On The Ampersand, we take pride in the ground each episode covers. Today's guest, though, sets a high standard for the breadth through which we can meander in 30 minutes. Mathias Nordvig is a teaching professor in the University of Colorado Boulder's Department of German and Slavic Languages and Literatures. He specializes in pre-Christian Nordic mythologies, folklore and Neo-paganism. From the far right's co-opting of Norse iconography and mythology, to Danish summer camps, heavy metal, animistic philosophy, witch hunts, issues of separating wilderness from society and more, a conversation with Mathias is like a grand epic just starting out by the episode's end.
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For more on Mathias Nordvig, check out his podcast, the Sacred Flame.
For more on his research and classes, see Mathias' faculty biography.
Music by Nelson Walker.
Episodes recorded at Interplay Recording in Boulder, CO.
Written and produced by Erika Randall and Tim Grassley.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(typewriter keys clacking)
(00:03):
- A and S.
(typewriter bell dings)
(waves crashing)
I imagine Mathias Nordvig at Viking camp
as a not so small boy.
He sleeps under a thatched roof,
not quite dense enoughto block out the stars.
(00:23):
Mathias wakes, shivers,and runs to the water
to take his place amongthe other Danish children,
ready to pull at the oarsof the snekkja longship,
the stories of old godsroaring around him like waves.
There, facing the mist of the sea,
I imagine he feels muchlike the man he is today,
connected to nature,story, spirit, everything.
(00:44):
And he revels in the wildaround and within him.
(water splashing)
(sea gulls calling)
(people talking)(chalk scraping)
I can't imagine Mathiasnot making an impression
on his students when theysign up for his class,
(01:06):
Witchcraft and Magic in Scandinavia,
a giant of a humanwho's covered in tattoos
and full of endless history and lore.
Mathias carries the now and the past
in his every gesture and offering.
As you will discover in today's episode,
he's deeply committed tothe care of all things,
and he has an infectiousway to point others,
his students, metal bands,scholars, and now our listeners
(01:27):
toward ways to become betterstewards of the earth.
(bright music)
I can't imagine a walkamong the rocks in the trees
and all who live there ever feeling less
than a sacred journeywith him as your guide.
It's a conversation that feels like a gift
in the outset of a journey.
On "The Ampersand,"
(01:48):
we call this bringingtogether of the impossible,
the alchemy of anding.
Together, we'll hear stories of humans
who imagine and create bycolliding their interests.
Rather than thinking ofand as a simple conjunction
in that conjunction junction kinda way,
we will hear stories ofpeople who see and as a verb,
a way to speak the beautiful
when you intentionally let the soft animal
(02:09):
of your body love what it loves.
As Saint Mary Oliver asks,"What is it you plan to do
"with your one wild and precious life?"
Oh, I love this question.
When I'm mothering,creating, and collaborating,
it reminds me to replace a singular idea
of what I think I should become
with a full sensoryverb about experiencing.
(02:29):
I'm Erika Randall.
This is Mathias Nordvigon "The Ampersand."
- I did an article on thisalt-right manosphere personality
(02:50):
called Jack Donovan,
and I told him that I wasdoing research on his material,
and then I wrote an article about him,
and that article hasbeen positively received
by everyone including him.
From what he's said to me, hefeels that it's the most fair,
scholarly assessment of whathe's doing and who he is, so.
(03:14):
- Wow, that's actuallyincredibly beautiful that-
- I think so.- Yeah.
'Cause when do we ever all agree?
- Exactly.
- Especially about hard things.
- Yeah, and then I had very liberal,
academic colleagues andfriends who were like,
"Oh, wow, you're really calling him out
on this and this and this,"and I'm like, "Well, yeah."
- (laughs) That's my job.- Yeah, and so-
(03:36):
- And he still felt like he was present
in the conversationand not being attacked.
- Yeah, he felt that it wasa reasonable presentation
of how he's thinking.
There are things that he was like,
"Oh, I didn't actually realize
"that that's something that Iwas doing or incorporating,"
but otherwise, yeah.
- So can you point back, I just want to,
because in all the informationthat I read about you
(03:57):
and then we see a lot oficonography of the worlds
of, do we wanna say Norse?
What is the primarylanguage that you would use
that gets usurped by alt-right
when talking about your area of research?
- Well, what we have is this set of texts,
(04:17):
literature telling usabout Nordic mythology,
primarily written inIceland, but otherwise,
some of it is also written in Denmark
in the medieval period.
And this is a retrospectivetype of literature
then looking back on, well, what existed
in the Viking age and before that.
- Yeah, because it's badass?
(04:39):
Is this why people arelooking back all the time,
not just people who arehailing from this land, but...
(laughing) I love thestance that your doing.
- (laughs) There'sdefinitely a lot of people
who are like, "Oh, thisis badass nowadays."
Back then, in the medieval period,
it was still cultural currency,
even though people hadconverted to Christianity.
It was still reallyimportant cultural material
(05:03):
that told these people in Scandinavia
something about who they were.
- But then, the appropriationinto the alt-right world.
- Yeah, so what happens next
is that we have a lotof historical interest
at different times afterthe medieval period
from the 1200s and onwards.
In the 1600s, we have a lot of scholars
(05:25):
in Sweden and Denmark whoare very interested in this,
and this has everything todo with propaganda actually
and the emergence ofnationalism in Scandinavia
where Denmark is one empire.
It's a conglomerate empirewith Norway, Iceland,
and then you have Sweden,that's another empire,
a conglomerate empire with Finland,
(05:46):
sometimes Estonia, parts of Poland,
and even parts of Germany,and they're rivaling.
And so the scholars are trying to come up
with explanations forwhy they're the coolest.
And this is where you getVikings doing mushrooms.
- Whoa, from this?- Yes.
So what you have,(both laughing)
(06:08):
what you have is a Danish scholar
who writes a treatise, along, academic treatise
on just how badass Danish warriors were
back in the Viking-
- Yeah, we were cooler thanyou are warriors, absolutely.
Better t-shirts, cooler hair.- Exactly, yeah.
And so this is where this idea
(06:31):
that these like bestialwarriors comes into play
as warriors who probablydo some kind of drugs,
and that's why they're bestial.
And so, this has nowbecome a standard idea
around Viking warriors that they did,
and there's no historical evidence for it.
- There's no facts.- (laughs) None whatsoever.
(06:51):
- But made up in the 1600s?- Yes, so there we go.
- Just a bad Wikipedia page.- Exactly.
In the 1600s.- Yes, yeah, no.
And then, what you havefrom that moment on
is this link between nationalidentity and the Viking age,
Nordic mythology and all that stuff,
and that then becomesuseful in different groups
(07:15):
that have very distinct political aims.
And this is where you also seeit coming into the alt-right,
just like you do with the Greek history
and Roman history as well.
I think with the alt-right,
they're very focused onwhat it means to be a man,
and that's the connecting points.
So they look to these old-- Kind of hyper-masculine.
(07:38):
- Well, they are hyper-masculine and yet-
- Yeah, they're verbingit into hyper-masculinity.
