Summary

Dan, Frigga and Jens talk about neurodivergent readings of 13th century literature. Aka important heathen sources.

00:00:10 Jens: Welcome back, dear listeners to part 2 of episode 31 of The Wyrd Thing podcast about neurodivergence. I‘m with Frigga and our special guest Dan. In the first part, we talked about neurodivergence in modern heathenry. Now we will have a look back into the sources. Dan, would you please tell us a bit about your upcoming PhD thesis?

00:00:30 Dan: Yeah, sure. So, um, as I said, I’m currently at the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds, and I’m doing a PhD, uh, specifically focused on neurodivergent and trauma in 13th century literature. Which is an interesting field to get into because there’s not really anybody else in it. I mean, interestingly, there’s only one person in the world that I know of that’s spending a lot of time researching neurodivergence in the Middle Ages. And they’re also in the same department with me, which is great because it means that we can share ideas and talk to each other and work together on stuff. But yeah, it’s it’s a very, very niche field at the moment. I’m hoping that my research and my colleague Ash’s research will start to lay a foundation. Um, and, you know, more people in the future will start looking at neurodivergence in a historical context. So ashes is looking at mystics. Um, which is very different to mine. Mine’s literature based. So 13th century literature. You know, obviously I’ve picked that because I can focus on a lot of Old Norse material. Um, I can revisit a lot of the sagas that I always love and read them through this, this different lens. The start of the project, what inspired me to do this was Egill Skalagrimsson Saga. Or, you know, in anglicised English, the Saga of Egill Skallagrimsson. It’s just his name is complicated. So if you’re saying it in the name of the saga, it’s „Ale“ saga, Icelandic pronunciation. It’s actually a with that hard stop k at the end. Most English people anglicized it to Egill, so I’ll say Egill even though it’ll pain me to do it just so people know who I’m talking about. So that was the starting point for the project. Really. Like I’ve always thought there’s something about this guy that makes him very different. And I started reading that saga through the lens of neurodivergence and thinking about because Egill is in many ways he’s the archetype of viking in a saga. A lot of our stereotypes of the vikings actually kind of come from him. You know, he’s an adventurer. He has these violent outbursts, but he also has a personal honour code that he sticks to rigidly. But he goes off raiding, does a little bit of trading, not much trading, mostly raiding. He gets into legal disputes, which I know that’s not the TV HBO stereotype of a viking, but actually in the sagas, that is the stereotype of a viking. They love the law. Um, and he gets involved in all of that. So he’s just stereotypical viking. But what I’m arguing in my chapter is that you can read him as the archetype for a neurodivergent character in 13th century literature. So the approach I’m taking is what I’m calling the neurodivergence coding, because I think it’s important to, you know, I’m not a doctor. I can’t diagnose people. You also can’t really diagnose people who have been dead for over a millennia. And you also, I mean, you shouldn’t be diagnosing people without their consent, regardless of if you’re a doctor. And Egill that’s presented in the saga. Whilst he’s probably based on a person who really did exist and could have written some of the poetry, we don’t know for certain. And certainly the how he’s presented in the saga, I’m treating that as a fictional character. So what I’m looking for is a reading here. This isn’t yes, he is definitely neurodivergent. It’s a reading. It’s possible to read this saga through this lens and see what that can tell us about how we respond to a neurodivergent character. Potentially, how people at the time responded to people now they wouldn’t have been. People in the 10th century were not going around saying, that guy’s neurodivergent. They definitely weren’t going around going, that guy’s autistic. That guy’s got ADHD. Those terms did not exist, didn’t exist until very, very recently when we’re talking about these lengths of time. So again, I’m not trying to say, I think this character has this, this character has that. I’m doing neurodivergence kind of as a whole. The only split I am making is between developmental and acquired neurodivergence, because you can read those differently in the text. You know, you can see a trauma has happened. This guy now acts in a different way. There’s this really useful framework called moral injury. I can’t remember who first came up with it off the top of my head, but that’s talking about how something happens to someone and their moral changes as a result. And you can read that in the sagas. You can see something really, really bad happens to someone and they start acting in a different way afterwards. So that’s the, the reading of acquired neurodivergence. Now, for Egill, for me, and my reading is very, very clear that he’s not neurotypical from from the outset. And the other characters in the saga recognize that he’s different. And I think that’s a that’s a key thing as well. This isn’t just me looking back and going, oh yeah, he’s got all these traits of neurodivergent coding. We’re told in the saga, it is literally said everyone thought this guy was weird. Nobody liked him. Uh, he didn’t fit in