Yorkshire: Pagan History and Alien UFOs

Before the apparent extent of the child grooming scandals became apparent I would have joked about Yorkshire’s biggest mystery being why it has such a high self opinion, as I did in Wales when I lived there; and that the mystery of why the Nora Battyish  women want attention is explained by them growing up on Last of the Summer Wine. Compo was one of my favourite sitcom characters, but that doesn’t mean I fancied Nora!

However, now I think ‘local pride’ is needed as a defence against invasive cultures, due to the combination of high immigration and a Multicultural Fascism politics and media policy over the last twenty years.

Mysterious Yorkshire by Rupert Matthews

While there is still a lot of greatness in Yorkshire, such as a couple of big lovely national parks, historic towns and villages, and a high-chalk-cliffs coastline including abundant seabirds Rupert Matthews explains why Yorkshire is so proud in his book on its mysteries.

In history, Yorkshire spread across the north to the west coast, so including the Lake District. It is already the biggest county in England if including its four geographical sub-sections together (separated in 1974), and was big enough to be a separate country in its historic form, as it basically was before England formed; and as many still want it to be today.

Pagan Yorkshire

Matthews discusses how the Yorkshire area was separated into tribal areas when the Romans invaded about 2000 years ago. The biggest tribe were the Brigantes, who worshipped one goddess, Brigantia, and controlled the north and west of the region; the Parisii controlled the east, and worshipped multiple ‘pagan’ deities. There are many stone circles and monoliths from that era, including the highest standing stone at Rudston.

Rome introduced Christianity, but after they left, paganism became the norm again after Germanic tribes; such as the Jutes, Angles and Saxons; settled into the vacuum left by the Romans.

After Christianity took hold again after a few centuries, the Vikings brought paganism with them when they invaded. Over the following centuries, Christianity became the norm again, through a mixture of preaching, war and bribery, but pagan beliefs and practises continued, and are still celebrated today. In fact, many ‘Christians’ seem to have more ‘pagan’ beliefs than mildly pagans like me; being more inclined to be superstitious etc.

There are chapters discussing many fairies, witches and ghosts sightings and experiences, and many are very persuasive. There is even a were creature legend known as the barguest (not greenYgrey though) said to roam Ilkley Moor, which also has a stone circle, and regular mysterious lights sightings.

Alien UFO Yorkshire

There was also a famous UFO/alien encounter there in December 1987 (when I’d left the UK!), with a policeman taking photos of ‘something’ (looking old-fashioned greenygrey itself, while the photo is overall greenYgrey):

There was an even stranger experience in the Halifax-Todmorden area in November, 1980 (around the time I had my distant UFO experience in Wales) with several policemen seeing UFO’s; some close-up.

Moreover, one of them, Alan Godfrey, under hypnosis recollected being abducted, and had earlier that year investigated a man, Zigmund Adamski, who’d been found dead from shock, staring face-up at the sky on a pile of coal, after disappearing several days earlier.

The strangest and most convincing part was that Adamski had some ointment on him, as if it had been used to tend burn marks, that they still don’t know the composition of; and there were also strange marks found on the body.

I have found out all that barguest/UFO information since writing my parody comedy X-Files fantasy fiction travel book featuring a vegetarian werewolf protagonist:

Viking Pagans Were of their Time, Monotheists Worse in More Recent Times

If I.S. have done one good thing for humanity and the world it is to show the horrors of war; of course, they weren’t meaning to do good for humanity and the world. As Simon Schama pointed out at the start of the Civilisations programme with the account of the killing of Khaled al-Asaad, 82, at Palmyra, for refusing to reveal the whereabouts of art pieces, they were doing it to intimidate and threaten, using new information technology.

Art of the Vikings

My interest in Viking culture (500-1100 AD) was inspired by The Vikings movie (1958), and when I was young it was all about their scenic sailing warriordom; as I was intrigued by wild pagan Native American horseriding culture from Hollywood movies.

However, in modern times; I intended starting my travels by taking the ferry to Bergen, Norway, but then changed them as I waited for the Monsters of Rock in late August, and so headed south straightaway, before reaching there for the Midnight Sun Marathon in 2007; I admire Scandinavia for its democratic civilised qualities and environmental initiatives.

In the latest NASA’s Unexplained Files I liked the story of the skydiver seeing a rock fall near him, causing a year-long search. When a NASA worker worked out it must have fallen from his parachute, the Norwegian investigator said he thought everybody would be angry, but they were all happy and congratulatory, because they’d been honest, and science had worked. That’s the kind of scientific ethos I try to have with my writing and research.

