Ireland and the residence of the High King.

Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson in Myths and Symbols of Pagan Europe[1988] states:

"The pattern of four divisions round a central point is found in both Iceland and Ireland, and Mueller claims that this is a fundamental pattern in both Germanic and Celtic tradition."

 This fourfold division reminds one of the fourfold division of the year and the four cardinal directions. Indeed one can see this same division in the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc with its 4 aetts of 32 Runes and its 33rd Rune Gar[the spear of Woden] placed at the centre of the 4 aetts when arranged in a circle. At the centre of both Tara and Uisnech sacred stones were erected: at Tara the Stone of Knowledge[Lia Fail] and at Uisnech the Stone of Division. An example of what these stones may have looked like is the Turoe Stone in County Galloway in Ireland. The stone is curiously dome shaped and its curious patterns are divided into four parts. The stone is said to resemble the Omphalos at Delphi, reckoned also by the ancient Greeks to be the centre of the world.

One of the principal sacred sites of the continental Germans was Eresburg, the location of the Irmunsul, a wooden column held sacred by the Saxons which corresponded with the mythical Scandinavian world tree Yggdrasil, the centre of the nine worlds of the Eddas. The Irmunsul was cut down by Charlemagne in 772. Irmin is considered by some scholars to be an alternative name for the ancient Germanic sky deity Tiw. The Elder Germanic Rune stave Teiwaz is dedicated to this God and is shaped like a tree. Irmunsul like Yggdrasil supported the entire cosmos. In the Volsungasaga a tree is said to have supported the hall of Sigurd`s grandfather Volsung. Significantly beneath Yggdrasil the Gods held assembly and so the link between a symbolically central site and divine communication and judgement is paralleled.

The location of a stone, mountain or tree at the sacred centre  reminds me of the polestar around which the milky way in the form of the flyfot circulates. The pole is immoveable, only the outer arms of the fylfot rotate.
Polar symbolism is an integral aspect of Aryan Hyperborean tradition:

"Its motionless centre signifies the spiritual stability inherent in those who are not affected by the stream and who can organise and subject to a higher principle the energies and the activities connected to the inferior nature. Then the cakravartin appears as the dhamaraja, the `Lord of the Law`, or the `Lord of the Wheel of the Law.` According to Confucius: `The practice of government by means of virtue may be compared to the polestar, which the multitudinous stars pay homage to while it stays in its place.` Hence the meaning of the concept of `revolution`, which is the motion occurring around an `unmoved mover`, though in our modern day and age it has become synonymous with subversion.

"In this sense royalty assumes the value of a `pole`, by referring to a general traditional symbolism. We may recall here, besides Midgard(the heavenly `middle abode` described in the Nordic traditions), Plato`s reference to the place where Zeus holds counsel with the gods in order to reach a decision concerning the fate of Atlantis: `He accordingly summoned all the gods to his own most glorious abode, which stands at the centre of the universe and looks out over the whole realm of change.`"[Revolt Against the Modern World, Julius Evola, 1934]

Evola goes on to discuss some of the symbols of  regality and their polar connections, eg the sceptre which is symbolically related to the `axis of the world` and the throne which like the mountain is an elevated place. In Germanic mythology the sword of Tiw, the spear of Woden and the club of Donar would of course represent the royal sceptre. At various times these Gods represented the highest of the Northern Gods: first Tiw, then Thunor and latterly Woden. Likewise in Celtic mythology the sceptre symbolism is found in the sword of Nuada, the spear of Lugh and the club of the Dagda. In turn these Celtic counterparts for the Germanic high Gods also represented the chiefs of the Gods.

Tiw is a more remote deity from Thunor and Woden. This may in part be the result of the distance in time since Tiw was regarded as the highest God. In historical times this honour was accorded to Woden and prior to that, Thunor. Tiw is thus transcendent, immoveable and His laws are fixed. He is the centre around which all else revolves. He is the `unmoved mover`. This symbolism is also reflected in the Indo-Aryan myth of  Shakti and Shiva, Shiva representing the divine male who is still and unmoving. His function is action via non-action. This is discussed in some detail in Julius Evola`s Eros and the Mysteries of Love[1958]

Early Germanic and Indo-European Settlement of Britain and Stonehenge

In several articles on my Celto-Germanic Culture, Myth and History blog I drew my readers` attention to the interesting hypothesis for a Germanic presence in Britain from an age much earlier than the 5th century CE. Indeed Stephen Oppenheimer in his The Origins of the British builds a case for a potential Bronze Age or even Neolithic splitting off of English from its parent Proto-Germanic and indeed a Bronze Age or Neolithic presence of the English in Britain.