with anybody. And he does things differently. He developed skills a very young age. You know, he’s supposedly composing poetry at four years old. He’s stealing horses and riding to feasts and getting involved in drinking games. This isn’t neurotypical behavior for a four year old child, and it kind of continues all through his life. Um, I kind of touched on that on a code thing. Um, there’s one scene that really sticks out for me, and, you know, most people would just gloss over this, but him and his warriors were raiding a farm. They get captured, the farmer decides, you know, and this this is kind of a literary trope that still gets used in, in films, you know? Oh, we’re not going to kill them straight away. Well, well put one inept guard to guard them and then I’ll deal with them later. Well, go off and have a feast. Obviously it never works out for the antagonists in this case. Egill escapes, runs away with the treasure, and he’s just about to get back to his ship, and he turns to his men and goes, hang on. This isn’t right. They don’t know who’s robbed them. I must go back and kill them all. Uh, because that’s the honourable thing to do. So off he goes. He follows his personal honor code. Everyone else just goes, nah, we’re gonna escape to the boat. This was a close call. Like, let’s get away with the treasure in our lives. But he’s like, no, I have to do what I think is the right thing to do, even if everybody else thinks it’s weird. So, yeah, that’s the scene that’s kind of important to me. Um, and then, yeah, obviously, you know, there’s trauma. uh, sonnatorrek, which is a poem that he composes towards the end of the saga, um, which people will probably know. It’s, um, the Loss of a Son. It’s, um, beautiful, beautiful poetry. Probably, in my opinion, the most beautiful poem written in Old Norse. I know that’s a big claim, but. But it really is. But there’s an interesting thing there as well, where he puts so much emotion and so much sadness and so much tension and frustration and upset and hurt into this poem. But then once he’s composed it and he’s spoken it, that helps. That’s. And then he can. He’s never the same after that, but he can move on. He uses that as a tool. Um, and I find that that really, really interesting as well, from a neurodivergent reading that he’s able to use this tool, which, you know, isn’t the first thing that people would think, oh, I need to get over something that’s happened to me. Oh, I’ll write a poem. Cool. I mean, he has to be convinced to write the poem. His his daughter basically has to trick him into doing it instead of starving himself to death. But then once he’s done it, he’s like, oh yeah, I don’t need to starve myself to death anymore. Let’s move on. Happy days. So, yeah, um, that was that was kind of the starting point for the project. But you can’t do a whole PhD just on just on that. Um, so I’m bringing in other Icelandic comparisons in Gisli saga, uh, Snørre Edda, hoping to look at Odin as a case study of a neurodivergent deity, um, which I know will probably ruffle some feathers. But I think also a lot of people, when I say that to them in heathen circles, start nodding and going. Yes. You know. This guy hangs himself upside down on a tree just to learn to read. Hmm. That doesn’t sound like a very neurotypical thing to do. You know, he gets so set on something and he will do anything to get that thing. And there’s also interesting trauma things with with Odin as well, because he gets, I would argue that he gets trauma from a prophecy, which is interesting because then you’re getting trauma from something that hasn’t actually happened yet. It’s the knowledge of what’s going to happen, is then causing the trauma. So there’s interesting stuff there. And then I’m also bringing in a Germanic comparison in the Nibelungenlied. So I’m looking at the character of Hagen and then I don’t know why, but. Well I do know why, but it’s going to be difficult. I’m also bringing in the Mabinogion, so some 13th century Welsh texts. Uh, at the moment my reading of Old Norse is pretty good. My reading of Middle German is okay for what I need it to be. Currently, my reading of Middle Welsh is non-existent, So I have got a language to learn to try and, um, really get to grips with the Mabinogion, because it is available in English translation, but there’s always change in the translation. You know, any translator, no matter how much they’re trying to be authentic and reflect the text accurately. One it’s impossible because, you know, especially with poetry like the Nibelungenlied, you can’t possibly keep the literal meaning, the meter and the rhyme. There’s no way. If you’re amazing, you might be generally, you’re probably only going to be able to do one. The English translations are useful. The modern German translation is useful for the Nibelungenlied, because my modern German reading is much better than my medieval. But you have to go back to the original as much as you can say when we’re talking about 13th century texts, what is the original is also an issue. I know I’m talking a lot here, but it’s all important because manuscripts survive in different ways. You know, we don’t just have, oh, this is the text of the Nibelungenlied. You know, we don’t this is the text of Egill Saga. I think the 17 different fragments and bits of stuff that’s put together and called Egill Saga. So but, you know, we try and go back and actually looking at that manuscript variation can give us extra little clues and nuggets as well. Um, so there’s a lot to it.