In Secret Knowledge: The Art of Vikings I liked the jadeYgrey Buddha statue they found some Vikings had from the 6th Century Swat Valley in the heart of Asia, which was then Buddhist (about 14 minutes of the documentary).

Then just after about 20 minutes of the 30 minutes documentary, Dr. Ramirez says she thinks one of the main interests the pagan Vikings first saw in the Christian religion was the part played by fish, as they were a part of their natural folklore too, and they valued living things the most. This thirty-five piece gold, silver and bronze (me: Olympic medals relevance?) Viking fishtail necklace shows their respect:

Vikings in Historical Context Compared to Monotheism

Inquisition Documentary Shows Christian Horrors

The Yesterday channel series about the Inquisition has showed the horrors of the Christian church in Europe from the 11th Century to the 19th, with the last episode focusing on the British witch trials. Thousands of people were killed, with most being women who were the community healers; or victims of grudges and land grabs. Britain wasn’t as bad as continental Europe, and one man called Matthew Hopkins killed the majority of victims in a three years period 1644-1647.

Muslim Pirates Acting Like Vikings Until 19th Century

Barbary pirates were raiding Europe as the Vikings had done up to the 19th Century, capturing victims for sale as slaves, until European nations united to repel them. Over a million Europeans were enslaved from 1530 to 1780. Some of the enslavers were European ‘converts’.

When I was reading about Iceland around my January visit I saw that it suffered horrific such attacks in 1627, with hundreds of victims killed, and hundreds forced into slavery. (Wikipedia).

Conclusion

I’ve grown out of my childhood and youthful Romantic Viking Hollywood movie inspiration now, and relate more to Odin than Loki of the Valhalla pantheon; wisdom over trickery; especially after seeing the Valhalla Rising film featured heavily in the Scandinavian section of XaW Files!

As Dr. Ramirez pointed out at the end of her Art of the Vikings documentary, the battles for ‘England’ in 1066 were basically a Viking civil war, with the Normans (Norsemen) Vikings who settled in northern France, and those already resident in ‘England’ having strong Viking links after hundreds of years of residency.

I updated my thoughts on the Americas migration, and its connection to the Middle-East, last night on fmpoetry.wordpress.com, arguing that what is most amazing about it is that the Mayans featured similar structures and symbols (500-800 AD) about 20,000 years after their ancestors must have left the Middle-East to start the migration to the Americas, and where the Mesopotamians would signify the importance of the bag-carrying Apkallu around 2500 BC.

Iceland Fairy Angel Elf Pixie (IFAPE) Photograph Evidence?

I’m still an agnostic secularist, bordering on atheism, and with appreciation for nature (mild non-practising [beyond perfect in a self-parody way, scoring 73 on the all new for 2018 parodymeter] neo-paganism). While I’m focusing on Iceland here at the moment, I’d just like to thank my Blighty government for its truly Great Britain plan to plant a million trees over the near future, creating a northern forest, for wildlife and humanity; fighting against flooding. I’ve just seen its been called a ‘ribbon of woodland’, reminding me of I think seeing a ribbon of Northern Lights in Reykjavik.

There was a pristine POP (PinkyOrangePurple) sunrise this morning in Blighty, due to high pressure dominating today, with the sky POPing now at about 7.45, about 30-45 minutes earlier than at the midwinter peak POPing time around December 21st.

goldenYgrandad (age not biological), Inspired by Golden Child

I remember liking Eddie Murphy’s Golden Child movie when I was young, and some of the my first poems wondered if I was special in some pagan way. I guess most people do, as fiction tries to make you relate to the protagonist.

After researching mental health, I put it down to ADHD and Bipolarity, and seeing documentaries by people like Chris Packham and Lotje Sodderland recently, think it might be mild autism/Asperger’s or brain damage! However, I don’t know for sure, and maybe I do have a special relationship with the natural world, like the shamen of traditional societies.

Bjork’s Iceland Pagan Light Returned?

As I wrote in a previous blog Cork Bjork Dork Talk post, I was surprised to see Bjork’s The Gate and Utopia videos related so much to the PinkyOrangePurple (POP) theme of XaW Files: Beyond Humanity; and that she’d started writing it at the end of 2015, drawing inspiration from her Iceland countryside, when I was finishing XaW Files in the Iceland countryside; of course unaware (un-a-were in greenYgrey parlez) of Bjork’s wandering wondering.