Up until recent years the received wisdom was that the English or Anglo-Saxons started to arrive in what was to become England from 449CE according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles:

" Then came the men of three Germanic tribes: Old Saxons; Angles and Jutes. Of the Jutes came the people of Kent and the Isle of Wight; that is the tribe which now lives on Wight, and that race among the West-Saxons which men even now called Jutish. Of the Old Saxons came the East-Saxons, South-Saxons and West-Saxons. Of the Angles-the country they left has stood empty between the Jutes and Saxons-come the East-Anglians, Middle-Anglians, Mercians and all the Northumbrians."

Bede also repeats more or less the same historical event in A History of the English Church and People:

  "In the year of our Lord 449, Martian became Emperor with Valentinian, the forty-sixth in succession from Augustus, ruling for seven years. In his time the Angles or Saxons came to Britain at the invitation of King Vortigern in three long-ships, and were granted lands in the eastern part of the island on condition that they protected the country: nevertheless, their real intention was to subdue it.

And a bit further on: 

"These new-comers were from the three most formidable races of Germany, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. From the Jutes are descended the people of Kent and the Isle of Wight and those in the province of the West Saxons opposite the Isle of Wight who are called Jutes to this day. From the Saxons-that is, the country known as Angulus, which lies between the provinces of the Jutes and Saxons and is said to remain unpopulated to this day-are descended the East and Middle Angles, the Mercians, all the Northumbrian stock[that is, those peoples living north of the river Humber], and the other English peoples."

 Now I am not disputing any of this but it has become clear that this event did not mark the beginnings of Germanic colonisation in Britain. That process began much earlier so that at the time of the Roman conquest there was already a Germanic presence in England. One of the best arguments for this theory is contained in Part 3 of Stephen Oppenheimer`s The Origins of the British. This is an excellent and very thoroughly researched book which I recommend to anyone interested in the origins of the English and British peoples. Aryanists and Anglo-Saxonists will take heart in his theory of a much earlier Germanic and Indo-European presence in the British Isles than traditionally historians would admit. The most negative opinions of the work are usually by people who have never read the book in its entirety or have not properly understood it. Oppenheimer analyses the structure and lexicon of Old English and comes to the conclusion that it is not merely an offshoot of the West Germanic or Ingaevonic language group. Its genesis is more complicated than that. It does indeed share a close similarity in structure with Old Frisian but its lexicon is greatly affected by North Germanic-Old Norse. Now my readers must not jump to the conclusion that this is the result of the Viking invasions as these took place centuries after the advent of the Anglo-Saxons. So any Scandinavian influence on Old English would have had to have taken place before the Saxon invasions but this does not make sense as before these invasions there was no English presence in Britain-or so it would seem. Thus Oppenheimer theorises that there was indeed a Germanic language and thus a Germanic presence already here in England by the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions. Gildas in his De Exidio et Conquestu Britanniae[On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain] in the 6th century CE wrote:

"A pack of cubs burst forth from the lair of the barbarian lioness, coming in three keels, as they call war-ships in their language....."

As a Briton and as a cleric Gildas was clearly much more emotional about the advent of the Anglo-Saxons than either Bede or the compilers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles! `Keel` is generally reckoned to be a Scandinavian term rather than a typical Old English one. Indeed not only was there a Germanic language and thus a Germanic people present in England before the Roman and Anglo-Saxon invasions but Oppenheimer suggests that Old English has such a deep antiquity that it should be classed as a fourth Germanic language group outside of North, West and East Germanic. Thus English may be descended directly neither from Old Saxon nor Old Norse. Indeed Oppenheimer states:

".....but starts to look as if it could include some of the period of the Later Neolithic and Bronze Age, when, as we have seen, there do appear to be genetic and cultural influences coming into Eastern England from southern Scandinavia and North-West Europe."

Oppenheimer spends a lot of time discussing the Belgic peoples of the Lowlands and how in fact Caesar did not define them as being Celts. You will recall that Caesar in his De Bello Gallico[The Gallic War] divides Gaul into three parts:

"The whole of Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, and the third a people who in their own language are called `Celts`, but in ours, `Gauls`."

The Belgae were not Celtic speaking and on the continent they included a number of Germanic tribes amongst them. Oppenheimer states that the Belgae probably spoke a Germanic language,

"perhaps ancestral to Dutch or Frisian which they carried to England even before the Roman invasions."

It is significant that the area of England which the Belgae occupied is the very same area first occupied by the Anglo-Saxons. Of the continental Belgae Oppenheimer states:

"While several personal and tribal names in Belgica described by Caesar have a clearly Gaulish derivation, a larger proportion do not, and some may have belonged to the Germanic branch of Indo-European."

Indeed according to Caesar:

"When Caesar asked the two convoys about the Belgic states-how many were under arms, and what was their strength in war-he discovered that most of the Belgae were of German extraction, and had long ago crossed the Rhine and settled on the western side because of the fertility of the soil. They had forced out the Gauls who dwelt there."