- Yeah, but then back then,it was a mode of existing.
- It's just how you had to show up.
- Yeah, especially like,I would say warrior ideals
and not necessarily something that any man
(08:00):
would consider being a man, really.
So that's also important to consider
that a lot of the materialthat we have from that past
has something to do with elite culture,
with warrior culture, notwith everyday culture.
So we have 10% and the rest,like the 90% of the population,
we don't know much about what they did
(08:21):
and how they thought.- But you do.
- I try to figure it out at least.
- Yeah, yeah, so you don't just stay
in that realm of the warrior.
So I love that our conversation just,
we just went right in, hi Mathias.
- Hi.(Erika and Mathias laugh)
(laughing) I'm Erika.
This is perfect for us,
because the first time I ever met you,
I told you I loved you in Danish.
(08:42):
So this is just likeus, to go right in deep.
And the reason I told you I loved you
is 'cause it's the only Danish I know.
I love when we're sitting in a room
face-to-face with one another,
and I'm hearing thesestories of these myths.
And then you're kind ofa larger than life human.
Like, when you stand up,
you would hit the ceilingmaybe a little bit.
Your tattoos make you look bigger.
You are fitting in this room,like this incredible giant
(09:06):
who caress about the 90%,not just the big Viking story
and about the land as we walk on it.
So you're doing this beautiful translation
of kind of, you show up, likesomeone who I might think
is gonna just tell me about swords.
(Mathias laughs)
But you know things thatare a lot more delicate
(09:27):
about the heritage of heathenism,
of living on the land with care,
of showing up with old-way traditions
in this contemporary world.
Can you talk about that?
I mean, it's like a living,walking paradox from my vantage,
and maybe it's not so paradoxical.
Maybe it's exactly who you areand exactly just right, so.
(09:50):
- Well first of all, thank youfor this description of me.
(Mathias and Erika laugh)It's very flattering.
Yeah, well, I think so many other people
I've been through different kinds
of transformations in life,
figuring out who I am andwhat I am and how I am.
And I'd say that one thingthat's always been with me
(10:14):
is love and care for natureand the natural world.
If nothing else, just inappreciation of it being there
and being a space I can enter.
And that comes all theway from my childhood
when I lived in Greenland
where there was a lotof nature around you,
(10:35):
(laughs) a space that is,
even if you're living in anurban space in Greenland,
you're living in what we wouldclassify as a wild place,
because there's so much happening
that we're not exposed towhen we live in urban spaces,
for instance, here in Boulder or-
- Yeah, Boulder feels likean urban space to you?
- Yes, absolutely, and you know-
(10:58):
- New Yorkers would not tell you this.
(Erika laughing)- I know, I understand.
But for context,
the largest city I'veever lived in is Denver.
I lived there for likethree or four months.
And I've been to cities
with several millions ofpeople in them before,
but this was the firsttime I actually lived
in a metropolitan areawith a lot of people.
(11:21):
And so to me, as soon as you have
a little congregation ofhouses, then it's a city.
- (laughs) Then it's a city.
So in Greenland you can go forever.
- Pretty much, yeah.- And as a child, you did.
You had free rein, you couldjust go into the world.
- Yeah, yeah, we grew upwith hunting and fishing
(11:42):
and camping out there in whatwe classify as the wilderness.
And the reason I use these roundabout ways
of talking about it
is because I don't considerit wilderness in that sense.
I don't wanna make that distinction
between civilization and nature
or civilization and wilderness.
(12:02):
I don't like that distinction,
because it alienates that world from us,
and I think that's reallygenerally problematic.
- So the term wilderness for you is...
- It's either somethingthat gives us an idea
that it's dangerous or allows us
(12:25):
to romanticize it to an extent
that I would say is not appropriate.
And that comes from my perspective,
that, well, everything in existence
belongs to a kinship with us.
So we are related to allexisting entities out there.
So I think the best way to describe it
(12:47):
is that if I walk out there in my world,
I can encounter a rock andrealize that it's a person.
So, that's how it works for me,
and so that means that goingon a hike in the Rockies
is similar to taking awalk down the street.
- You're running into people.- They're people, yeah.
(13:08):
- Yeah, you're running into,
but you're also walking onthem, so what do you do?
Are you like, "Sorry, sorry,I love you, how are you?"
I mean, because that can be a lot.
I think about that when I'm very connected
to the anthropomorphizing things,
partly, maybe from like this spirit space,
but also because I can't imagine
that I'm more importantthan these other things are,
(13:31):
but it can get exhausting.
For you, do you have thatenergy, that like, (stammering).
- I don't feel like a guest.- No, you feel-
- I feel like, generally I would say
that I feel like I belong.
And so, and yeah, I totally understand
(13:52):
that moral conundrum.- Of walking on your friends.
- Yes, and I would say that,
in what I classify as theanimist perspective on the world,
relationality that you're established
with these different entities out there
doesn't necessarily precludethat you can be mean to them
(14:13):
or you kill them, right?
- This is ultimate anding.
- Yeah, I guess.(Mathias and Erika laugh)
This is extreme, but I hear you, yeah.
- And what it really comes down to
is to maintaining balance between yourself
and that community of otherthan human beings out there.
(14:36):
That's something that I also feel
that we have generally lost in our world.
And this is at the rootof the climate crisis
that we are experiencing,that we're seeing.
Right now, the East Coast
is blanketed in smoke from wildfires.
(14:58):
And I think if we had approached the world
with that perspective of relationality,
which does not necessarilyexclude using resources,
but it does require that using resources
comes with a high level of responsibility.
And so if we had approachedthe world like that,
(15:19):
then I think that we wouldprobably be in a better place.
- Yeah, and so when you're living
in a city in this modernworld, a city like Boulder,
which to some is a hamlet, but as a city,
how do you stay connectedto the wilderness of,
and tell me if I'm notsupposed to say it that way,
but I'm thinking of the wilderness of,
(15:40):
and I'm collecting you inside of that,
that you are not separate from.
How do you find ways to get out in,
I know that you don't live in town,
you live out in the world,
but if you were walking down Pearl Street,
do you still feel the treesthat are down the center line
as much as the people,as much as the buildings.
Is it an always and?- I would say so, yeah,
(16:04):
and they're always present.
At earlier times, I'vebeen thinking about,
well, what is this situationof creating an urban space?
Well, if you look at theway that we have paved over
to make parking lots and stripmalls and that kind of stuff,
you could consider thata type of violence,
violence that is directedtowards the space,
(16:28):
and it was once a naturalspace, and then it became that,
whatever we want to call that. (laughs)
And so, what you could expect to find,
if you look at it fromthe spiritual perspective,
just like with humans,
what you can expect tofind is broken spirit.
Humans that have beensubjected to violence,
(16:50):
whether physical orpsychological or mental violence,
they also have been broken to an extent.
And to what humans need,
in order to come back from that, is care.
And in the same way,
these spaces that have been subjected to
are, quote unquote, civilization violence,
(17:12):
they need care as well.