00:10:26 Jens: As a courtesy to especially our German listeners who could be very interested in that. Uh, what’s neurodivergent about Hagen, in your opinion?

00:10:37 Dan; Oh, yeah. Hagen is a really, really interesting character. So in the Nibelungenlied, he is a really prominent character. Maybe. Riggleman argued fairly recently that, you know, he could arguably be considered the protagonist. Everyone would think Sigurd, but, you know, he gets killed. Oh, Siegfried. Sorry. I switch in between Norse and German. And Siegfried, but he gets killed, you know, halfway through by Hagen. So Hagen is kind of the driving force way through there. And a lot of scholarship on Hagen is focused on is he one character? So again, going into quite a lot of sort of depth. But the Nibelungenlied is another one of the things that was written down in the 13th century. But it’s a much, much older story. It comes from an oral tradition, and there are two kind of distinct phases. You’ve got this Princess quest at the start, which is the wooing of Brunhild, and then you’ve got this sort of doomed quest in the second half of the poem, where the Burgundians go to the Hunnish court and you know, they’re all all doomed to die. And Hagen does act slightly differently in the first and second parts. And that’s, of course, some people to argue that he was originally two different characters, been imported, and sort of put into one character in the Nibelungenlied. Other scholars look for things that tie him together. So what I argue in my chapter is that neurodivergence can be used as that thing that ties him together. It explains the differences. Actually, if you read the story through a neurodivergent lens, he’s not two different people in the two different halves. He’s just not acting neurotypically. When you read it through the lens of neurodivergence, he can be this unitary character. So some of the things that that I’ve identified so cataloging is one. And that’s a term that’s quite easy to explain. It means what you’d think it would be. Rather than like physically cataloging things. This is cataloging information. Hagen’s information retention is noted by everyone around him. Again, I can’t remember who this quote is from, but some a scholar argued the absence of Hagen represents the absence of knowledge in the poem, which I thought was just a brilliant line. Because whenever they need information, you know, they could arguably go to other people, but it’s always Hagen. So I think that is a deliberate thing from the poet. He knows everybody. And yes, as a sort of high ranking member of the court, it’d be important to know, you know, the heraldry, the symbols of the people in your kingdom and the people around you. But Hagen knows everybody. Everyone in the whole world, whenever anybody turns up or they encounter a new character, it’s, oh, Hagen, who’s this? And he just instantly knows. So it’s like we talk about special interests these days within neurodivergence, which is where you have an intense interest in a small number of things. And for Hagen, that special interest is, you know, the heraldry. You can’t really properly call it heraldry, but it is what goes on to become heraldry. It’s the image is the symbols of the people that identify who they are. He knows all of that. He’s also he thinks everything through meticulously until something happens that goes against his worldview. And he has to shift. And this can be quite reflective of neurodivergent coding. So everything’s really, really well thought out. As long as people behave in the way that Hagen thinks behave. When people behave in a way that isn’t how Hagen thinks they should behave, his plans fail, because why are they doing that? That’s weird. Don’t understand. And you know, that can be. Yeah. People acting differently, or it can be encountering something that doesn’t fit with his worldview. So people who are aware of the poem will know the very, very famous river crossing scene. Now in this, Hagen encounters some water spirits. And you know, as a Christian 13th century person, even though the saga is set in the sixth century, it’s very much framed within the 13th century context. So as this, you know, Christian Knight, which is effectively how he’s portrayed in the saga, what are these water spirits? These don’t make sense. So that can, you know, then be something that provides this moral injury, this change to his worldview. And suddenly I have to recalibrate everything. And immediately after