reading nordic prechristian history in light of Sylvia Wynter, you can see how, as the descriptive statement changes over time, more identities are subsumed into descriptions of trolls. it's most obvious with the set of words that mean 'troll; sorceress', flagð, gýgr, etc
but also with descriptions of Finns (=Sámi) who are never not sorcerers and whose presence in someone's bloodline signifies they have sorcerous power
this was facilitated by aristocratic heathens until they were themselves excluded and indistinct from trolls/spirits (and automatically réttdræpir) like the guy who was tortured to death because he *couldn't convert* because he was actually an artificially embodied spirit
there are descriptions including in "Unsettling" of first encounters with European colonizers where Indigenous people had to figure out if the Europeans were human or spirits, but many heathens don't realize our history has the same thing but spread out over hundreds of years
Wynter's framework explains e.g. why huldufólk can never, ever possibly convert to Christianity despite that not making any sense, and why álfatrú (not ásatrú which would have been indistinguishable) was the spectre that haunted Christian Iceland for centuries
also this is a new way to articulate the central crisis of recon heathenry that I've stated differently before, that we modern (esp white) heathens are upholders and beneficiaries of a descriptive statement of Man that excludes our ancestors
and that recon is literally impossible without political action in solidarity with colonized and oppressed people RIGHT NOW
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