Caesar also identifies the Germanic Cimbri and Teutones as settlers in Belgica:

"The Aduatuci were descendants of those Cimbri and Teutoni who,when marching into our Province and Italy, had left all the cattle and baggage they could not drive or carry with them on this side of the Rhine:....

What is amazing is the lack of Celtic place names in England. So according to Oppenheimer one must assume either the Britons were entirely exterminated by the Anglo-Saxons or that there was already a Germanic language being spoken in England in the areas initially invaded by the Anglo-Saxons. Looking also at the English language it has always intrigued me that there are less than two dozen Celtic loan words in the language and that these stem from places that were known to be Celtic such as Cornwall and Cumbria[Corn-Wealas and Cymru]. Yet there are far more Latin and Norman loan words than this. PC archaeologists and historians who discredit the Germanic invasion or wipe-out theories cannot adequately explain this. There is no historic precedent for this. We also know of course that many of the so-called `Roman` soldiers were in fact Germanic mercenaries and this Germanic presence has been known by scholars for years. However the Germanic genetic, cultural and language penetration into southern and eastern England has a much deeper antiquity than this, something which Woden`s Folk was already aware of before the publication of this book in 2006. Even Tolkien was aware of this and it is reflected in his mythology. When the Germanic peoples invaded England in the period from 449CE to the Danish conquests they were in fact RETURNING to England. Thus the English whether you take the 449CE date or project it back into the Neolithic or Bronze Age are in fact indigenous to Britain if the UN definition is anything to go by. Indeed we are probably one of the very oldest of Indigenous peoples.

It is clear to me that the event of 449CE, the `Coming of the English` was in fact a return to an ancient homeland, an Ur-Heimat which makes the English a very special Germanic Folk as this island was regarded by classical authors as the land of the Hyperboreans and references are made to a rather unusual and unique temple to the Sun God, Apollo:

"There is in that island a magnificent temple of Apollo, and a circular shrine, adorned with votive offerings and tablets with Greek inscriptions suspended by travellers upon the walls. The kings of that city and rulers of the temple are the Boreads, who take up the government from each other according to the order of their tribes. The citizens are given up to music, harping, and chaunting in honour of the Sun."[Quoted from Origins of English History, Charles Isaac Elton]

The Apollo referred to is of course the Greek version of whoever the northern European deity is that the classical author was referring to. It is beyond doubt that one of the functions of Stonehenge was that of a solar temple. Its use over the centuries and millennia did of course change but this was the original function
of phases II and III which we now know were the product of Indo-Europeans.[See Stonehenge of the Kings, Patrick Crampton, 1967,  Stonehenge: The Indo-European Heritage/Stonehenge and the Origins of Western Culture, 1978/1979 by Bruce Kraig and Leon E. Stover and Stonehenge City: A Reconstruction by Leon E. Stover, 2003].

We now have conclusive evidence to support Crampton and Stover`s theory from recent  discovery of a further 72 upturned Bronze Age axe head carvings on four of the trilithons:

"In Indo-European tradition axe-heads were often associated with storm deities – and some surviving European folklore beliefs suggest that upwards-facing axe blades were used as magical talismans to protect crops, people and property against lightning and storm damage. It’s potentially significant that every single one of the Stonehenge axe-head images have their blades pointing skywards, while the daggers point downwards. The axe-heads – the vast majority of the images – may therefore have been engraved as votive offerings to placate a storm deity and thus protect crops".[The Independent 9/10/12]

There is of course the further link of the Bush Barrow mace and the Indo-European context of Stonehenge.
When the Bush Barrow which is part of the Stonehenge complex was first excavated in 1908 a number of highly significant artifacts were discovered which help to establish the Indo-European origins of the builders of phases II and III of Stonehenge[as we see it today]. Included within the find were two golden lozenges, one smaller than the other, three bronze daggers, a sheet gold belt plate, bronze rivets and a stone mace.
The lozenges, no doubt worn as breastplates are likely to be royal insignia as is the stone mace.

 Leon Stover in his Stonehenge City A  Reconstruction draws attention to the bone jagged lightning flashes that were fitments on the now perished original wooden handle. He compares this artifact with Agamemnon`s "lightning sceptre" in Homer`s Iliad. He also mentions a similar mace head found in Clandon Barrow in Dorset. This mace head is made of polished jet and has five gold studs inset. Also very significantly the Clandon Barrow contained a gold breastplate similar in style to the Bush Barrow ones.

 Professor Stover interprets these royal stone maces as representing the "foundation stones of Indo-European cosmology, which everywhere posited a thunder-and-lightning god not unlike the well-attested Thor of Norse mythology."[2003]

Now what of the language spoken by these Stonehenge Indo-Europeans. Taking into account Oppenheimer`s theories there is no greater claim to it being a form of Celtic than Germanic:

"no stronger claim to aboriginal status than the Anglo-Saxons."[See page 475].