that, he does some things which seem wildly out of character. So it also is part of that scene. There’s a thing with some neurodivergent people where they are much more inclined to believe the first piece of information that they are told, and that convinces them. And when new information comes along, it can be harder to then adapt to that new information. So Hagen has stolen the clothes from these water spirits to try and trick them to helping him. And they tell him, oh yeah, your journey to Hungary. That’s going to go great. Nothing to worry about. You’re gonna have a nice time. And then he gives them the clothes back and they say, oh, yeah, actually, we were just lying to get our back and it’s going to go horribly and everybody’s going to die. And initially he’s like, well, no, you told me it’s true. Why are you lying now? I believe the thing, even though logically they needed something from him, they needed their clothes back. If they told him everybody’s going to die, he might not have given them back. So logically, it makes sense that they’d be telling the truth now. But because he’s heard that first, he clings onto it, and then he clings onto it so much that he decides to test it in a way that, again, is completely unbefitting of someone of his station and his religion and his place in the society. Because as soon as he gets back to the traveling party, he tries to drown the priest. And this is because they said, everybody’s going to die in Hungary apart from the priest. So Hagen thinks, oh, well, if I kill the priest, I’ve disproved the theory, haven’t I? He doesn’t tell anybody. This is what he’s doing. He just goes and tries to kill the priest. You know, in the trope of failing to break prophecies. The priest survives, swims off, goes back to Burgundy. And actually, it’s the self-fulfilling prophecy, then, isn’t it? Because had Hagen not tried to kill him, he would have been with everybody else. He died because Hagen tried to kill him, he survives. But there’s another thing in this to say. This is a scene I focus on a lot. There’s another key thing here, and this is going back to not just being me now, as 21st century person doing my neurodivergent reading. It’s the other characters in the poem, because I would expect if someone’s just tried to kill the court chaplain for no good reason, a really, really strong reaction from the other characters around him. You know, this is the King’s chief advisor murdering or attempting to murder the king’s personal chaplain. like, you know, within Christianity about violence against the church. Yes, in the Middle Ages it happened a lot. People did rob churches, people did attack priests, but they knew it was wrong. And within a literary context, for a nobleman to be doing that would have been seen as horrendous. But the other characters response is pretty muted, to be honest. It’s like, oh, Hagen, why are you doing that? He doesn’t get punished. You know, he gets sort of told off a little bit, but that’s it. You’d expect him to be ostracized. So I read this as the other characters are accepting that Hagen is different. And sometimes Hagen does weird things. And you know, what isn’t normal for everyone else is normal for Hagen. And that can be because Hagen’s neurology is different. His brain works in a different way. Obviously, they wouldn’t have known that at the time. You know, back in the 13th century, most people thought your mind was in your heart rather than your brain. But they would have known that he was different. He did things in a different way. And actually, he’s a really, really useful guy. You know, I suppose it’s kind of touches back on that Rain Man thing from earlier. You know. Yeah, he’s weird and we don’t necessarily accept him as being the same as us, but he’s got these really useful skills. You know, Hagen has this encyclopedic knowledge of the world around him. He’s the guide on the expedition. He gives the king really, really good advice. So, you know, we’ll just accept that occasionally he does weird things like trying to drown the priest for no reason. So, yeah, that seems really important to me. There’s lots of stuff throughout the poem where you can kind of look at it and think, well, how can we make sense of what he’s saying and doing there? And the explanation that I offer is neurodivergence explains this. If we read it through that lens and look at it in that context, it provides an explanation for his behavior and also for tying him together throughout the poem.

