Naerdha And The Neos

"Star of the Sea," 11, A.D. 49.

Norse mythology had a three-storey hereafter:

warriors killed in battle go to Valhalla;

sailors drowned at sea go to the hall of the sea giant, Njord;

everyone else, even Balder, goes to Hel which is like Hades or Sheol, not like Hell.

Veleda adds a fourth:

"'Women who die in childbed go directly to [Naerdha], like fallen warriors to the Eddic Odin.'" (p. 567)

Despite this, Everard reflects that this goddess is:

"'A pretty grim sort...'" (ibid.)

- and thinks:

"The neopagans of his home milieu did not include her in their fairy tales of a prehistoric matriarchy when everyone was nice." (ibid.)

We have responded to Everard's thought before.

It is easy to knock "neos" but:

I currently have regular contact with members of several different neopagan "denominations." Several of them are scholars of their subject. As such, they know and can expound the differences between ancient practices and attempted reconstructions and newly invented traditions and false claims of continuity with earlier traditions.

-copied from here.

When a dominant monotheism declines, every possible alternative will be tried by someone: secularism, revived polytheism, other monotheist traditions etc. Thus, we know not only atheists and agnostics but also converts to Wicca, Islam etc. Each of us needs to develop his or her own world-view which should include an understanding of past world-views. We can certainly appreciate Odin and the goddess without believing in them and can also engage in dialogue with anyone who does claim to believe in them.