WEB
ISSUE 14
F WYRD
WINTERDAY
31b Manor Road, Barnet, Herts, EN5 2LA
NOV/2009
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CONTENTS
Woden's Day 547 - a tale of early settlers
3
What has been and what shall come to pass or the past 6 months and what to look forward to!
4
News from the North!
A post-Yule event to look forward to in Cumbria
8
A plea.....
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31b Manor Road, Barnet, Herts, EN5 2LA
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Woden's Day 547
I knew I was back in the
North when the theatre
was outdoors. The venue for
this pageant was Tynemouth
Priory, the remains of an
ancient monastery on the
edge of the coast, an
English Heritage site that
is borrowed by the
theatrical community group
Tynemouth Pageant every
three years. The play ran,
appropriately enough, from
Woden's Day, June 17, to
June 20, the eve of
Baldersvaki.
The drama told a story of
Anglo settlement of
England, under King Ida, the
first king of Nothumbria
after the Roman collapse,
who brought his war band
to the North East of
England in the year of the
play's title. Ida's claimed
lineage is recorded and like
much of the royalty of that
time, begins with Woden,
nine generations back. The
story spoke for the native
and invading tribes, and
their respective gods,
31b Manor Road, Barnet, Herts, EN5 2LA
Woden and Coventina – a
Romano-British goddess –
debating the choice
between war and peaceful
settlement. The play was a
mixture of history, mythos
and light-hearted fun.
Aspects of old British and
Anglo culture were played
out, including some AngloSaxon riddling. Hugin and
Munin as bickering ravens
gave a humorous narrative
and the play included
recorded music and live
song.
It's warming to see the
mythology and history of
the region as living
entertainment, particularly
in such fitting settings, and
I have to wonder how close
the mood might have been
to past pageants. There is a
theory that the Poetic Edda
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is mostly written not to be
read as poetry, but as
instructions for live drama.
Tony Brush
Woden, as portrayed in the play,
is shown on the front cover
Last Six Months
During the past six months
we have had a varied and, I
thought, interesting
programme of courses. The
Warrior Camp in June was
blessed with excellent
weather and most of the
time was devoted to axe
training. The summer camp
seemed to be a success
with Ivar teaching, always
good to learn about Stav
direct from the master
himself. Again the weather
was pretty good and we
were able to cover most
aspects of Martial arts
training as well as many
other aspects of the
Hafskjold Stav tradition.
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Axe training at Warrior Camp
During the Autumn we
continued using the Hall at
St. Marys in Glastonbury.
This is a delightful facility
almost in the centre of
Glastonbury yet it still
provides parking for those
attending. (So long as the
locals don't pinch the
reserved spaces for
shopping.) In September
and November we held two
introductory courses there
which were quite well
attended and this will
hopefully continue in 2010,
several dates have been
booked as you will see
below. We also started
holding a Wednesday
evening class at the same
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venue. This has had a
rather small attendance so
far but the two regular
students have been making
very good progress and
numbers should pick up in
the new year.
In October we held another
course at Bath Spa
University hosted by the
Bath Spa Pagan Society.
Eleven people supported
this event despite having to
hold it on the playing field
because of a clash of dates
meaning that we couldn't
use an indoor space. The
theme was self-defence and
all those attending seemed
to get a lot out of it.
Thanks to Natascha for
organising it.
Also in October I took
another trip to the USA
where numbers were rather
small but we had a good
time and it enabled Miki and
Therissa to continue making
good progress. Thanks to
Miki for arranging it and
Therissa for hosting it
again.
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We held two courses at
Horspath too. The
September one was well
attended and proved to be
a useful day training with
the Staff as well as
covering other 'Teflon'
aspects of Stav. Thanks to
David Stone for his help
with that. The October
course was devoted to Axe
training and numbers were
smaller, however that
enabled us to have a day of
intense and high level
training. During the
Autumn I was informed
that sadly Horspath Chapel
will probably close next
year due to lack of use. It
has certainly been a great
asset over the past few
years but if Stav training is
going to continue on a
regular basis in
Oxfordshire we will almost
certainly have to find a new
venue after March. If
anyone knows of anywhere
suitable then please let me
know.
Membership numbers have
held up well this year, I do
appreciate it when people
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renew and I have set up a
group on Facebook which at
time of writing has thirty
two members. I do find
this an extremely useful
way of keeping people
informed of what is going
on and for advertising
events and courses. If you
are on Facebook or thinking
of joining please join the
group.
Next Six Months
The first half of 2010 has a
full and exciting programme
planned which I hope you
will be able to support. It
is my intention over the
next year to cover at least
the first two levels of the
Ice and Fire Stav training
syllabus. If you don't have
a copy you can download one
from the website or email
me and I will send you one
as an attachment. To
enable this I have booked a
course each month between
January and May at St
Marys in Glastonbury at
time of writing all dates are
at www.stav-events.org and
I will shortly be adding a
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full list and links to booking
by Pay Pal to the Ice and
Fire site. These will start
by covering Trel stances
and staff training in
January and working
through the rest over the
following months.