00:18:55 Frigga: I like it.

00:18:57 Jens: It’s been a while since I looked into that story I wasn’t aware anymore of his encyclopedic knowledge right now that he told me. It reminds me a lot that it’s one of Odin’s superpowers. To know all the names of all the beings around there. So that sounds like a very strong connection to me.

00:19:15 Dan: Yeah, definitely. This they, you know, it could be framed as they share a special interest there, and their special interest is getting all the knowledge you possibly can.

00:19:24 Frigga: Hyper focus.

00:19:25 Dan: Yeah, yeah.

00:19:26 Jens: I think one of the most remembered topics of the Nibelungenlied, of course, is the killing of Siegfried in as well. And he takes part of that very prominently.

00:19:39 Dan: Yes, yes he does.

00:19:40 Jens: So is there anything you read the Neurodivergency into how he behaves around this?

00:19:43 Dan: So, yeah, as you say, I have a really, really key scene. You know, when you’re you’re first reading the poem, you think Siegfried’s going to be your main guy all the way through this, and then. Oh, we’re just under halfway through the poem, and now he’s dead. Yeah, there is in my reading because first of all, the way that Hagen wholeheartedly commits to murdering Siegfried, he’s he’s kind of the driving force behind it, really. Obviously, this comes out and, you know, for those who don’t know the poem as well, this all comes out of a feud between two queens. So Krimhild, who is Siegfried’s wife, and Brunhild, who is the wife of King Gunther. And this this rivalry has come out of a deception where Siegfried pretended to be Gunther’s vassal to do some slightly, well, not even slightly. Some very problematic, um, things in during the wooing of of Brunhild. Where, um. Yeah, he effectively, um, gets involved in, uh, in some things in the bedroom on Gunther’s behalf, which is obviously, you know, very, very problematic for a modern reader. But, yeah, this rivalry has come out because Brunhild can’t understand why Krimhild is acting like her equals. She should be acting like a subordinate because she thinks Siegfried is a vassal, and therefore the wife of a vassal is her subordinate. Why is she acting like an equal? This isn’t okay. And you know, Brunhild gets very upset and angry about this. And Hagen has decided that. Well, I am the vassal of the king. Therefore, when he marries Brunhild, I am now in her service as well. I have to help her. He knows about most of the deceptions. But that doesn’t seem to bother him too much. And he doesn’t bother trying to clarify anything. He’s just, the queen’s upset. He’s upset about this. The only solution is we’re gonna kill Siegfried. He convinces the king and his brothers that this has to happen there. They’re reluctant, but they sort of reluctantly agree that it’s the lesser of the evils, but they they want to pass it off as a hunting accident, so they go off on to a hunt. Hagen has already tricked Krimhild into revealing Siegfried’s one weak spot. Um, you know, he’s a bit like Achilles. There’s only one point where you could kill him instead of his heel, it’s a spot on his back. Uh, all the rest of him. He’s basically got armored skin, and you can’t kill him. But there’s this one little spot, and Hagen manipulates Krimhild and says, oh, you know, I want to make sure I’m there with to protect this one vulnerable spot just in case something happens. So you have to let me know where it is, which he then does. He exploits that and kills him. So everything there, you know, there’s a few little hints that could be read as was neurodivergence in like the the fervour with which he pursues this. But the main thing for me kind of comes afterwards, and it goes back to this personal honor code that we saw with Egill. So the king and his brothers are like, right, okay. He’s dead. That part of the plans worked. We’ll go back. We’ll tell everyone he was killed by bandits. This was an accident. We’ve solved the problem. We’ve got rid of him. Queen will be happy. There’ll be no repercussions because bandits did it. We’ve got a scapegoat. Hagen says no. For Hagen, murdering Siegfried is not what is dishonorable in his personal honour code. Lying is what’s dishonorable in his personal honour code. So he says rough English translation of something along the lines of it bothers me very little if she who upset my lady cries deeply, basically saying he doesn’t care. Who knows he did it. He’s going to go and tell everyone. And he then not only does that, but he just takes things even further when instead of just rocking up back at the court and saying, yep, I killed him, what he decides to do is get the body and dump it on the steps of Siegfried’s wife’s apartments to find him there in the morning. So he’s just really, really taking things too far. And I think what this can be read as demonstrating is a misunderstanding of the nuance of the situation, which is something that a lot of neurodivergent people do report. I mean, obviously, I’m not saying they do it in these extreme ways necessarily. You know, this is a really, really extreme example, but it’s that not understanding, you know, where the limits of what is socially acceptable are. The other kings have decided it’s socially acceptable to kill Siegfried. They would not think it’s socially acceptable to dump his body at his wife’s doorstep. But for Hagen, it’s just the natural progression. You know, how is this any different? We’ve killed him. You know he’s dead. He’s not going to get any more alive. So I’m just going to, you know, really drive the point home. And I’m going to dump this body here. And he then goes on to confiscate the Nibelung treasure, which is obviously another big plot point moving through. And he just goes all out, you know, he’s decided I’m serving Brunhild. She wants this guy to die. I’m not just going to kill him. I’m gonna destroy his reputation. I’m gonna ruin his wife’s life. Um. And I’m just going to take things, you know, way too far. And of course, for those that know the poem. That’s what then leads to the very Germanic ending. You know, we don’t get nice, happy endings in these Germanic stories, do we? Everybody dies. You know, very few people survive. The court chaplain, he survived. But yeah. Krimhild goes on to marry the king of Hungary, who is actually the story’s version of Attila. He doesn’t act much like Attila did historically. He acts like a sort of chivalric medieval king in the Nibelungenlied, as opposed to Attila the Hun. But yeah, she marries him and basically uses that marriage to get revenge on Hagen and her brothers, and they all die. She dies herself as well, because she kills Hagen herself, and then one of her husband’s own men cannot bear to see this great man as he’s as he’s seen in Hagen being killed as a prisoner by a woman. So he kills her as well. So everybody dies. And you could argue that that all comes from Hagen taking things too far. If he’d just passed it off as bandits, it would have been fine.