Ultimately, what we'reliving with right now
is a world where fewpeople have shown care,
and we need more people to start caring.
- Yes, and you have foundthe vehicle for your caring
is going back into the roots of yourself,
your life, your family,even though it sounds like
(17:34):
you could be an environmental scientist,
you could be an urban architect,
you could be, and you do,write children's books,
that there are so many waysto get at this kind of care,
but did you find yours in the classroom
or through this particular study
because of the going into theself or into your history?
Or are you looking at it froma psychological perspective
or from this historical,
(17:55):
where anger has beenheld in the stories of-
- Social, cultural, historical,psychological, mythological-
- All of it.- The whole, right.
And what I'm familiar with
when it comes to going to the roots,
what I'm familiar withas an alternative way
of thinking about the world,and an alternative way
(18:17):
of understanding your placeas a human in the world,
is this thing we call Nordic mythology.
I like to call it the Nordic Story Worlds.
- Great, that's what I wanted from you.
That's the umbrella,the Nordic Story Worlds.
- Yes, and the reasonI like to call it that
is because mythology nowadayshas been merged with fantasy.
(18:40):
And these story worlds were not fantasy
to the peoples who used themin their everyday lives.
I don't wanna say believed in them,
because that's really inessential.
What is essential is that back in the day,
people walked around on a piece of land
and told stories like these,because they were meaningful
(19:01):
to their existence in that plot of land.
- They served the moment.- They served the moment,
but this also served a relationship
to the land.- To the land.
- Yeah, the relationship to the rock,
to the tree, to the bird, to the fish,
to whatever animal would come there,
and of course, also to the family.
So in that sense, thesestories are expressions
(19:23):
of our human kinship with the world.
- So if you could go backto any land in any time
and really be in the world of it,
you've been in it throughartifacts and through stories
and all of the ways thatyou've researched these worlds,
where would you go, when wouldyou go, where would you go?
- Oh, I would stay right here(laughs) I'm sorry to say.
(19:48):
- Right here in thisbooth with me, right now?
- Yes, because this is my present moment.
And the reason I wouldn'tgo back to something
is because I have no desire
to enter another era and expect
(20:11):
or with that desire does not come,
or with the lack of that desiredoes not come an expectation
that would function well for me,
because I'm a human of this era.
- So that pulls me into that question
about how you use thesetraditions in your life now.
How do you navigatethat, what you just said
and this notion of whatworks and what doesn't?
(20:34):
It's a beautiful kind of-- Yeah. (laughs)
- Thing to thread.- So, the thing is that,
a story can be loadedup with, I don't know,
swords and horses andcarts and thatched roofs,
and I dunno, whatever elseexisted in a space way back when.
(20:56):
But that doesn't mean thatthat story doesn't have
what are essentially,eternal truths in a way.
- Thatched roofs are not eternal truths.
- No, they're a result ofthe technological level
that they were at, and that's why
I wouldn't wanna go back to anything,
because I could probably do quite well
(21:21):
in a hut like that, but-
- Not so much.- No, see, that's the thing.
There's some people out here
that wouldn't be able to dothat well in a hut like that.
And also, although I'vespent a lot of time
in my teenage years doingViking age reenactment
(21:42):
and actually stayed in huts like that-
- You did?- Yes, and tents.
- And were there dragons?- There were no dragons,
at least none that materialized-
- That others could see.- (laughs) Yes.
- But you fought them, nonetheless.
- Yes, (laughs) and I'vesailed on Viking ships
and that kind of stuff,it was a lot of fun.
But I don't know what thatlife actually was like.
(22:05):
I have an idea, but I don'tknow what it was like,
and that's why I wouldn't wanna go back.
So what I would like to do instead
is I would like to take the wisdom
that these people had back then,
and then bring it into our present,
because are present, whenyou look at it very broadly,
it seems like is lacking a lot of wisdom.
- Yes, so living in amodern world with traditions
(22:29):
is not a, there's no odds there.
You're not at odds with that.
You just find different ways
and the different things that you need.
I think that's so beautiful,because for so many,
I'll speak for myself, somany parts of me thinks,
like when I was backpacking in Alaska,
I'm backpacking in Alaska, andI'm just really doing that,
and it's incredible, and I'm with bears,
and I can see da da, butto live in that world,
(22:52):
how would I get my email done?
And so, I see that, likeyou were saying earlier,
as separate and that to pull them together
and to realize that you don'thave to just be hardcore
in a hut to be connected
to things that will then change your care
for the world that you live in.
Yeah so, but you don't saythat to your, the first day,
you're not like, "You'regonna learn how to care."
(23:13):
(Mathias and Erika laugh)
You just help them into caring.
- Yeah, when I teach a course
like Scandinavian Witchcraft and Magic,
what happens is, quite often,
that I have a bunch ofstudents in my class
who expect that they're now gonna learn
what kind of potions or stuff like that.
- Yeah, they're definitely,the Hermiones of the world
are there ready to get the truth.
(23:35):
- Yeah, so here's the way to gain riches
is, of course, to make a potion
with eye of newt and abunch of other things.
- That's what they reallythink when they come in?
- Yeah, there are somewho have that expectation.
And then, what I see oncein a while in the FAQs
is that they got disappointed because-
- (laughing) They couldn't
make their roommates stop snoring.
(23:56):
- (laughing) Exactly.
I mean, there are actually,
we do read a bunch of stuff like that,
really curious spells and charms,
but the whole purpose ofthe course is to teach them
that this thing that theythink is cool, witchcraft,
and maybe with the Scandinavianpart attached to it,
and Scandinavian witchcraftbeing particularly cool,
(24:17):
that actually comes from along history of oppression.
It comes from a longhistory of ostracizing
different kinds of peopleat different times.
And it's part of a broader movement
of regulating the populationsin the 15 and 1600s.
(24:37):
- Were many of those female-type folks?
- Yeah, so Scandinaviais a little different
compared to the rest of Europe,
and not so much Denmarkand Norway and Sweden,
but Finland and Iceland, in Finland,
you have 51% male victimsof witchcraft hunts.
And in Iceland, it's 99% male.
(24:59):
- Wow.- Yeah.
So that's an entirely different dynamic
that's happening there.
That dynamic has something to do
with very old cultural structures
that actually have something to do
with pre-Christian religion.
In Iceland, it's veryobvious that the intersection
between magic, wisdom,and the deity, Odin,
is at play in accusationsabout witchcraft.
(25:21):
So, men are being targeted,
because Odin is a male deity it seems.
So, they are the ones whoare also being targeted
for communing with the devil,
because that's whatwitchcraft is all about.
It's a program that'sinvented in the late 1300s,
this idea that the horned devil
(25:44):
with the goat legs and all that stuff,
that's an invention from the1300s in France, actually.
- An invention from anoutside eye looking at
and saying this is what they were doing,
kind of how we were speaking earlier
about the propaganda thing,
or it was an invention thatwas an actual character
that was brought into rituals?
- So, it's a characterthat has, of course,
(26:05):
some roots in pre-Christian culture,
the faun, the pan figureis of course, part of this.