There will also be a
woodland course at Scob
farm in Kent with Alex on
May 1st to 3rd and a Warrior
training camp in Somerset
on the 19th and 20th of
June. At time of writing I
haven't been able to
confirm dates for the 2010
Summer Camp because I
don't want to clash with the
Druid camp and the Druid
Network haven't fixed the
date for that yet. I will
have that sorted out by the
end of December and will
post it to the website as
soon as I can.
I have also booked
Horspath Chapel for the
16th of January which will
be devoted to Staff
training and have been
offered dates in March. I
need to see what demand
31b Manor Road, Barnet, Herts, EN5 2LA
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there is for March before I
confirm a booking. As
stated above March will
probably be the last
opportunity to hold a Stav
course in Horspath.
I am very pleased to say
that other people have been
willing to organise Stav
courses in their own
localities. In early
February we should be
holding a course in
Nuneaton arranged by Jen
Asbury and over the
weekend of the 20th and
21st there will be a course in
Berlin in Germany organised
by Carsten Klatte. In early
March I will be going to
Geneva in Switzerland to
teach a course arranged by
Frank Mulhauser and then
back to the USA for the
10th to 12th of April. So I
will be clocking up a few
miles on land and air next
spring. We also have two
more events planned for
Bath Spa Uni organised by
Natascha Imlay, on the 30th
of January the course will
concentrate on Staff
training and there will be a
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Mott and Megin course on
the 24th of April.
There are also two special
events in the spring. On
the 17th of April I have
been asked to give a one
hour presentation on Stav
at the Wessex Pagan
Federation Conference at
Glastonbury Town Hall. On
the 16th of May there will
be a Martial Arts Festival
at Bath University Sports
Centre (Separate from the
Bath Spa University) when
12 different Martial arts
will each present a 15
minute demonstration and
we have been invited to
participate. Both of these
should be excellent
opportunities to promote
Stav to a wider audience in
the South West.
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So altogether many exiting
opportunities for training
and promoting Stav in 2010
and I hope for as much
support as possible.
Prices in 2010
I endeavour to keep costs
of membership and training
as reasonable as possible
so, as far as possible, no
one is excluded by reasons
of expense. However I
need to make the following
changes for 2010. Due to
an increase in the cost of
providing insurance and
postage I will be raising the
cost of membership from
£25 to £30 for new
members and renewal from
£20 to £25. But anyone
joining or renewing before
the 31st of January can
have the old price. Even if
your membership isn't due
for renewal for a few
months I will accept early
renewal but not actually
process your renewal until
the due date. For courses I
am going to raise the cost
of courses to £30 for the
day for non-members and
£25 for members but I will
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offer a pre-booking
discount of £5 on each
price if you book and pay
ahead of the event by
cheque or Pay Pal. This is
to try and make sure I am
going to cover the cost of
the course before it goes
ahead so I would be very
grateful for your cooperation with this.
Graham Butcher
Disir Ting - Upcoming
Course, England
After setting staves for
nearly a year in the North
East, I'm co-running a
weekend event in the North
West, with Darren and
snake. This will be from
February 5th to 8th, to
coincide roughly with "Disir
Ting", which means
"Women's meeting", though
Disir can also imply "female
spirits". The event will
focus on some of the more
esoteric aspects of Stav in
harmony with the feminine
aspect of the festival, and
will offer a rare chance to
experience Lokk-Seid, on
31b Manor Road, Barnet, Herts, EN5 2LA
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two evenings. Darren and I
will share workshop leading
duties and snake will be
feeding us food to die for.
The destination is a
converted stone barn near
Coniston, in the midst of
one of England's treasures,
the Lake District. There
are 9 places only, some of
which have already gone,
and the lower price is
available until 10th
December 2009. Full
details are on
www.northanhymbreve.org.uk.
We're experimenting a
little with the format, the
course will be very intense
(14 hours over the main two
days), and we're pushing
the boat out with food.
Time will tell whether
these are popular moves.
Please send any questions
to me at
[email protected]
or 0191 236 2451.
If the course is full then
some cash will be set aside
towards longer term plans,
namely the purchase of land
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for a permanent Stav Ve in
"Northanhymbre". This is a
long way off, but the
journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step.
Tony Brush
Well, here we are
again - heading towards
Yule, looking forward to the
festivities despite
tightening our belts, and
deciding to worry about the
losing of any excess weight
after all the fun is over.
You may have noticed that
the magazine is a little thin
this edition - this isn't a
planned feature, but it is
something that you can help
with. As members, it is
your magazine - we just
provide the outlet. If you
have anything that you
would like to share whether it is a report on a
course, a review of a book
or film, or musings on the
state of the world, then
please help us to provide a
better magazine by letting
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us know! It doesn't have to
be long, or a groundbreaking
piece of work - think of this
more of a chat around the
campfire or in front of the
hearth.
Alternatively, if there is
any area that you would
particularly like to see
covered, then again - let us
know and we will see what
we can do! You can let
Graham know, or email me
on [email protected]
Anything will be considered,
as long as it can be
somehow connected to Stav
(and many of you will, by
now, be aware that pretty
much everything can, in
some way, be tied in to Stav
philosophy or experience),
so get to it!
Until next time, keep the
line, keep your wits, and
may Jord and Freyr smile
on you over Yule!
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31b Manor Road, Barnet, Herts, EN5 2LA
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