I’d already decided to visit Iceland when I found that out about Bjork. I’ve of course always wanted to visit, and finishing my book there provided extra drive, along with cheap EasyJet flights; which were excellent, flying there on time through a storm, and landing in quite heavy snow. It looked beautiful in the snow, but looked even more so when I returned at the end of my trip.

Remembering greenYgreyology, there is a negative to Iceland’s tourism popularity, as many locals are being priced out of housing because so many flats etc are being converted to tourist accommodation. So, sorry to those struggling to get on the housing ladder if I contribute to the ‘problem’.

Borgarnes Sun Light

As I wrote in the last couple of blogs, I set off on a Friday morning at about 10am to have a look around Borgarnes and do a little shopping at the Bonus supermarket; No Rush. A pinky sunrise creating a purply hue above the snowy mountains kept me walking across the bridge:

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The sun didn’t rise over the mountains, but when I neared the end of the Borgarfjordur icy frozen beach I was delighted to see it around a corner, both for its brightness and warmth:

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I was going to take a photo of Borgarnes shining in the sun, but a combination of the brightness and cold hands (despite two pairs of gloves, albeit old ones with some holes!) made me turn the phone camera to ‘selfie’. I saw the sun behind me, so took a photo anyway, as I was nearing the end of the beach, and felt it was an occasion worth remembering.

I couldn’t really see the screen at the time, and it was only when I returned to the warmth, after finally doing my shop, for a couple of hours before going out for four hours Northern Lights view-attempting, that I saw the golden light near my mouth.

The rational in me says its a sunlight reflection, but after watching Bjork’s videos again, I did wonder if it was something to do with the Icelandic pagan light she featured in The Gate:

and Utopia:

I think I have seen such ‘light’, but don’t know if it’s just atmospherics, with the Icelandic air seeming very active, perhaps because of Northern Lights activity providing extra electricity – the end of the recent Lotje Sodderland documentary featured new neurological research finding the brain’s neurons process ‘light’ for their electrical impulses.

Maybe some of that light travels through the brain and body unprocessed, exiting still as ‘light’.

Cork Bjork Dork Talk: Iceland Utopia Gate

I used to think Bjork was a bit of a dork in the 1980s, although I appreciated her alternative artistry bringing a new dimension to pop music. Now, our paths seem to have converged, as Bjork has found Utopia after I published XaW Files: Beyond Humanity. Bjork said her muse Gate to Utopia was walking around the Icelandic countryside, where XaW Files had ended just before Bjork wrote the Utopia album.

PinkyOrangePurple Theme

Of course, Bjork is Icelandic, and has been a megastar for twenty years, so she has much more right to Icelandic inspiration than me, as well as creative pedigree, but her Utopia album did follow my XaW Files. Not that I think Bjork drew inspiration from my book, and she probably hasn’t heard of it.

The biggest coincidence I found wasn’t that Bjork had named the album Utopia and drawn her biggest inspiration from the countryside, but that the Gate and Utopia videos had a very PinkyOrangePurple theme, just like XaW Files ended with, after initially starting on a pop art travel quest. Here’s the videos:

The Utopia album has done okay in sales, and has been lauded by critics, which is how I think XaW Files should have done, but the modern Multicultural Fascist child-abusing British culture ignores it, as they have done the industrial scale grooming, rape, torture and prostitution happening on Blighty’s streets for the last twenty years, turning ordinary people and patriots into racists and criminals.

Remembering greenYgreyism, and being fair to my birthplace, I think Blighty is better than Iceland for animal welfare, but not environmentalism; hopefully more whale-watching tourism etc will continue to inspire Iceland to lessen the animals it hunts and eats, although meat-tourism can also fuel it; in what is a very tough, but incredibly beautiful, place to live, weather-wise.

I can provide a foreign second opinion to Bjork’s that the Icelandic countryside does seem to still have magic there, perhaps because they’ve retained their paganism more than any other European country, and will hopefully bring you some evidence soon…

Super Moon Between Two Successful Sunrise and Sunset POPs: sMs

There was a hat-trick of sky beauty yesterday and today, as a POP (PinkyOrangePurple) sunset was followed by clear sky for the super moon, and then this morning there was another sensational POP sunrise, starting at about 7.45am, before the sun rose about twenty minutes later – and then it was time to look away.