But what happens is that that figure
then takes on its own life
and becomes an image of the devil.
And when you then have, Heinrich Kramer,
(26:28):
who writes "MalleusMaleficarum" in the late 1400s
and "The Witches'Hammer," as it is called.
This guy, if you lookat him, his biography,
he was a raging misogynist
who actually had problems with women.
It was like real life problemswith women in different ways.
He was sort of like an incel.
(26:49):
And then he writes thisprogram to hunt witches,
which is all about women,
except for one chapter,which is about men.
And he infuses it with this devil figure
that he knows from this, you know,
he's operating in the area
that is now Austria and Western Germany.
(27:10):
- And he has this muchpower, his language does?
- So what happened first wasthat he tried to pull this off
in Innsbruck and the diocesein Innsbruck in Austria,
and the bishop there waslike, "You're crazy, get out."
- The bishop called him out.- Yeah.
(laughs) There were plenty ofpeople that called him out.
And then Heinrich went to,
(27:33):
I think it was Mainz on the Rhine.
And there, he found a better opportunity
for all of this nonsense andthat has something to do-
- But he stuck with the story.
- Yes, and the whole situation was that
in these bishop reichs andother clerical districts
in the Rhine area, therewas a lot of competition
(27:54):
between the clerics, and sothey could use this witchcraft.
- This is what it comes downto again, is this competition.
- Exactly.- And using the stories,
the made up parts that arelinked to Old World stories.
- And then that spread all over Europe
And became a dominant language.
- All right, and then let's,
the horned devil and heavy metal music.
(28:14):
- Oh yes, yeah.- Okay, talk to me about this.
'Cause you are an advisor toheavy metal bands or are you...
Okay, I just need to, I'm like,
do you play, listen, fan, yeah. (laughs)
- The hilarious thing about all of this
is that I have no musicalskills whatsoever.
- Whatsoever, I couldn't find any online,
(28:35):
so I was like, what'sMathias' connection here?
- So, I am an old-timeheavy metal fan, I think.
The first time I went to aheavy metal concert I was 12.
- Yeah, is this a Mayhemshirt that you're rocking?
- Yes, yeah, and I-- In Denmark?
- Yeah, that was inDenmark. It was Meshuggah.
(28:56):
That's like a nice deathmetal thrash thing.
- Are you listening inyour head right now,
because you started bouncing.
(Mathias and Erika laughing)
- And I've always been somebodywho went to metal shows
and listened-- Yeah, so you walk gently
on the Earth and then you were, "Hey!"
when you're in the club.- Yes, yeah.
It's keeping that balance, right?
- (laughs) Balance, yeah.- Eventually, I started,
(29:19):
because there's that whole interest
in Nordic mythology and Viking history-
- The iconography, really.- The iconography, yeah.
Yeah, I started talkingwith different artists
and one thing has led to another,
and so I have done some advising and-
(29:40):
- Like for music videos or for text or...
- For lyrics, for, this isn'ta heavy metal band as such.
This is more like sort of a pagan ambient.
It's very difficult to define the genre,
but they mix traditionalmedieval music with modern music
(30:03):
called (foreign language),that's German, they-
- Sounds like modern dance from the 90s.
- There's some of that. (laughs)
They asked me if I was interestedin writing a little bit
for a book that was coming out
along with their most recent album.
And I have done a littlebit of social media stuff
(30:25):
for another band calledWardruna from Norway.
And just because I've like made friends
with various kinds of artists as well,
this band Heilung, which is like a Danish,
German, Norwegian-ish band.
Their members are fromeverywhere pretty much.
There's somebody from France,somebody from Ukraine as well.
(30:47):
So you can't really call them
this particular nationality band.
- Yeah, but they have a thingthat connects 'em, which is-
- Yeah, that's like, I wouldsay, pre-Christian history,
not so much Viking, butthey actually go deeper
into Northern Europeanhistory in that sense.
But yeah, just because I know them
(31:09):
and have hung out with them several times,
I've also ended up having to help them
when they've been playing here in Colorado
and also actually in Seattle.
- The roadie?
- And just having to helpthem with like stage props,
usually something made of boom.
- Yes, that's what wewanna hear, just giant.
- Skulls and stuff.- Skulls and bones.
(31:30):
Okay, this is a perfect timeto come to the quick and dirty,
the time when I ask you questions,
and you have to answer just fast.
And you're gonna put "and"in the word or between,
I'm sure you've listened to our show
and so you know how it goes.
Okay, an anding metal bandthat you would listen to
while you're hiking or writing a book,
something that has and init, like and and metal.
(31:51):
- I think that could be,so I would never listen
to something when I'm hiking though, but-
- Okay, oh good, I love that.
You are just in nature, okay great.
- Yeah, but otherwise, Iam an anding a metal band.
Ooh, that's a tough one.
I would say that that would be Mayhem.
- Mayhem, yeah, but yougotta say, "Mayhem and."
(32:14):
It's gotta be like bone andskull, you see what I'm saying?
I know, this is the hard part of the game.
- Yeah, the problem is I'mso bad at remembering names-
- So make one up, make upthe best bad metal name
that has and in it, like Bone and Skull.
(Mathias laughing)Dragons and Screaming.
- Hellfire and Beer,there you go. (laughing)
(32:37):
- Okay, a Danish food combinationthat is not boring to you.
- A Danish food combinationthat's not boring.
Well that could be leverpostej and røgeri.
- And that would taste like? (laughs)
- I can assure you thatno American would like it.
- (laughing) Okay, tell me what it is.
- So leverpostej doesn'treally have a good translation.
(32:59):
It's kind of like a liver pâté,but it's more like haggish.
And I have really met nobody
outside of the Scandinavianrealm who likes it
except for like an oddGerman here and there.
Then røgeri is smoked herring.
And so if you combine thesetwo, it becomes weird.
(33:19):
- And becomes amazing.- I think so.
(Mathias and Erika laughing)
- Okay, some Viking shows or movies
that really needed yourguidance but didn't ask.
- Well, the show "Vikings"and "The Northman."
- Really, okay, theyneed some of you, okay.
The best old Norse word thatsounds like and or ampersand
(33:40):
that is used as a connector, conjunction.
- Ah, yes, (foreign language).
- That sounds like and beer.
- Yeah, it does, doesn't it? (laughs)
- (laughing) Say it again.- (foreign language).
- (foreign language).- Yeah.
It means headwind.
- Headwind, oh, I love that.
This takes us perfectly into our blessing.
If you were to offer ablessing up to any community,
someone graduating, someonegoing off on an epic journey,
(34:01):
whether that's gettingmarried or into the wild,
and it starts with and,
and may you, or will youoffer to (indistinct).
(bright music)
- And may the landspirits lighten your path.
(34:22):
- That was Mathias Nordvig,
assistant teachingprofessor from CU Boulder
on "The Ampersand."
For more of his work in Nordic studies,
his podcast, "The Sacred Flame,"
and other amazing things,check out our show notes.
