If you’re interested in ordering a shirt or other items with this design, please contribute to my survey HERE so I can better understand the scale of interest and proceed from there. You can read about the concept and process behind it below. Thank you!
I started working on this design around the Capitol Riot in January 2021, but it’s taken various revisions and conversations to bring it to this point of sharing. I reached out to Dr. Jackson Crawford regarding using a small portion of his translation from The Wanderer’s Havamal and was given consent to do so, which was really an honor, and have been researching how best to produce the shirts given the range of colors and transparency when I have time.
The original concept was to develop a design inclusive Heathens could display to make it readily apparent they were supportive of the queer and BIPOC communities. January was a frightening, uncertain time existing here in the United States, and everywhere I looked the heathen community was once again discussing the issues of racism in the community and the use of these symbols by white supremacists. That conversation isn’t new, but it often feels swept under the rug or dismissed for more comfortable topics in heathen circles. I was angry that it took such an upheaval to tip the conversation beyond ‘not being political,’ but at the very least it feels easier to broach. The heathenry subreddit have made a stickied post about this, and recently Beofeld and some other members of the heathen community on YouTube released the Declaration of Deeds, which are welcome reminders that this should be an ongoing conversation.
So here is the design I’ve created to attempt to alleviate a fraction of the emotional and mental energy that goes into deciding whether heathens you encounter in the wild are approachable. I found some designs online when I first searched, but a lot of heathen content is quite hesitant to be direct, or makes big assumptions about how clear and friendly the messaging might appear to others–there’s even heathen stickers and t-shirts out there with rainbow colors on them, but this wasn’t what I was looking for. I long for a day when I can approach others wearing a Mjolnir or spearhead necklace without having to calculate as I walk towards them whether they have any suspect tattoos or the like.
Included Symbols
The Drinking Horn After listing out and sketching a number of potential symbols from Mjolnir to admittedly reaching longships or Ulfberht swords, I decided on the drinking horn. While potentially a bit old-fashioned–my hearth and I prefer horn cups with flat bottoms and save the horn itself for larger blots–I feel the horn represents the values of hospitality and community in heathenry, and the blessing and sharing of the horn with esteemed guests in Beowulf and other texts is an emotive and memorable scene. It was also important to me to avoid martial symbols of heathenry, which are found all over the place. As this is also directed towards people not within the heathen community, I wanted to represent protection as an element of hospitality. Imagine a complete stranger trying to sort out the intended message of a rainbow longship!
Runes I was concerned to include the runes in this, but feel the rest of the design offers enough that is immediately recognizable that the runes will serve as a sort of additional nod to heathenry, an echo of Havamal 47, and present these runes in an explicitly welcoming context where they have often been used by supremacist groups.
Rainbow Few of the dozens of pride flags around today are quite so ubiquitous as the rainbow flag, which has made its way into corporate advertising at this point. Incidentally, I also feel it adds some brightness and needed color to the design–lots of heathen content is quite focused on what feels like an aesthetic of Fimbulwinter.
BIPOC Colors I have tried and failed to find the origin of this flag online, but as of yet have come up empty-handed. At this point, at least among my friends who would recognize it in the first place, it feels quite common and simple to parse if you haven’t seen it already.
If you skipped the lede, I promise I’ll only judge you a little–you can contribute to the survey about this design should you want a t-shirt or other item here!
Halrgang 