I literally PRE WROTE a tweet thread about Lief Erikson day and how we need to stop celebrating columbus day and now Trump has come out and is promoting LE day as a "white pride" dog whistle.

All of Twitter is mad about it and I'm stuck in the middle.

Not a fan.

Alright. Let's do this. I'm a norse Heathen. A polythiest. If you're following me and see me in your feed you should know that. It's the primary reason I'm on Twitter. To normalize paganism and build bridges with other beliefs systems to work together to reduce total harm.

Today the White House has promoted Leif Erikson day and all of Twitter is mad about it talking about how bad vikings are and they are all nazis.

My religion has a small but very loud problem with with supremacists dishonesty using false history to push the idea of European superiority over other races and ethnic back grounds.

I am not one of those people. No one in my circles are those people.

We do make jokes about vikings. I have a lot of historical weapons and a full suit of armor that I wear as ritual garb. I will sarcastically make tongue in Cheek claims of being a viking.

Vikings no longer exist. No one is going viking any more. They havent for centuries.

And when they did exist they were a TINY portion of the Norse Heathen population. Most norse people were farmers and crafters. They made goods to trade. Raiders were few and far between but are famous for some of the feats they pulled off in ancient history 1000 years ago.

It is annoying how many "heathens" today fetishize the pop culture depiction of the Vikings. The TV show may have been the worst thing to happen to my faith. (Watch Last Kingdom it's much better).

I constantly run into misinformed meat heads who scream "till Valhalla"

And hail odin AND ONLY Odin as if they are still monotheists and ignore they other deities in the pantheon. They know nothing of their ancestors or their history or what it means to be a heathen.

They focus on drinking and violence and boasts boasts without any deeds to back them up.

But most are just woefully ill informed and have a problem putting their christianity behind them. While annoying as hel they arent BAD.

But some are.

Some are white supremacists and typically dont have any real religious ties but are larping as heathens and misappropriating the culture to use it as a shield for their racism. We call them folkists. And any heathen worth their salt is not a folkist.

They go as far back as Hitler and Himmler and stop there. Himmler made... almost everything up. Like...so much of the caricature of vikings is because of him.

Meanwhile me and my circle are reconstructionists. We use historical documents, archeological evidence, and follow the knowledge of historians who study the culture and the surrounding cultures in that time to rebuild our faith as it was practiced 1000 years ago.

But it's the RELIGION we are after. The culture was interesting and they got some things right early on (gender roles and identity were pretty progressive, women had a lot of rights some times more than men, women fighters) but not everything. So it's not the culture we worship.

I condemn white supremacy. Any one who knows me knows that. I spend much of my free time fighting them and their ignorance. Racism in my religion isnt historically accurate.

Black lives matter. Nazis dont. They cant have my religion.

And they cant have Leif Erikson day.

Here are a couple videos I did or helped friends do.

Is fomksim valid? (No)

Folkism: Spiritual Racism

What is a folkist and why are they wrong?