"The Ampersand" is a production
of the College of Arts and Sciences
at the University of Colorado Boulder.
(34:42):
It is written and produced by me,
Erika Randall and Tim Grassley.
If there are people you'dlike us to interview
on "The Ampersand," do please email us
at asinfo@colorado.edu.
Our theme music was composedand performed by Nelson Walker,
and the episodes are recorded
at Interplay Recordingin Boulder, Colorado.
I'm Erika Randall andthis is "The Ampersand."
(typewriter keys clacking)
(00:03):
- A and S.
(typewriter bell dings)
(waves crashing)
I imagine Mathias Nordvig at Viking camp
as a not so small boy.
He sleeps under a thatched roof,
not quite dense enoughto block out the stars.
(00:23):
Mathias wakes, shivers,and runs to the water
to take his place amongthe other Danish children,
ready to pull at the oarsof the snekkja longship,
the stories of old godsroaring around him like waves.
There, facing the mist of the sea,
I imagine he feels muchlike the man he is today,
connected to nature,story, spirit, everything.
(00:44):
And he revels in the wildaround and within him.
(water splashing)
(sea gulls calling)
(people talking)(chalk scraping)
I can't imagine Mathiasnot making an impression
on his students when theysign up for his class,
(01:06):
Witchcraft and Magic in Scandinavia,
a giant of a humanwho's covered in tattoos
and full of endless history and lore.
Mathias carries the now and the past
in his every gesture and offering.
As you will discover in today's episode,
he's deeply committed tothe care of all things,
and he has an infectiousway to point others,
his students, metal bands,scholars, and now our listeners
(01:27):
toward ways to become betterstewards of the earth.
(bright music)
I can't imagine a walkamong the rocks in the trees
and all who live there ever feeling less
than a sacred journeywith him as your guide.
It's a conversation that feels like a gift
in the outset of a journey.
On "The Ampersand,"
(01:48):
we call this bringingtogether of the impossible,
the alchemy of anding.
Together, we'll hear stories of humans
who imagine and create bycolliding their interests.
Rather than thinking ofand as a simple conjunction
in that conjunction junction kinda way,
we will hear stories ofpeople who see and as a verb,
a way to speak the beautiful
when you intentionally let the soft animal
(02:09):
of your body love what it loves.
As Saint Mary Oliver asks,"What is it you plan to do
"with your one wild and precious life?"
Oh, I love this question.
When I'm mothering,creating, and collaborating,
it reminds me to replace a singular idea
of what I think I should become
with a full sensoryverb about experiencing.
(02:29):
I'm Erika Randall.
This is Mathias Nordvigon "The Ampersand."
- I did an article on thisalt-right manosphere personality
(02:50):
called Jack Donovan,
and I told him that I wasdoing research on his material,
and then I wrote an article about him,
and that article hasbeen positively received
by everyone including him.
From what he's said to me, hefeels that it's the most fair,
scholarly assessment of whathe's doing and who he is, so.
(03:14):
- Wow, that's actuallyincredibly beautiful that-
- I think so.- Yeah.
'Cause when do we ever all agree?
- Exactly.
- Especially about hard things.
- Yeah, and then I had very liberal,
academic colleagues andfriends who were like,
"Oh, wow, you're really calling him out
on this and this and this,"and I'm like, "Well, yeah."
- (laughs) That's my job.- Yeah, and so-
(03:36):
- And he still felt like he was present
in the conversationand not being attacked.
- Yeah, he felt that it wasa reasonable presentation
of how he's thinking.
There are things that he was like,
"Oh, I didn't actually realize
"that that's something that Iwas doing or incorporating,"
but otherwise, yeah.
- So can you point back, I just want to,
because in all the informationthat I read about you
(03:57):
and then we see a lot oficonography of the worlds
of, do we wanna say Norse?
What is the primarylanguage that you would use
that gets usurped by alt-right
when talking about your area of research?
- Well, what we have is this set of texts,
(04:17):
literature telling usabout Nordic mythology,
primarily written inIceland, but otherwise,
some of it is also written in Denmark
in the medieval period.
And this is a retrospectivetype of literature
then looking back on, well, what existed
in the Viking age and before that.
- Yeah, because it's badass?
(04:39):
Is this why people arelooking back all the time,
not just people who arehailing from this land, but...
(laughing) I love thestance that your doing.
- (laughs) There'sdefinitely a lot of people
who are like, "Oh, thisis badass nowadays."
Back then, in the medieval period,
it was still cultural currency,
even though people hadconverted to Christianity.
It was still reallyimportant cultural material
(05:03):
that told these people in Scandinavia
something about who they were.
- But then, the appropriationinto the alt-right world.
- Yeah, so what happens next
is that we have a lotof historical interest
at different times afterthe medieval period
from the 1200s and onwards.
In the 1600s, we have a lot of scholars
(05:25):
in Sweden and Denmark whoare very interested in this,
and this has everything todo with propaganda actually
and the emergence ofnationalism in Scandinavia
where Denmark is one empire.
It's a conglomerate empirewith Norway, Iceland,
and then you have Sweden,that's another empire,
a conglomerate empire with Finland,
(05:46):
sometimes Estonia, parts of Poland,
and even parts of Germany,and they're rivaling.
And so the scholars are trying to come up
with explanations forwhy they're the coolest.
And this is where you getVikings doing mushrooms.
- Whoa, from this?- Yes.
So what you have,(both laughing)
(06:08):
what you have is a Danish scholar
who writes a treatise, along, academic treatise
on just how badass Danish warriors were
back in the Viking-
- Yeah, we were cooler thanyou are warriors, absolutely.
Better t-shirts, cooler hair.- Exactly, yeah.
And so this is where this idea
(06:31):
that these like bestialwarriors comes into play
as warriors who probablydo some kind of drugs,
and that's why they're bestial.
And so, this has nowbecome a standard idea
around Viking warriors that they did,
and there's no historical evidence for it.
- There's no facts.- (laughs) None whatsoever.
(06:51):
- But made up in the 1600s?- Yes, so there we go.
- Just a bad Wikipedia page.- Exactly.
In the 1600s.- Yes, yeah, no.
And then, what you havefrom that moment on
is this link between nationalidentity and the Viking age,
Nordic mythology and all that stuff,
and that then becomesuseful in different groups
(07:15):
that have very distinct political aims.
And this is where you also seeit coming into the alt-right,
just like you do with the Greek history
and Roman history as well.
I think with the alt-right,
they're very focused onwhat it means to be a man,
and that's the connecting points.
So they look to these old-- Kind of hyper-masculine.
(07:38):
- Well, they are hyper-masculine and yet-
- Yeah, they're verbingit into hyper-masculinity.
- Yeah, but then back then,it was a mode of existing.
- It's just how you had to show up.
- Yeah, especially like,I would say warrior ideals
and not necessarily something that any man
(08:00):
would consider being a man, really.
So that's also important to consider
that a lot of the materialthat we have from that past
has something to do with elite culture,
with warrior culture, notwith everyday culture.
So we have 10% and the rest,like the 90% of the population,
we don't know much about what they did
(08:21):
and how they thought.- But you do.