00:25:52 Frigga: There is a lot of things I recognize, but you point out that could be neurodivergence.

00:25:58 Dan: Yeah, and I think that’s important. I’m not saying this is definitely this. This is the only valid reading of this story. And you have to agree with me. When you do a queer reading of a text, you’re not saying these characters are definitely gay. You’re saying: This is a valid interpretation. So yeah, there’s lots of stuff here where, you know, we can identify it and say, this could be neurodivergence. Having one valid reading doesn’t negate another valid reading because it’s a reading. We’re not saying the poet meant this. We’re definitely not saying this definitely happened because as I say, the way the Nibelungenlied is framed, there’s no way it happened like it did. I say it frames Attila the Hun as a courtly king, um, who’s trying to maintain peace. Um, you know, these are sixth century names being put into a 13th century story, so it’s definitely not what actually happened. It’s about a reading and how we can interpret the text.

00:26:45 Frigga: And I think that’s not only for these texts, but also for for the myths and mythological stories we have. A good thing to look at it at different ways and ways that suits our time and age. Definitely you repeat several times it is the way it is, but it is the way we perceive it and we look at it.

00:27:05 Dan: Yeah. I mean, when we bring it back around to, you know, this is a heathen podcast and not not a literature podcast, you know, he’s another really good example where you can read Odin in different ways. And, you know, for us, obviously Odin isn’t a literary character. He is a god that we we worship and we believe in. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t interpret him in different ways. I suppose there probably is a right answer, but we’re never going to get to it as humans until we actually, you know, maybe potentially meet him in an afterlife. We won’t know for sure. But, you know, in some of my previous work, I’ve done a queer reading of Odin, which again, you know, to me seems fairly obvious in a lot of aspects, but to some people would be, you know: Oh, you can’t possibly say that. And I went down a bit of a rabbit hole in my MA thesis, actually, comparing, um, Odin and Lord Byron, which you think would be absolutely weird, but it was actually really productive and really useful. And my point there was about how someone could be different things to different people and everything can be true. You know, Odin is hyper masculine, strong warrior god, but he is also goes by the name of Harbarth the queer. And, you know, there’s also a direct line which translates as Thor says that he comes over a group of men, which most scholars agree means sleeping with a group of men. Um, and Odin doesn’t deny it. And, you know, he engages in seidhr. Well, that’s not something that your stereotypical hyper masculine viking dude is supposed to do. Um, and the comparison I bought him with Byron. People who don’t know 19th century chap. But again, you can’t really define him because in this country he’s seen as a poet and a dandy. And, you know, he there’s this focus on his sexual exploits and things like that. But if you go to Greece, he’s the war hero of the Greek Revolution, and he’s the father of Greek independence. So he can be different things to different people in different places and time. Odin can be different things to different times. Hagen can be different things to different people.

00:29:05 Frigga: I agree on that. My way of thinking is that we as humans partly define in a way who the gods are, and they should evolve in ways which are useful or not useful. Is the meaningful to us. Yeah, without changing their core. If we ever are capable of understanding the core of gods.

