Today is the fifth full moon of the year, which I believe was the original date of the fire festival of the god known in England as Bældæġ "pyre day" and in Germany as Phol where the festival was called Pholtag "Phol day". The Anglo-Saxon god Bældæg is the Norse god Baldr https://odysee.com/@SurvivetheJive:c/balday:2?r=AEKqgwkPWidrWMdxwxNjBE8p3kA9tT6n

There are not many good prayers for Baldr on the internet. Many assume he is a sun god, which is something I respectfully disagree with. If you wish to pray to the god of the bale fire on tonight's full moon, you can use some variant of this template prayer I have made.

PHOL! PHOL! PHOL!
Son of Odin,
Frigg’s proudest boast,
Wisest Oss, and most eloquent,
Who's fair white face is famed,
Hear now this prayer!
You, Oh bright one, who dwelt in Breiðablik,
Are pure in every way, unstained by shame,
None may question your judgement,
Though now you, brave prince, from the curved crest,
Of calves’ kin’s skull, sip the water of the victory women,
In the hall of the barrow’s warder.
Pyre god! Höðr’s unintended victim!
Slain by a slender dart, Baldr’s bane, a young sprout
Felled you, oh bleeding god,
And caused all the world to weep!
Your wyrd, Oh famous and fair Oss, thus fixed,
You shall be by your youngest brother avenged,
And Vali’s foe shall join you, in gloomy Hel’s hall,
Until, Odin’s brave son, the prophecy of the Volva is fulfilled,
then you and your blind brother, to Asgard shall return!
May you soon be borne from Hel, oh brightest prince,
As swiftly as the sun of houses, reaches up to the moon’s way!
Accept now, oh Shining god of the wind’s brother,
The windless wave of the bull’s spear,
And relieve us of our need,
….(state needs and ask for help before offering libations at the fire)

This bronze mount of a raven in the Germanic Heathen style is actually from Finland.

My own photo from the Helsinki museum

So, now we know Odin hugs his ravens.

Small silver pendant found in Denmark, depicting Odin with Huginn and Muninn. ᚬ

This interview with Aki Cederberg about the holy places in Europe and how the West must recover its spirituality is now live on YouTube

https://youtu.be/r0PCNtaRjhg?feature=shared

Hail Bale Day!

Playlist of all episodes of Jive Book Review

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcroOUap-NykVc_bn6kx_MyOLeuYNxkTY

A relevant quote from the paper:

Dutch coastal areas see a habitation hiatus around 1600 BP and
822 subsequent appearance of a new material culture that is often referred to as Anglo-Saxon in
823 nature 82, mirroring the genetics and timing of the Late Iron Age, linguistically West-
824 Germanic Frisians in this dataset. In addition, we find that the Southern Scandinavian
825 ancestry of these migrating populations is better modelled by individuals near Southern rather
826 than the Northern Jutland, and that the migrating populations often carry varying but minor
827 proportions of ENS ancestry, inherited from the earlier people who previously lived in the
828 region. In contrast to previous studies, which relied on Scandinavian samples postdating the
829 Migration Period 47, we can now reject the Danish Isles and Sweden as a source area for the
830 Anglo-Saxons in Britain, as these were dominated by Eastern Scandinavian ancestry prior to
831 the Viking Age (Figure 6).

The McColl 2025 paper used IBD sharing to narrow down the Anglo-Saxon urheimat to precisely the regions the medieval sources said they came from. Whereas the earlier paper Gretzinger 2022 published this map with a slightly wider range which included Zealand and Scania.

This reconstruction of a longhouse at Tisso in Denmark is white because there is archaeological evidence that the wattle and daub walls had been painted white.

Whitewash was widely used on peasant cottages around Europe since medieval times at least. While longhouses in other regions could be built of wood instead of daub, it is likely they were all painted.

It is unfortunate that most reconstructions have no paint at all as this gives a very misleading impression of the past.

In addition to the interview with Aki on Jive Talk, I also did a review of his book on RNSI for hearthfire radio

NEW EPISODE — Radio North Sea International — Holy Europe

https://hearthfireradio.com/watch?v=whgiNgVI&src=rds

A review of the critically acclaimed travelogue by Finnish Heathen Aki Cederberg. Aki's Holy Europe is an exploration of the sometimes revived, sometimes dormant but ever present European soul. He goes to Germany, Sweden, Iceland, Lithuania, France, Spain and Portugal in search of something that must be recovered.

FAO: lads down under. TICKETS

“Sweden's largest burial mound, the ancient site of Anundshög outside Västerås, has been subjected to systematic looting with metal detectors.

Over 50 pits have been found, most of them in ship burials, and the looting has taken place in places that are less visible from the road.”

Source

This interview with Aki Cederberg about the holy places in Europe and how the West must recover its spirituality is now live on YouTube

https://youtu.be/r0PCNtaRjhg?feature=shared

Don't miss the latest STJ film on YouTube!

People are saying it is the best one yet

https://youtu.be/GKjAK8d17qQ?feature=shared

With the novel Orchestra method the authors determined that “(Scandinavian) ancestry was particularly enriched in the East of England and East Midlands, where we also found the highest density of former tentative Viking settlements, inferred as settlement names ending in -by, -thorpe or -toft, confirming previous reports of Scandinavian hotspots in Eastern England”

The same method estimates Ashkenazi Jews are close to 70% Roman (Italian) which means they, like Sicilians, basically are living representatives of Imperial era Roman citizens who were a mix of Italian and Near Eastern migrant

New paper Lerga-Jaso et al