- I try to figure it out at least.
- Yeah, yeah, so you don't just stay
in that realm of the warrior.
So I love that our conversation just,
we just went right in, hi Mathias.
- Hi.(Erika and Mathias laugh)
(laughing) I'm Erika.
This is perfect for us,
because the first time I ever met you,
I told you I loved you in Danish.
(08:42):
So this is just likeus, to go right in deep.
And the reason I told you I loved you
is 'cause it's the only Danish I know.
I love when we're sitting in a room
face-to-face with one another,
and I'm hearing thesestories of these myths.
And then you're kind ofa larger than life human.
Like, when you stand up,
you would hit the ceilingmaybe a little bit.
Your tattoos make you look bigger.
You are fitting in this room,like this incredible giant
(09:06):
who caress about the 90%,not just the big Viking story
and about the land as we walk on it.
So you're doing this beautiful translation
of kind of, you show up, likesomeone who I might think
is gonna just tell me about swords.
(Mathias laughs)
But you know things thatare a lot more delicate
(09:27):
about the heritage of heathenism,
of living on the land with care,
of showing up with old-way traditions
in this contemporary world.
Can you talk about that?
I mean, it's like a living,walking paradox from my vantage,
and maybe it's not so paradoxical.
Maybe it's exactly who you areand exactly just right, so.
(09:50):
- Well first of all, thank youfor this description of me.
(Mathias and Erika laugh)It's very flattering.
Yeah, well, I think so many other people
I've been through different kinds
of transformations in life,
figuring out who I am andwhat I am and how I am.
And I'd say that one thingthat's always been with me
(10:14):
is love and care for natureand the natural world.
If nothing else, just inappreciation of it being there
and being a space I can enter.
And that comes all theway from my childhood
when I lived in Greenland
where there was a lotof nature around you,
(10:35):
(laughs) a space that is,
even if you're living in anurban space in Greenland,
you're living in what we wouldclassify as a wild place,
because there's so much happening
that we're not exposed towhen we live in urban spaces,
for instance, here in Boulder or-
- Yeah, Boulder feels likean urban space to you?
- Yes, absolutely, and you know-
(10:58):
- New Yorkers would not tell you this.
(Erika laughing)- I know, I understand.
But for context,
the largest city I'veever lived in is Denver.
I lived there for likethree or four months.
And I've been to cities
with several millions ofpeople in them before,
but this was the firsttime I actually lived
in a metropolitan areawith a lot of people.
(11:21):
And so to me, as soon as you have
a little congregation ofhouses, then it's a city.
- (laughs) Then it's a city.
So in Greenland you can go forever.
- Pretty much, yeah.- And as a child, you did.
You had free rein, you couldjust go into the world.
- Yeah, yeah, we grew upwith hunting and fishing
(11:42):
and camping out there in whatwe classify as the wilderness.
And the reason I use these roundabout ways
of talking about it
is because I don't considerit wilderness in that sense.
I don't wanna make that distinction
between civilization and nature
or civilization and wilderness.
(12:02):
I don't like that distinction,
because it alienates that world from us,
and I think that's reallygenerally problematic.
- So the term wilderness for you is...
- It's either somethingthat gives us an idea
that it's dangerous or allows us
(12:25):
to romanticize it to an extent
that I would say is not appropriate.
And that comes from my perspective,
that, well, everything in existence
belongs to a kinship with us.
So we are related to allexisting entities out there.
So I think the best way to describe it
(12:47):
is that if I walk out there in my world,
I can encounter a rock andrealize that it's a person.
So, that's how it works for me,
and so that means that goingon a hike in the Rockies
is similar to taking awalk down the street.
- You're running into people.- They're people, yeah.
(13:08):
- Yeah, you're running into,
but you're also walking onthem, so what do you do?
Are you like, "Sorry, sorry,I love you, how are you?"
I mean, because that can be a lot.
I think about that when I'm very connected
to the anthropomorphizing things,
partly, maybe from like this spirit space,
but also because I can't imagine
that I'm more importantthan these other things are,
(13:31):
but it can get exhausting.
For you, do you have thatenergy, that like, (stammering).
- I don't feel like a guest.- No, you feel-
- I feel like, generally I would say
that I feel like I belong.
And so, and yeah, I totally understand
(13:52):
that moral conundrum.- Of walking on your friends.
- Yes, and I would say that,
in what I classify as theanimist perspective on the world,
relationality that you're established
with these different entities out there
doesn't necessarily precludethat you can be mean to them
(14:13):
or you kill them, right?
- This is ultimate anding.
- Yeah, I guess.(Mathias and Erika laugh)
This is extreme, but I hear you, yeah.
- And what it really comes down to
is to maintaining balance between yourself
and that community of otherthan human beings out there.
(14:36):
That's something that I also feel
that we have generally lost in our world.
And this is at the rootof the climate crisis
that we are experiencing,that we're seeing.
Right now, the East Coast
is blanketed in smoke from wildfires.
(14:58):
And I think if we had approached the world
with that perspective of relationality,
which does not necessarilyexclude using resources,
but it does require that using resources
comes with a high level of responsibility.
And so if we had approachedthe world like that,
(15:19):
then I think that we wouldprobably be in a better place.
- Yeah, and so when you're living
in a city in this modernworld, a city like Boulder,
which to some is a hamlet, but as a city,
how do you stay connectedto the wilderness of,
and tell me if I'm notsupposed to say it that way,
but I'm thinking of the wilderness of,
(15:40):
and I'm collecting you inside of that,
that you are not separate from.
How do you find ways to get out in,
I know that you don't live in town,
you live out in the world,
but if you were walking down Pearl Street,
do you still feel the treesthat are down the center line
as much as the people,as much as the buildings.
Is it an always and?- I would say so, yeah,
(16:04):
and they're always present.
At earlier times, I'vebeen thinking about,
well, what is this situationof creating an urban space?
Well, if you look at theway that we have paved over
to make parking lots and stripmalls and that kind of stuff,
you could consider thata type of violence,
violence that is directedtowards the space,
(16:28):
and it was once a naturalspace, and then it became that,
whatever we want to call that. (laughs)
And so, what you could expect to find,
if you look at it fromthe spiritual perspective,
just like with humans,
what you can expect tofind is broken spirit.
Humans that have beensubjected to violence,
(16:50):
whether physical orpsychological or mental violence,
they also have been broken to an extent.
And to what humans need,
in order to come back from that, is care.
And in the same way,
these spaces that have been subjected to
are, quote unquote, civilization violence,
(17:12):
they need care as well.
Ultimately, what we'reliving with right now
is a world where fewpeople have shown care,
and we need more people to start caring.
- Yes, and you have foundthe vehicle for your caring
is going back into the roots of yourself,
your life, your family,even though it sounds like
(17:34):
you could be an environmental scientist,
you could be an urban architect,
you could be, and you do,write children's books,
that there are so many waysto get at this kind of care,
but did you find yours in the classroom
or through this particular study
because of the going into theself or into your history?