00:29:28 Dan: And again, you know our gods to us, to to most heathens. I know you know there are variations. But to most heathens, our gods are alive. You know, they’re they’re real. So they’re going to be capable of growth because we see growth throughout the Eddas. We see gods growing and changing. But who’s to say they stopped growing and changing? In the 13th century when Snorri wrote his text? I mean, I don’t think they will have done, will they? They’re not just going to have gone right. This is exactly who I am. I’m not going to change Odin. We’ve touched on it several times. He’s on an endless quest for knowledge. That endless quest for knowledge didn’t end in 1210. You know, there’s been a lot more knowledge to acquire since then. So our gods are going to change and grow just as we can change and grow.

00:30:12
Frigga: We have to educate them because somewhere, you know, they fade into the background and then centuries later, people start starting to to contact them and work with them, and they have to fill in a gap of centuries. And we have to tell them how it’s now, how things work now for us.

00:30:28 Dan: Yeah, it’s that gifting cycle, that symbiotic relationship. We help each other, we help our gods, our gods help us. And we we grow together.

00:30:34 Frigga: Yes.

00:30:36 Jens: Another quite well-known reading of the Nibelungenlied is the one done by Stephen Grundy. He actually pays two novels on the Nibelungenlied and some complimentary Nordic stuff, Völsunga saga, I think it’s called, and he portrays Hagen very much as a heathen prototype, or as the last heathen in a christianizing world. Also is a very Odinic character, and if you think of him killing Siegfried with his spear, it becomes kind of a sacrifice to Odin when he kills Siegfried. Who is in this logic actually a descendant of Odin. And all this line down the saga. So Hagen is seen, at least by some, as a very, very heathen character. And I’ve seen Egil referred to as a very heathen character. You said he’s the prototype Viking for us, and I think he’s important to many heathens because he’s if he’s the historic person who wrote this poem, it’s one of the few pieces of literature we can actually grasp from heathen times before Christianization, because these poems were orally transferred into the written period. So that’s probably kind of authentic heathen stuff. Which leads me back to the question or your hypothesis in the in the beginning, how neurodivergent are heathens?

00:31:56 Dan: Yeah, that’s a really good way to bring it back around, because, you know, I said earlier that I think there are an awful lot of neurodivergent heathens now in a, in our modern context. You know, as I say, I’ve not got the statistics, I’ve not done the numbers, but I think there are a lot. And actually, if we can now look back and look at our heathen archetypes, and I’m also saying that our heathen archetypes are potentially neurodivergent, then, you know, there’s an argument there that not only are heathens now a large part of the neurodivergent, but they always have been. Yeah. You know Egill. He’s definitely, you know, a very, very, very heathen character. He writes heathen poetry, he talks about the gods, but he acts in a way that is far more acceptable to our heathen values be to Christian values. In a lot of ways. There’s still some things he does that even as heathens, we’re like, whoa, what are you doing there? And the same with Hagen. But I think he’s more acceptable from a heathen perspective than he is from a Christian perspective. We understand him better. So yeah, maybe. Maybe it is something that has gone hand in hand for, you know, for this whole time. And. Yeah, just just touching back on sort of Hagen, is this, this heathen archetype. Obviously, when the Nibelungen leads written down 13th century Christian context, it’s set in the sixth century, so the chances of him being some flavour of Germanic pagan, if there was this core root of something that is a historical person, then that’s quite likely in, you know, in a sixth century Germanic context, it’s most likely that he would have been some form of heathen. Obviously he wouldn’t call himself that. But yeah, the way he acts, the values that he shows and yeah, this sort of connection with the spear and then maybe we have got this Odinic connection. Interesting that Egill also states that he is a devotee of Odin as well. So this knowledge things running through this thread between Hagen, between Odin, between Egill. So you know, and I’m not saying everybody that’s on a quest for knowledge is neurodivergent, but maybe the ones who are prepared to hang themselves upside down for nine days and stab themselves probably are.

00:34:05 Jens: I have to say, when Frigga said she uses knitting as stimming, I had this image in my mind of basically just any heathen convention, lots of people sitting in a room and so many of them knitting there. But I thought, that’s not all that people are knitting all the time. At least that heathen conventions. It’s normal that people are knitting all the time.