Of course the form of Indo-European spoken may be neither Germanic nor Celtic but an archaic and now lost form of Indo-European.

Thunar as an Archetype

My readers will already be familiar with the concept of Wotan as an archetype as most famously posited in Jung`s essay Wotan[1936]. We know that *Wodanaz is part of the inner life of the German and Germanic peoples. What tends to be ignored are the parts played by other primary Germanic Gods in our inner life, in particular* Tiwaz and *Thunaraz. These names-*Wodanaz, *Thunaraz and* Tiwaz are the reconstructed Proto-Germanic terms for our most ancient deities and thus the earliest forms used by our Germanic ancestors. 

To me Wodan represents intellect and the never ending quest for knowledge and wisdom in Germanic man. Tiw represents a transcendental and aloof quality, duty, honour and self-sacrifice whilst Thunar is the embodiment of strength, power and force. All three have the quality of courage. The Eddas often portray our Gods in groups of three when embarking upon adventures in other realms, eg

.Wodan , Wili and We

. Wodan, Hoenir and Lodur.

.Wodan, Loki and Hoenir

.Thunar, Loki and Thialfi.

It is my intention to make a detailed study of the occurrence of triple God or Goddess groupings in a future article but suffice it to say that it is a common feature of Germanic and Celtic mythology. In the folkish revival of the 19th century Thunar enjoyed a great deal of prominence. It is interesting that Heinrich Heine, a xtianised Jew living in Germany had this to say about Thunar in his The History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany:

" Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals.

" Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll."

It is significant that not only does Heine make an association between German character and Thor but also in the above quoted book he predicts the coming of the Third Reich in 1835, 98 years before it happened!
Thus it is important that when we study the spiritual stirrings in 1930s Germany we take into account not only Wodan but Thunar as an archetype as well. Thunar brought order in Germany after His battle against the forces of chaos were won and it is this destruction of the forces of chaos which forms Thunar`s primary function.

Religion and the Education of the Young

What the internal and external enemies of our Folk fear the most is a resurgence of Aryo-Germanic  awareness and pride. The whole of their system of propaganda which starts with primary education is designed to eradicate this natural awareness and pride from the youngest of our Folk. The folkish parent will combat this either through home schooling or by taking a careful supervision of what their children are learning at school, giving their children an alternative Weltanschauung and acting as an intelligent critic of any liberal propaganda cloaked as `education`. The parent should also take steps to ensure that their child is withdrawn from all religious `education` and worship which are the primary means that the propagandist[teacher] uses to inculcate a sense of  guilt in Aryan children. The healthy Aryan does not acknowledge `guilt` in the same sense as a xtian. The only guilt that an Aryan should feel is if he betrays his folk and Gods. Nothing else is of any relevance.

Before the child is old enough to participate in our sacred rites he or she should be given as one of their first gifts a hammer amulet. What we cannot explain intellectually may be transmitted symbolically to the young. I do not believe that there is a fixed age when children should participate in our rites and the parent must make a careful judgement as to when the child is ready. Participation in rites is a solemn and sacred duty and if there is any sign that the child lacks the maturity to control themselves then participation should be delayed until the time is right. In the meantime the parent should expose the child gently to our ancient lore, heritage and culture via the telling of nursery rhymes, folk tales and some of the easier to understand myths from the Eddas so that when they are mature enough to take an active part they will have a modicum of understanding. Indeed the withholding of participation by the parent may induce a longing for the child to be involved and this should be taken as an indication that the child is ready.

The continual exposure of the child to healthy stereotypes and symbols such as the hammer and fylfot will give them a natural sense of identity. It is not necessary however to expose them to negative racial teaching. Children already have an awareness of difference and negative instead of positive teaching can be counterproductive to our aims. For instance long ago on certain forums I criticised the mother of the Prussian Blue duo for using her children for propaganda purposes. They were, in my opinion too young to understand the import of what they were singing about. The danger is that children become merely the mouthpiece of their parents, unthinking automatons and this is not what we are about, or should be about. The child must be encouraged to think for themselves, to develop a critical faculty. A child who is brainwashed by a parent or an institution will only eventually rebel against that parent or institution if they have a scintilla of intelligence. This is what happened, predictably to Prussian Blue who now reject their white nationalist image and stance.

Thoughtful and careful folkish parenting is thus a tightrope. To not give children a view alternative to the liberal and decadent society in which they have been plunged is in my view wrong but at the same time we must also avoid being brainwashers. Like other cultures we have the right to raise our young in our own belief systems but we must not like fundamentalist xtians or musims become brainwashers. A child raised in an intelligent and loving way will naturally come to see the inherent flaws in the liberal and degenerate worldview.