Early roman historians write about the Germanic tribes that they storm into battle like a force of nature and battle songs on their lips that remind more on animals than people. A later Arabian traveller uses nearly the same words, when he describes the music of the people that live in Hedeby, german North Sea coast today.
Nearly all spiritual movements on this planet know the sound offering, meaning a song to honour gods, spirits or other entities. It means bringing a gift of sound to the invisible world.
These offerings are as valid as the dance, the incense, the food, wine or blood. In the north, according to what we can extract from the sources, the term voice sacrifice is more matching in my opinion.
As an offering or sacrifice you always bring the best you have. Very simply because you also want to receive from the invisible world the best possible, or not? So where is the point in bringing sick cattle to honour the entities? No matter what you believe in, you kneel down on your finest carpet, you wear your best clothes for service, a cup of the best wine goes on the altar.
Same goes for the songs, you sing with full heart, full voice disregarding all fears, all obstacles or shyness. Let it all out in order to be able to take the energy in. Your throat is suppose to hurt afterwards.
Especially in the pre christian spiritualities of the north it is clearly not about submitting or prostrate smoothly and humble to the gods. It is about standing up, showing strength, pride and love, hoping to be found worthy. You don´t choose to be part of Wotan s army, you apply giving all you have during lifetime and maybe his one eye smiles on you when you die…
So where should be the point of a half-hearted song? Why holding back?
The grave is ca 9000 years old, a time capsule from the hunter and gatherer period. It contained a woman with a baby between her legs. She was covered with bone, antler and teeth amulets. On her head she wore antlers like the later siberian shamans, just in her case not made from metal obviously. The eyes were covered with a row of deer teeth. The grave was filled with a still 30 cm high layer of grinded red mineral, an unbelieviable effort at the time. She had an anomaly in the neck region, that most probably made her faint when she shook her head. It is the oldest known burial on saxon ground. Scientists agreed right from the start, that she had "for sure an exceptional position in her tribe"
Absolutely stunning are the turtle shells among the artefacts and the 20 cm long bone needle, perfectly capable of making a tattoo...
Picture source: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Sachsen- Anhalt.
This Hammer- shaped instrument is a ca. 1000 years old drumstick of the Sami- people, scandinavia s indigenous population.
Weirdly enough it was found in Rendal, Hedmark, wich is norvegian coreland, far south of the first norse capital, Nidaros.
Woven patterns are not rare in sami art, but here we can see the so called Ringerike-style, a very clear sign of "viking" influence.
It implies together with more historical and archaeological material that sami and norse culture was interwoven and the to the circumpolar group counting Sami people lived quite far south among the norsemen.
We find skeletons with Sami genetic markers in rich Viking graves.
Some graves also contain females with weapons and people of arabian origin, buried with all honors in scandinavian soil a thousand years ago. (Read newer studies of the Birka graves, Oseberg grave and the works of Neil S. Price )
A norvegian word for the Sami drum is "Runebømme" (Rune-drum) hinting at the rune-like symbols on the drums.
Ibn Fadlan unmistakable writes that the norsemen put a drum in a temporary grave with a dead man: "...they took out the dead man...I saw that he had turned black because of the coldness of the land. They had put nabidh (arabian for fermented fruit drink) in the tomb with him and fruit and a drum. They took all this out..."
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Heilung "LIFA" is out!
The recording of our very first ritual performance at Castlefest, Holland in 2017
The book is 17 x17 cm and 161 pages, containig pictures taken and drawn by Kai Uwe Faust, also contributions from Christina Henrich and Kristian Krystoviak, masterfully edited by Christopher Juul. Apart from the audible sensations that Kai, Maria Franz and Christopher Juul created, HEILUNG aimed to compliment the opus with matching visuals, wich craved sometimes big sacrifices. Kai designed custom fonds especially for the book, also a yet unseen rune fond, based on ancient writings... The traditional nordic tattoo art of Kai is very visible in the book, unpublished designs go along with re interpretations of bronze age and iron age motives and the chilling, provokative graphics, that can be seen animated at the HEILUNG Krigsgaldr Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ZqZVunCb4
The CD will be beautifully mounted in a special case in the book. And of course it will contain the lyrics to our sound and also explanations and historical/ spiritual background informations. It gives a little glimpse into Nordic Shamanism and Rune Science.
HEILUNG will choose nine people, that pre order the Ofnir Album. We will send the album signed to the chosen ones, containing a patch and a piece of jewelry, designed by Kai and produced by Viking Kristall/Sweden.
Heilung is amplified history, sounds from the european iron age and viking period.
While producing the second album, we are also working on a very special first edition of our debut album.
It will be published at Arun Verlag, Germany as a Book in EP size, containing the CD and in addition to the lyrics a lot of background information to the Galdrs and songs.
We also gonna publish more pictures in it as in the iTunes booklet:
Now! Now it is possible for the first time to listen to Heilung.
Heilung is a music project I do together with Christopher Juul (Valravn, Euzen)
We do Amplified History, meaning only using traditional ancient instruments and creating soundscapes with shield and sword, human bones and other crazy stuff in order to send the listener back in time.
Don´t even try to project a modern political or religious statement in it.
The link gives you the possibility to listen to the 2nd song of the album, called Krigsgaldr, featuring Maria Franz ( former Ehwaz, Euzen)
