101 replies to this topic

[Penda]

Christianity has been a central part of English life for well over a thousand years. Organised Christianity is falling to pieces at the moment, it is weak, & over run with liberal dogma. The Church of England really is going to pot. I'm unsure how Catholicism is (other than the large amount of paedos), or any of the numerous smaller Christian branches.

Now I know many here are heathens (myself included), but it stands to reason that there are many English folk who are Christian by name only - and 99.9% of English folk today have Christian ancestors or relatives. I believe a strong native brand of Christianity is needed to give these people morals, hope, togetherness - that sense of community that has eroded since the 60s. As well as the increase in immigration, this also coincides with decreasing religion.

Question is, does a strong brand of native English Christianity exist? 'Un-organised' as such - not a global brand? Is there hope for the CofE to see the light (pun intended) and get its house in order? Is it corrupt from the top (as it seems to be)? And if Christianity isn't working for a folk anymore, can anyone see a mass movement towards Heathenry - or is atheism the only way we are going - here and in the west in general?
Who knows. But the English are lacking a part of themselves - the community side. And we have all these wonderful old churches, be sad to see them all being used as mosques, temples and so on as immigration continues.

What are your thoughts?

[Hodekin]

My thoughts on the matter are that C of E Christianity is more or less doomed in the face of Islam, the Roman Catholic church may have the power and will to fight it, but the Vatican is too embroiled with the money masters of this world to boldly fly in the face of 'international opinion'.

Only a grass root faith which is not compromised by money and therefore with nothing to lose, has any chance of combating this eastern onslaught in this our western land.

Is Heathenry the answer? Possibly, but not with this current generation! The youth need role models to inspire them, and I'm not talking about overpaid preening pop stars or footballers, things will have to get much worse before they get any better and we are in for some very rough times I fear.

But when you have nothing, then the most basic thing becomes an object of reverence and reality. In Mexico and southern California, there is now a trend for the Spanish/Latin youth gangs in following the old Aztec warrior Gods. Fused into the modern youth culture, their names and images are spray painted graffiti style onto neighbourhood walls, marking out 'their territory'. As is the Mexican way, this is a fusion of old style Catholicism and even older pre Columbian paganism, but it is a return to older values and racial role models.

Could the same happen here with Heathenry? It could! But it would be a very different Heathenry from the Wagnerian style we are currently used to.

I'll write no more on this subject right now, but as you can probably see, I have strong views on the matter, and perhaps it is a thread worth investigating.


Hodekin

[Steed]

My thoughts are that Christianity is a genuine but unfortunate result of aeon-long folk conditioning. It is unnatural to us, but has become commonplace via centuries of force and promotion. It is and always was a tool of oppression. The Old Ways are the only ways truly natural to us and ideally we should all return to them. However, as much as I love my fellow Englishmen unconditionally, I do not believe that all are willing or able to see through the lies to return to something we have been conditioned to move away from. The current Establishment religion is Atheism, for Christianity no longer serves the Globalist agenda. It will be as difficult to convert Atheists to the Old Ways as it was Christians.

But does that matter? I don't think so. It's strange to say as an English Nationalist, but I see our folk become increasingly polarised. Not all of us will unite to throw off the shackles of this modern world. Many will blend into the multiracial, politically correct totalitarian society and only a minority will maintain true English dignity. We must face the fact that any English nation surviving a century from now will probably only consist of 5% of the current English nation (a nation in terms of people). That remaining English nation stands a much stronger chance of returning to the Old Ways.

[Dan of Biggleswade]

Truth is, you can't discredit the role that christianity has played in english history. Yes, many of you here observe the old faith and that is your right. I personally revere woden and thunor from a cultural point of view and would proudly wear the symbols, but i believe that on a spiritual level it shouldnt be seen as a neccessary part of joining the englisc cause. But this focus on the old ways, socially, spiritual, etc is very important either way!

[Essex Saxon]

I am a practicing Christian. The problem is that many so-called Christians are either liberal and do not believe the Bible but preach a drippy, emasculated message that is both PC and left wing in that it tolerates things which the Bible calls 'sin.' Unfortunately, most people are not able to distinguish between real Christians and false ones. The Bible even predicts that many false Christians will arise and distort the truth.