00:34:25 Dan: But maybe go to a different type of convention. You know, if you went to a convention on, you know, something else, you probably wouldn’t see people knitting all the time. But the other thing I wanted to say, from what you’re saying, there is. Yes, heathen convention now, everybody’s knitting. Go back to the ninth, 10th century. Everybody’s got a drop spindle in their hand. And, you know, we’re told that that’s because. And it’s a logical reason and it is probably true. You know, everybody needed to be spinning all the time because everybody needed sail cloths and clothes. But was it also serving a dual function is sitting with a drop spindle in your hand. That’s a perfect stim because it doesn’t require a huge amount of thought, but it requires just enough thought in drawing the wall through and keeping it spinning and keeping an eye on it and putting it on your spindle, that’s just enough to distract one of those those brain channels to then allow you to focus on the conversation. You know, where, say, me and Frigga us out here with our stim toys now as we’re having this conversation, if you’re sat in the long house listening to the Skald telling a poem, maybe you can’t focus if your hands aren’t moving. If you’ve got your drop spindle going, you can focus more on the story. So you know, has it been there at the core? You know, storytelling is is very, very core of heathenry. Like for me, I know it’s not the same for everyone, but for me, storytelling is one of the most important things about our community. It has been historically. It’s not just about transmitting information. There’s a magic in storytelling. You know, I think neurodivergence can lend to being a really good storyteller. I’m not saying every good storyteller has to be neurodivergent, but for me personally, I think there’s things in there that that can really lend to it and that make you a good storyteller. But maybe for the listeners as well, using things like stimming again, they wouldn’t have called it that. Then it’s, oh, I’m spinning because I need to make a new kirtle, but actually it’s helping them to focus, and therefore it’s driving through this thing that’s at the centre of our culture.

00:36:20 Jens: So as a summary, if I look back at the beginning of the first part, we still have quite a long way to go. There are still so many things we can do much better, but we are actually do quite good position. We should make use of this good starting position we have there.

00:36:36 Dan: Yeah, definitely. I’d agree with that. That progress is being made and it’s being made quickly as well. You know, if you look back to ten years ago, weren’t even considering it. Now it’s being talked about and that’s a huge step. Things are being put in place. You know, I can only really talk about what the UK are doing because, you know, financial constraints and things have meant I’ve not been able to get across to any even stuff on the continent, but I hope other groups are doing similar things and starting to bring things in. And you know, we can talk to each other, we discuss what works. You know, what works here in the UK might work in Germany. There might be something that they’re doing in the Netherlands at port here, there might be something in France or Portugal or whatever. Sharing that information, keeping the discussion going. And I do think this is one area where we, we live in the heathen community, are moving in the right direction. I think, as always, wider society has got some catching up to do, certainly around things like language and actually understanding. But we can be a force for good in that we can help within our own community and hopefully bill out into wider society as well.

00:37:32 Frigga: I think we’re closing because we’re talking for a long time already, which is really enjoyable. I would like to end with a quote. Somebody send that to me way before. Yeah, I already knew that I was was dyslexic, but not the whole autism and ADHD part. A friend of mine who was looking then into what her brains were and I loved it. It’s written by James Sinclair. He is an American autist and he is a activist on autism awareness. If you want to help me, don’t try to change me to fit your world. Don’t try to change my world to fit me. Don’t try to confine me to some tiny part of the world that you can change to fit me. Grant me the dignity of meeting me on my own terms. Recognize that we are equally alien to each other. That my ways of being are not merely damaged versions of yours. Question your assumption. Define your terms. Work with me to build more bridges between us. To me, that says so much.

00:38:38 Dan: Yeah.

00:38:40 Jens: Thank you. Any final words then?

00:38:41 Dan: I would would just like to finish by saying, thank you so much for the opportunity to come and speak on this episode today. Um, it’s always, always a great pleasure to speak with you guys. Um, and it’s been lovely to talk a bit about my research, a bit about what we’re doing within the community. And, yeah, just just having a good frank discussion, getting this information out there, um, sharing ideas. Um, it’s been a been a really enjoyable time, so. Thank you.

00:39:09 Frigga: Thank you.

00:39:10 Jens: You’re welcome. And thank you for all the information you gave us and all the insights. Yes. So thanks to all of our listeners to this episode of the Wyrd Thing podcast. You can find us on the currently usual social media for us, which I think is our website. Thewyrdthing.com. Uh, Instagram and Facebook. Thank you all and goodbye.

00:39:28 Frigga: Bye bye.

00:39:29 Dan: Bye now.