Or are you looking at it froma psychological perspective
or from this historical,
(17:55):
where anger has beenheld in the stories of-
- Social, cultural, historical,psychological, mythological-
- All of it.- The whole, right.
And what I'm familiar with
when it comes to going to the roots,
what I'm familiar withas an alternative way
of thinking about the world,and an alternative way
(18:17):
of understanding your placeas a human in the world,
is this thing we call Nordic mythology.
I like to call it the Nordic Story Worlds.
- Great, that's what I wanted from you.
That's the umbrella,the Nordic Story Worlds.
- Yes, and the reasonI like to call it that
is because mythology nowadayshas been merged with fantasy.
(18:40):
And these story worlds were not fantasy
to the peoples who used themin their everyday lives.
I don't wanna say believed in them,
because that's really inessential.
What is essential is that back in the day,
people walked around on a piece of land
and told stories like these,because they were meaningful
(19:01):
to their existence in that plot of land.
- They served the moment.- They served the moment,
but this also served a relationship
to the land.- To the land.
- Yeah, the relationship to the rock,
to the tree, to the bird, to the fish,
to whatever animal would come there,
and of course, also to the family.
So in that sense, thesestories are expressions
(19:23):
of our human kinship with the world.
- So if you could go backto any land in any time
and really be in the world of it,
you've been in it throughartifacts and through stories
and all of the ways thatyou've researched these worlds,
where would you go, when wouldyou go, where would you go?
- Oh, I would stay right here(laughs) I'm sorry to say.
(19:48):
- Right here in thisbooth with me, right now?
- Yes, because this is my present moment.
And the reason I wouldn'tgo back to something
is because I have no desire
to enter another era and expect
(20:11):
or with that desire does not come,
or with the lack of that desiredoes not come an expectation
that would function well for me,
because I'm a human of this era.
- So that pulls me into that question
about how you use thesetraditions in your life now.
How do you navigatethat, what you just said
and this notion of whatworks and what doesn't?
(20:34):
It's a beautiful kind of-- Yeah. (laughs)
- Thing to thread.- So, the thing is that,
a story can be loadedup with, I don't know,
swords and horses andcarts and thatched roofs,
and I dunno, whatever elseexisted in a space way back when.
(20:56):
But that doesn't mean thatthat story doesn't have
what are essentially,eternal truths in a way.
- Thatched roofs are not eternal truths.
- No, they're a result ofthe technological level
that they were at, and that's why
I wouldn't wanna go back to anything,
because I could probably do quite well
(21:21):
in a hut like that, but-
- Not so much.- No, see, that's the thing.
There's some people out here
that wouldn't be able to dothat well in a hut like that.
And also, although I'vespent a lot of time
in my teenage years doingViking age reenactment
(21:42):
and actually stayed in huts like that-
- You did?- Yes, and tents.
- And were there dragons?- There were no dragons,
at least none that materialized-
- That others could see.- (laughs) Yes.
- But you fought them, nonetheless.
- Yes, (laughs) and I'vesailed on Viking ships
and that kind of stuff,it was a lot of fun.
But I don't know what thatlife actually was like.
(22:05):
I have an idea, but I don'tknow what it was like,
and that's why I wouldn't wanna go back.
So what I would like to do instead
is I would like to take the wisdom
that these people had back then,
and then bring it into our present,
because are present, whenyou look at it very broadly,
it seems like is lacking a lot of wisdom.
- Yes, so living in amodern world with traditions
(22:29):
is not a, there's no odds there.
You're not at odds with that.
You just find different ways
and the different things that you need.
I think that's so beautiful,because for so many,
I'll speak for myself, somany parts of me thinks,
like when I was backpacking in Alaska,
I'm backpacking in Alaska, andI'm just really doing that,
and it's incredible, and I'm with bears,
and I can see da da, butto live in that world,
(22:52):
how would I get my email done?
And so, I see that, likeyou were saying earlier,
as separate and that to pull them together
and to realize that you don'thave to just be hardcore
in a hut to be connected
to things that will then change your care
for the world that you live in.
Yeah so, but you don't saythat to your, the first day,
you're not like, "You'regonna learn how to care."
(23:13):
(Mathias and Erika laugh)
You just help them into caring.
- Yeah, when I teach a course
like Scandinavian Witchcraft and Magic,
what happens is, quite often,
that I have a bunch ofstudents in my class
who expect that they're now gonna learn
what kind of potions or stuff like that.
- Yeah, they're definitely,the Hermiones of the world
are there ready to get the truth.
(23:35):
- Yeah, so here's the way to gain riches
is, of course, to make a potion
with eye of newt and abunch of other things.
- That's what they reallythink when they come in?
- Yeah, there are somewho have that expectation.
And then, what I see oncein a while in the FAQs
is that they got disappointed because-
- (laughing) They couldn't
make their roommates stop snoring.
(23:56):
- (laughing) Exactly.
I mean, there are actually,
we do read a bunch of stuff like that,
really curious spells and charms,
but the whole purpose ofthe course is to teach them
that this thing that theythink is cool, witchcraft,
and maybe with the Scandinavianpart attached to it,
and Scandinavian witchcraftbeing particularly cool,
(24:17):
that actually comes from along history of oppression.
It comes from a longhistory of ostracizing
different kinds of peopleat different times.
And it's part of a broader movement
of regulating the populationsin the 15 and 1600s.
(24:37):
- Were many of those female-type folks?
- Yeah, so Scandinaviais a little different
compared to the rest of Europe,
and not so much Denmarkand Norway and Sweden,
but Finland and Iceland, in Finland,
you have 51% male victimsof witchcraft hunts.
And in Iceland, it's 99% male.
(24:59):
- Wow.- Yeah.
So that's an entirely different dynamic
that's happening there.
That dynamic has something to do
with very old cultural structures
that actually have something to do
with pre-Christian religion.
In Iceland, it's veryobvious that the intersection
between magic, wisdom,and the deity, Odin,
is at play in accusationsabout witchcraft.
(25:21):
So, men are being targeted,
because Odin is a male deity it seems.
So, they are the ones whoare also being targeted
for communing with the devil,
because that's whatwitchcraft is all about.
It's a program that'sinvented in the late 1300s,
this idea that the horned devil
(25:44):
with the goat legs and all that stuff,
that's an invention from the1300s in France, actually.
- An invention from anoutside eye looking at
and saying this is what they were doing,
kind of how we were speaking earlier
about the propaganda thing,
or it was an invention thatwas an actual character
that was brought into rituals?
- So, it's a characterthat has, of course,
(26:05):
some roots in pre-Christian culture,
the faun, the pan figureis of course, part of this.
But what happens is that that figure
then takes on its own life
and becomes an image of the devil.
And when you then have, Heinrich Kramer,
(26:28):
who writes "MalleusMaleficarum" in the late 1400s
and "The Witches'Hammer," as it is called.
This guy, if you lookat him, his biography,
he was a raging misogynist
who actually had problems with women.
It was like real life problemswith women in different ways.
He was sort of like an incel.
