OL and "Freemasonry"

[rygr]

Given the subversive role played by Freemasonry in the modern world, it seems impossible to relate this body of thought to our own traditions. The thesis of a Norwegian ex-Freemason, which presupposes such a connection, could therefore not seem more unattractive.

To comprehend what seems counterintuitive: Freemasonry, according to this author, is the Christianization of the Norse religion.

Since his work is not available in English, the author's sources are unknown to me. Yet, I do notice parallels with the author's statements and the content of OL. In fact, for reasons that are unclear, the latter has always enjoyed the interest of modern Freemasons (which are inevitably committed to humanitarian and globalist tendencies).

By way of introduction:

Today we drop a bombshell: Has Norse religion survived as the 3 basic Freemasonic degrees of the "Blue Lodge"? Curiously there's evidence to indicate this. In pt. 2 we reveal the rituals and investigate essence & symbolism to compare with norse trad. In pt. 1 we consider historic context to see if it's possible. Some topics raised: Was Odin a person? Did Vikings bring Rites of Freya, Thor, & Odin to the British isles? Did they sacrifice humans? Was the old & new religion practiced parallel up to 1400s? Do Heraldic Orders derive from the Craft? Did King Æthelstan purge pagan myths replacing it with Judeo-Christian terms? AND hear how Vikings used hallucinogenics...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JAxuHdUrLI

Author's website: https://www.frimurerne.no/(with one specific page dedicated to Freya: https://www.frimurerne.no/freyas-rite-1-degree/) ; https://independent.academia.edu/ArvidYstad

[Nordic]

Thanks for bringing this up. In their own history the freemasonry existed concurrently with Vikings and Frisians of Viking age as some sort of mystical mason labour organisation or mason guild. Such organisations can be quite old and would likely had their own subcultural practises. Not sure if the more mystical oriented side existed before the modern era when the freemasons dropped the original mason profession element.

It's known that figures from likes of Norse sagas and Finnish poetry, including those related to certain OL chapters, survived outside of the Nordic lands elsewhere in Europe as demon spirit characters in occult manuals. Some examples of this medieval and renaissance era phenomena include:

• in OL Scandinavia episode's Norse echoes a Finnish ancestor figure Fornjót is presented. In Christian era Finnish SKVR poetry this human character (Kave Ukko Iku-Turilas aka Kaleva) has been turned into a sea-monster battling Jesus. This same character appears as "Formione" in The Sworn Book of Honorius and as "Forneus" in The discouerie of witchcraft

• in Finnish SKVR poetry one notable cultural theme is the hero sage Väinämöinen's water-borne mishaps like drowning and escaping an enemy via submerging into water. This theme was carried over into OL (or the OL one is the model for all others) and is also the model for Egyptian "Wenamun" story and Beowulf's tale of ancestry in "Wægmund" and swimming to Finland. Same character ended up as "Vine" in The discouerie of witchcraft and as king in sea trouble motif in Atalanta Fugiens

• more examples from The discouerie of witchcraft include: Paimon ↔ Pam (Russian pagan priest in Stephen of Perm legend), Buer ↔ Burri-Finn (first Æsir man), Gusion or Pirsoyn ↔ Guse of house of Piru (saga king), Lerajie ↔ king Lear or Hlér, Morax ↔ Mora (in Sweden), Glasyalabolas ↔ Glæsisvellir, Glasir or Glæsaria (Norse saga places), Gaap ↔ Gapt or Gaut (Odin's ancestor), Solas ↔ sol-áss 'sun-god', Raum ↔ Raum (saga king), Bifrons ↔ Bifrost (bridge to Asgård), Ose ↔ ǫ́ss or áss 'god', Andras ↔ Antero Vipunen (mythical sage character).

As freemasons are often mystical oriented persons and collected that kind of lore, there may be some Northern European influence alongside the more heavily present Egyptian, Greco-Roman and Biblical (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) influences. For Nordic mythology inspired semi-freemasonic organisation that formed a real-world military conspiracy, please check out Walhalla order of the Suomenlinna fortress and the associated Valhalla and seven islands legend. In OL the corresponding archetype is Walhallagara and seven islands, though to refer to Walcheren island with its Middelburg ('Valhalla' and 'Midgård').