[Yngvi]

I think from experience that religion and nationalism should be kept seperate but its so hard not to mix the two. I personally hate Christianity for what it has done to our people. Many Christian establishments have been taken over by the liberal middle class. You never see a poor Vicar and even to this day the collection bowl keeps rattling. Its also the fact that Christianity is a sand religion used to enslave and steal from the poor. I really couldn't care less if every church in England was flattened. Although some are stunning, they are nothing more than beacons of Eastern dominance over our folk and land. Many being built on ancient pre-Christian places of worship.

Its the people that make a religion and so I believe personally we need a new folk religion to bring us inline. One for the English by the English with England and its people at the fore. A warrior religion to help us survive in the coming years. Christianity is to soft and fearmongering. We must not fear our foes and stop bending over begging for forgiveness. Its time to hold our heads high and make our enemies beg us for mercy.

We should also not be forced to fear death or fear making mistakes which may lead to us going to 'Hell'. Its keeping people back from having the spirit and balls to fight. Christianity has become way to hippyfied to survive in this day and age. If the Church was to introduce Warrior arts to its practitioners and teach folk personal protection without fearing death then it may survive.

The biggest fear I have for Christianity is it will join Islam through being dominated. Remember - both the religions are Abrahamic. Its just that Islam is a more extreme version of Christianity. If the common Church keeps collapsing then they will have no choice but to eventually amalgamate. I have had Christian ancestors and it may have served them well in the past - but not me, not now our country and people are suppposivly doomed. So rather than sit and ponder I think any religion which is for the English must incorporate any threat into its practices.

Like I said, we need a new religion to bond our people once again. Maybe the English CofE practitioners can adapt themselves to help the Church fit in with the modern threat of the Eastern invasion. But many Church goers in my home town are either Polish, Irish, Itallian, African or they come from Goa in India. That's what happens when you have a one world massively multicultural religion and mix it with English nationalism. It will never work unless a religion seperates itself for the nation alone, which is sadly impossible and to late for the CofE.

This is why the old ways brought upto date have deeper roots and a stronger nationalistic meaning to me. If people want to follow an Abrahamic belief then that's their choice. But don't those people start crying when Islam takes over!

We are the English, we don't need problems we need solutions. If the Christian religion builds a bond among kindred then so be it. But wouldn't it be nice to have an all English religion for our folk which promotes positive energy and rekindles English pride?

[Guthlac]

Penda Of Teotta, on 30 August 2012 - 08:05 PM, said:

Christianity has been a central part of English life for well over a thousand years. Organised Christianity is falling to pieces at the moment, it is weak, & over run with liberal dogma. The Church of England really is going to pot. I'm unsure how Catholicism is (other than the large amount of paedos), or any of the numerous smaller Christian branches.

Now I know many here are heathens (myself included), but it stands to reason that there are many English folk who are Christian by name only - and 99.9% of English folk today have Christian ancestors or relatives. I believe a strong native brand of Christianity is needed to give these people morals, hope, togetherness - that sense of community that has eroded since the 60s. As well as the increase in immigration, this also coincides with decreasing religion.

Question is, does a strong brand of native English Christianity exist? 'Un-organised' as such - not a global brand? Is there hope for the CofE to see the light (pun intended) and get its house in order? Is it corrupt from the top (as it seems to be)? And if Christianity isn't working for a folk anymore, can anyone see a mass movement towards Heathenry - or is atheism the only way we are going - here and in the west in general?
Who knows. But the English are lacking a part of themselves - the community side. And we have all these wonderful old churches, be sad to see them all being used as mosques, temples and so on as immigration continues.

What are your thoughts?

I cannot stand any old Church or building being used as a mosque.

Christianity has been with the English for so long and immersed into our culture. It has been used as an oppressive tool and a tool for freedom. The Normans and their legacy used it to oppress our forefathers. But our forfathers in turn used it as a tool to start to claim back English freedoms from the Norman legacy. And many offshoots that came directly from the C of E (not Catholic church) were instrumental in furthering our freedoms and rights during the17th, 18th and 19th centuries.  (Though it is not surprising after the Great War the number of folk attending church 'regularly' fell dramatically'). Similar to today, while weekly attendances have fallen the churches major dates are still its most attended times.