In greenYgrey (gYg) acronym parlez the sunrise-moon-sunset would be shortened to sMs, with sms also an acronym for short message service – a recent BBC news feature was about why people still text. A photo from Washington featured on MSN seemed to include them all together in one; what could be called a POP moon:

POP Skies the new POP Music

The heading of the article reminded me of the song Dancing in the Streets, with Mick Jagger and David Bowie including a lot of great greenYgreying in their video; especially Jagger’s clothes.

Replace ‘summer’ with ‘winter’, ‘dancing’ with ‘POPing’ (pronounced popping), and ‘music’ with ‘clear skies’, and you’ve got a great POP version!

This is all written from a parody comedy angle of course. I don’t want to replace pop or rock music, especially with the greenYgrey world in the human one ending in the ABBA age!

Next month there’s a wolf moon and blue moon. As expertly explained on BBC news this morning, the wolf moon derives from Native American culture, as wolves are said to howl more poignantly in cold January, when food is scarce and they struggle to survive; while the blue moon is because it’s the second one in January, falling on the last day, so February will not have one, and that’s why there is the saying, ‘Once in a blue moon’: because having two full moons in one month is quite rare.

Moreover, in the greenYgrey world it will see the transition from MIST to MUSE (Midwinter Until Spring Equinox [around March 21st, when the days are equal light and dark]), with the four months known together as mistYmuse. Y-day is on January 21st.

Sky Highlights, December 2017

Before that, it looks like there’ll be a great pre-POP morning sky mid-month, as reported on Cosmic Pursuits:  ‘As it makes its way eastward along the ecliptic, the thin crescent Moon lies just 5º to the north of the planet Mars in the eastern and south-eastern sky before dawn.’

This is included from a mainly aesthetic (looks nice), amateur scientific, mildly pagan ancient wisdom angle, rather than any later religions.

Planets, Moon, and stars in the pre-dawn sky on the morning of December 14, 2017 looking towards the southeast.

 

La Hougue Bie, Jersey, Underground Place for Me… Pagan Statue of Liberty!

On my first journey around Europe in 1987/88 I visited some of the biggest tourist sites, such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Colisseum in Rome and Acropolis in Athens. It’s a tradition I kept up on my 25th anniversary tour, visiting Mont Saint Michel near Saint Malo; the Naeroyfjord near Bergen; Gamla Stan in Stockholm and the Nou Camp in Barcelona (should probably have been La Sagrada Familiar, but did visit other Gaudi sites!).

In Latvia last year I visited Turaida Museum in the Gauja Valley, a day-trip from Riga to Sigulda; the Open-Air museum on the edge of Tallinn in Estonia and Suomenlinna fort guarding Helsinki’s harbour in Finland.

Jersey has some very impressive castles, such as Elizabeth, guarding Saint Helier harbour…

… and Gorey (Mont Orgueil) on the east coast…

… as well as several interesting museums, but when I found out about the 6,000 years old Neolithic burial chamber of La Hougue Bie it was the place for me to be.

The original Neolithic burial chamber, with the entrance positioned facing east so sunrise reached the back wall on the equinoxes, had a mound built over it originally, making it look very greenygrey (remembering my decade-old Blighty dominant landscape concept):

In Medieval times a church was built on top, adding another layer of grey; and it’s greenYgrey inside too!:

I entered the burial chamber three times, without intending to originally. The first time was to have a look; the second was after remembering the torch on my phone to light it up better, and the third after I’d visited the museum and found out more about it. The first photo here is looking inside, and the second out:

You may be wondering if I felt a connection to the ancestors? I don’t know really, maybe I did, or maybe it was just me wanting to, creating it more in my mind.

Making the Most of Life: Life is for the Living

I think I’ve felt more of a connection to the living creatures I’ve met the last year, decade and life. I felt more of a ‘magical connection’ this week, with an unplanned stop in the last place of sunshine before returning to ‘civilisaton’, at first just planning to get ten more minutes of hot sunshine for a Vitamin D boost, storing it up for the coming autumn.

Staring for a few minutes into lush vegetation, a tree I’ve probably passed hundreds or thousands of times began to take shape in my mind. A few trees away, two squirrels ran around the trunk, looking as if they were playing; making the most of the morning sunshine. Then water fell from one branch, looking like a waterfall; and big flying insects landing on leaves reminded me of the Avatar movie.

Standing there, with a bag of blackberries in one hand, and my t-shirt covering my front in the other (sun on my back), I knew I must have looked odd to any ‘normal’ people who saw me; but later thought I may have also resembled the Statue of Liberty (in a pagan kind of greenYgrey way!):