In addition, there existed some years back a theory that OL was a 1800s forgery and had some vague freemason related puns included in it. I never bought into that and think instead that OL simply can't be timewise a forgery.

[rygr]

Thanks for these extensive additions (dealing, by the way, with "craft"). Ideally, I would put Freemasonry in quotes. Other authors simply refer to the Mysteries when it comes to this subject (modern FM may be regarded, at best, as a degeneration of certain mystery traditions). So, the question isn't so much whether modern FM borrows from Northern European myth.

As for religio-philosophical guilds in antiquity, there is the following example: http://www.midnightfreemasons.org/2021/ ... ysiac.html
It would perhaps be better to limit the focus to Ystad's work, but that is also an unnecessarily demanding task, as his work is hardly known and not (or sparsely) translated into English.

Ystad rather refers to a hall gathering. Indeed: (Free)Masonry, being derived from the French word maçon, is a potentially misleading (syncretic) term.

(The prefix in both words still remains peculiar, bearing in mind the two peoples - the "Frisians" and "Franks" - of mainstream historiography, and the Dutch expression "Vrank (Frank) en Vrij" (Frank and free means: unabashed, bold).

[rygr]

In the text, the English word freols (frjals in Old Norse) isn’t used to mean the freeing of a slave, but freogan, which means “to love”. The Germanic, English and Old Norse word for “free” meant “to love” in the Viking Age. The word also had a broader meaning from the one we know today, namely “that which belongs to the family or the clan, and is also protected”. It could be this word that has entered into the word frimurer, freemason, more on this later.

The word hired is translated by British scholars to mean “household or society”, or in particular “its religious part”. The word is the same as hird, the old Norwegian and Danish kings’ bodyguards. The word is of Anglo-Saxon origin, later borrowed into Old Norse, and means “family, household or brotherhood”. If we interpret the present hird as a brotherhood, we see that King Athelstan accepted Eadhelm as free(mason) in the presence of two mass priests, and several unnamed nobles. There is nothing in the manuscript that indicates that Eadhelm was a slave; this is considered in retrospect since the word free (freogan in Old English) was used.

A later document states that Athelstan “founded many very important guilds”; these may have been called the so-called “peace-guilds”, understood as an “association for mutual benefit and support.” The English word guild is loaned from the word gildi in Old Norse. The word was originally used to mean “sacrifice to the gods”. The guilds had religious content – first pagan, later Christian. It was only after the Normans’ arrival in 1066 that the word got the meaning we know today – an association for traders, and later for craftsmen. To the extent that there were guilds in England in the 900’s, this was most likely Freemasonry.

https://www.frimurerne.no/freemasons-ro ... ish-isles/

[rygr]

Freon (https://glosbe.com/en/fy/friend) and freond (https://www.wordsense.eu/freond/), in, respectively, (modern) West Frisian and Old English.

*bhrater-
bhrāter-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "brother."

It forms all or part of: br'er; brethren; ‌‌brother; bully (n.); confrere; fraternal; fraternity; fraternize; fratricide; friar; friary; pal.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit bhrátár-, Old Persian brata, Greek phratér, Latin frater, Old Irish brathir, Welsh brawd, Lithuanian broterėlis, Old Prussian brati, Old Church Slavonic bratru, Czech bratr, Polish brat, Russian bratŭ, Kurdish bera; Old English broþor, Old Norse broðir, German Bruder, Gothic bróþar.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/*bhrate ... ne_v_53446

Hird/hired: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ab ... E9F755581B
-> Heirat (German) (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hired#Old_English)
Hoge Raad (supreme court) in Dutch (Middle English: Rede) sounds surprisingly similar.

The Roman collegium, whether related in spirit or not, partially overlaps in meaning (peers, partners, members etc).

An obvious clue that the term free-/mason should be regarded as a pleonasm or contrived term is on the one hand is the first word free - free, or first among equals -, and the second word mason - compare mate (https://www.etymonline.com/word/mate ; associate, fellow, comrade, companion, partner, colleague, friend), meter, member, maker (Dutch makker=friend) etc.