(26:49):
And then he writes thisprogram to hunt witches,
which is all about women,
except for one chapter,which is about men.
And he infuses it with this devil figure
that he knows from this, you know,
he's operating in the area
that is now Austria and Western Germany.
(27:10):
- And he has this muchpower, his language does?
- So what happened first wasthat he tried to pull this off
in Innsbruck and the diocesein Innsbruck in Austria,
and the bishop there waslike, "You're crazy, get out."
- The bishop called him out.- Yeah.
(laughs) There were plenty ofpeople that called him out.
And then Heinrich went to,
(27:33):
I think it was Mainz on the Rhine.
And there, he found a better opportunity
for all of this nonsense andthat has something to do-
- But he stuck with the story.
- Yes, and the whole situation was that
in these bishop reichs andother clerical districts
in the Rhine area, therewas a lot of competition
(27:54):
between the clerics, and sothey could use this witchcraft.
- This is what it comes downto again, is this competition.
- Exactly.- And using the stories,
the made up parts that arelinked to Old World stories.
- And then that spread all over Europe
And became a dominant language.
- All right, and then let's,
the horned devil and heavy metal music.
(28:14):
- Oh yes, yeah.- Okay, talk to me about this.
'Cause you are an advisor toheavy metal bands or are you...
Okay, I just need to, I'm like,
do you play, listen, fan, yeah. (laughs)
- The hilarious thing about all of this
is that I have no musicalskills whatsoever.
- Whatsoever, I couldn't find any online,
(28:35):
so I was like, what'sMathias' connection here?
- So, I am an old-timeheavy metal fan, I think.
The first time I went to aheavy metal concert I was 12.
- Yeah, is this a Mayhemshirt that you're rocking?
- Yes, yeah, and I-- In Denmark?
- Yeah, that was inDenmark. It was Meshuggah.
(28:56):
That's like a nice deathmetal thrash thing.
- Are you listening inyour head right now,
because you started bouncing.
(Mathias and Erika laughing)
- And I've always been somebodywho went to metal shows
and listened-- Yeah, so you walk gently
on the Earth and then you were, "Hey!"
when you're in the club.- Yes, yeah.
It's keeping that balance, right?
- (laughs) Balance, yeah.- Eventually, I started,
(29:19):
because there's that whole interest
in Nordic mythology and Viking history-
- The iconography, really.- The iconography, yeah.
Yeah, I started talkingwith different artists
and one thing has led to another,
and so I have done some advising and-
(29:40):
- Like for music videos or for text or...
- For lyrics, for, this isn'ta heavy metal band as such.
This is more like sort of a pagan ambient.
It's very difficult to define the genre,
but they mix traditionalmedieval music with modern music
(30:03):
called (foreign language),that's German, they-
- Sounds like modern dance from the 90s.
- There's some of that. (laughs)
They asked me if I was interestedin writing a little bit
for a book that was coming out
along with their most recent album.
And I have done a littlebit of social media stuff
(30:25):
for another band calledWardruna from Norway.
And just because I've like made friends
with various kinds of artists as well,
this band Heilung, which is like a Danish,
German, Norwegian-ish band.
Their members are fromeverywhere pretty much.
There's somebody from France,somebody from Ukraine as well.
(30:47):
So you can't really call them
this particular nationality band.
- Yeah, but they have a thingthat connects 'em, which is-
- Yeah, that's like, I wouldsay, pre-Christian history,
not so much Viking, butthey actually go deeper
into Northern Europeanhistory in that sense.
But yeah, just because I know them
(31:09):
and have hung out with them several times,
I've also ended up having to help them
when they've been playing here in Colorado
and also actually in Seattle.
- The roadie?
- And just having to helpthem with like stage props,
usually something made of boom.
- Yes, that's what wewanna hear, just giant.
- Skulls and stuff.- Skulls and bones.
(31:30):
Okay, this is a perfect timeto come to the quick and dirty,
the time when I ask you questions,
and you have to answer just fast.
And you're gonna put "and"in the word or between,
I'm sure you've listened to our show
and so you know how it goes.
Okay, an anding metal bandthat you would listen to
while you're hiking or writing a book,
something that has and init, like and and metal.
(31:51):
- I think that could be,so I would never listen
to something when I'm hiking though, but-
- Okay, oh good, I love that.
You are just in nature, okay great.
- Yeah, but otherwise, Iam an anding a metal band.
Ooh, that's a tough one.
I would say that that would be Mayhem.
- Mayhem, yeah, but yougotta say, "Mayhem and."
(32:14):
It's gotta be like bone andskull, you see what I'm saying?
I know, this is the hard part of the game.
- Yeah, the problem is I'mso bad at remembering names-
- So make one up, make upthe best bad metal name
that has and in it, like Bone and Skull.
(Mathias laughing)Dragons and Screaming.
- Hellfire and Beer,there you go. (laughing)
(32:37):
- Okay, a Danish food combinationthat is not boring to you.
- A Danish food combinationthat's not boring.
Well that could be leverpostej and røgeri.
- And that would taste like? (laughs)
- I can assure you thatno American would like it.
- (laughing) Okay, tell me what it is.
- So leverpostej doesn'treally have a good translation.
(32:59):
It's kind of like a liver pâté,but it's more like haggish.
And I have really met nobody
outside of the Scandinavianrealm who likes it
except for like an oddGerman here and there.
Then røgeri is smoked herring.
And so if you combine thesetwo, it becomes weird.
(33:19):
- And becomes amazing.- I think so.
(Mathias and Erika laughing)
- Okay, some Viking shows or movies
that really needed yourguidance but didn't ask.
- Well, the show "Vikings"and "The Northman."
- Really, okay, theyneed some of you, okay.
The best old Norse word thatsounds like and or ampersand
(33:40):
that is used as a connector, conjunction.
- Ah, yes, (foreign language).
- That sounds like and beer.
- Yeah, it does, doesn't it? (laughs)
- (laughing) Say it again.- (foreign language).
- (foreign language).- Yeah.
It means headwind.
- Headwind, oh, I love that.
This takes us perfectly into our blessing.
If you were to offer ablessing up to any community,
someone graduating, someonegoing off on an epic journey,
(34:01):
whether that's gettingmarried or into the wild,
and it starts with and,
and may you, or will youoffer to (indistinct).
(bright music)
- And may the landspirits lighten your path.
(34:22):
- That was Mathias Nordvig,
assistant teachingprofessor from CU Boulder
on "The Ampersand."
For more of his work in Nordic studies,
his podcast, "The Sacred Flame,"
and other amazing things,check out our show notes.
"The Ampersand" is a production
of the College of Arts and Sciences
at the University of Colorado Boulder.
(34:42):
It is written and produced by me,
Erika Randall and Tim Grassley.
If there are people you'dlike us to interview
on "The Ampersand," do please email us
at asinfo@colorado.edu.
Our theme music was composedand performed by Nelson Walker,
and the episodes are recorded
at Interplay Recordingin Boulder, Colorado.
I'm Erika Randall andthis is "The Ampersand."
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