The Essentials of Fyrnsidu

Posted by Byron Pendason on September 24, 2022 CE, in Heathenry, Heathen basics, Heathen worldview, Heathen worship, Reconstruction

It’s all too easy to lose sight of why you’re doing something. I started this blog almost three years ago when I was still a baby on this path. My intention was to take what I was learning and put it into my own words in order to help fellow newbies learn about Fyrnsidu. Since then, it has become my passion to promote and contribute to Fyrnsidu, in order to help it grow. But sometimes, you have to return to the basics. So in this post, I want to outline what the essentials of Fyrnsidu are, and link to resources to help those interested in learning what Fyrnsidu is all about.

Who am I?

I’ve been a Fyrnsidere (a practitioner of Fyrnsidu; we’ll get into the definition of Fyrnsidu itself in a moment) since August of 2018. Four years is not a lot, compared to the people I’ve been learning from who have been practicing for decades. But I’ve had a lot of good mentors, and I’ve studied hard to learn all about this path. I stand on the shoulders of giants, as the old saying goes. The people most important to helping me shape the foundation of my praxis has been the authors of some very good blogs about Fyrnsidu: Beofeld, the author of Wind in the Worldtree, the author of Seolfor Cwylla Heorþ, the author of Of Axe and Plough. But there have been many, many others who have been essential in helping me shape who I am today.

What is Fyrnsidu?

So what is Fyrnsidu? It’s an Old English neologism for the ancient customs or the old ways. It’s a spirituality based upon the pre-Christian religions of the Anglo-Saxons. We’re not naive enough to think what we’re practicing is exactly how they did it in ancient times. Too much has been lost to be able to say that with any honesty. What we’ve done is take the fragments of what we do know about the pre-Christian religions of the Anglo-Saxons, and filled in the gaps from neighbouring cultures that we know they had a lot of contact with. It is, therefore, a reconstruction of this ancient path, using the best resources available to us.

The absolute best place to learn all about Fyrnsidu is a website some friends and I put together, Fyrnsidu.faith. The driving force behind that website was Beofeld, and there’s no better resource for getting up to speed on what Fyrnsidu is and how to practice it. From explaining the basic concepts of this path to providing a beginner ritual. It also has a community page where you can find the many blogs, websites, and YouTube channels of several different Fyrnsideras (the plural of Fyrnsidere).

It is often said that Fyrnsidu, like most other forms of polytheism, is an orthopraxic religion rather than orthodoxic. What this means is that correct practice is much more important than correct belief. The two are more intertwined than a lot of people realize, because our practice informs our belief and vice versa, but there is a truth to the statement. So let’s begin with talking about the practice of Fyrnsidu, then we’ll move on to some of its basic beliefs.

Offerings

The most fundamental ritual to Fyrnsidu is an offering. This is because Fyrnsidish practice is based upon establishing and maintaining relationships of reciprocity with our divine beings (the gods, our ancestors, and the wights [or spirits] of the land and our homes). You can find many rituals online that you can either use as is, or adapt to your needs. Fyrnsidu.faith has a beginner ritual that makes a really good first ritual for anyone pursuing a Fyrnsidish path.

Wind in the Worldtree is an excellent source of Fyrnsidish rituals. The author, Beofeld, has written many of them. A lot of the blogs on The Fyrnsidu Community page of Fyrnsidu.faith also have an assortment of different rituals.

If you’d like to write your own rituals, learning the theory behind offerings can be extremely helpful. Larhus Fyrnsida has great articles on ritual format and prayer format. I’ve done blog posts that give my personal ritual format and prayer structure. They’re mainly based upon Larhus Fyrnsida’s articles, but I gave my own spin on them.

Calendar

Another aspect of practice is holidays and when to observe them. In most religions, this is determined by the use of one or more calendars.

Early in my practice, I developed a passion for the Anglo-Saxon Calendar. I did a lot of research on it, and even developed a page that will calculate the calendar for any given year of the Common Era (see the page above for information and my calendar calculator). Sources that were important in developing this calendar was Larhus Fyrnsida’s page on the calendar and Seolfor Cwylla Heorþ’s page The Reckoning of Time. Fyrnsidu.faith also has a great page on the calendar.

Of course, not all Fyrnsideras use the Anglo-Saxon Calendar. I did a blog post on the various calendars in use, and this discusses the solar calendar, lunisolar calendars, and local calendars that are in use among various Fyrnsideras.

The fundamentals of Fyrnsidish beliefs

Being an orthopraxic religion doesn’t mean ignoring beliefs. As I stated earlier, one’s practice will inform ones beliefs and vice versa. Several Fyrnsidish websites have pages on the fundamentals. The best to start with is Fyrnsidu.faith’s page on the basics. I’ve done a three part series on my blog upon Fyrnsidish cosmology (cosmology tends to determine the rest of one’s beliefs, so I feel is fundamental).

  1. Order vs Chaos
  2. Gods and Ettins
  3. Wyrd and Orlæg

The following list of webpages also has a good pages for beginner’s information on Fyrnsidu:

What’s next?

What’s on this page is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the modern religion known as Fyrnsidu. However, it’s more than enough to get one grounded in the basics and start practicing.

After you’ve made it through the material on this page, I highly encourage you to check out the blogs, websites, and YouTube channels to be found on The Fyrnsidu Community page of Fyrnsidu.faith.