The C of E at the top has been infiltrated by liberals and placemen. The present Archbishops of Canterbury and York are placemen. Their been given such positions would never have been heard of in 1930's.

At present the only buffer from England being turned into an islamic country is the fact that on a national sub-conscious level, many English align themselves with the Christian church that their folk have been involved with for well over a thousand years, more so aligned with the protestant church. They realise that politicians care nothing for England, and that a major thing helping them oppose islamification is what they see as their shared English Christian culture/heritage, practising or not.

If the C of E cleared out is ranks it would be in much better shape.

I know many practising Christians who cannot stand what is happening to England. And they are not push overs. I am not a practising Christian nor Heathen. Though I have my own deep spiritual connection with our English ethnicity, folk, forefathers, culture, history, nature and our soil. And I think many English have a similar innate spiritual attachment to our soil and land ingrained in them, the result of our forfathers for nearly two-thousand years working our land. http://www.englisc-g...es-epigenetics/

So many of our indigenous English pre-Christian religious practises are still alive within English Christian practises of today. If they were to be removed folk on a national level would ask themselves what had happened. The fact is without our ancient indigenous English pre-Christian religious practices surviving on in English Christianity those Christian practises may well have fallen away.

Nationhood is the naturally evolved and required way of being of the folk. It evolved because it works and helps increase the chances of individual and tribal/group survival. Healthy rational freedom loving nationalism is essential for the folk, their country and culture to prosper. Without it a folk cannot ever hope to survive.
I think tribally, of the folk-way. Where the health and welfare of the individual is reflected in the health and well being of the tribe/folk, and vice versa. Where one should not exploit nor sacrifice the other, but be of mutual strength and support. They are separate yet they are one.


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William Barnes was an English patriot and visionary who believed in a what I think he called a 'Saxon folk Church'.



Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
wealth accumulates, and men decay.
   By Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village


The enclosing of the commons robbed the country folk in England of
their leisure and independence, the coming of the factories took them from
their fields and old communities, and flung them into the new ones,
which were allowed to grow up anyhow, without art, without thought,
without faith or hope or charity, till the face of the land was
blackened, and the soul of the land under a cloud.
By John Masefield, St. George and the Dragon


As we have already seen from the two previous chapters, Barnes' values were to a great extent shaped by his upbringing in the Blackmore Vale. True of his artistic values, his attitude to Nature and to Art, true of his attitudes to Marriage, this is also true of all his social values. His fathers and forfathers had all been rooted in the land, the pre-Enclosure, pre-industrial rural way of life. Indeed, despite moving to Dorchester, Barnes later bought(thanks to his wife's frugality, as he acknowledges) a small piece of land in the Vale, as recorded in his poem, `I Got Two Vields', thus somehow joining his forebears in their way of life. His forefathers men, self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-improved and self-educated smallholders — like Barnes himself. Barnes, as Hardy said, was a great example of self-help, a genius who had risen from nowhere. He was in favour of self-help not, however, for the sake of money or greed but for the sake of self-respect.

Barnes expressed his social views in several works and poems quite outspokenly. Notably he opposed the Enclosures in several Eclogues such as, `The Common A-Took-in', `The Times', `The 'Lotments'. 'Two Farms in Woone', `Father Come Hwome' or `The New Poor Laws' and in a poem `The Leane'. Despite being disguised in dialect and in imitation of Virgil's Eclogues, these poems were in fact quite radical political statements — they were written after rioting among farmworkers, especially in Dorset, and at the time of the injustices inflicted on the Dorset Tolpuddle Martyrs in 1834. As regards emigration for example even in the form of transportation, Barnes considered it unfair that criminals could emigrate, whereas honest farmworkers, living in conditions of starvation, could not. Of this he wrote in one Eclouge, `Rusticus Emigrans', where a desperate labourer says, `If 'twerden var [it weren't for] my children and my wife, I wou'dent gi' zixpence var my life'.

His Eclogues especially have led several commentators to compare Barnes with Cobbett. But Barnes, though often radical was not at all a Radical, if anything his views could be compared to those of Ruskin and Morris, with the important difference that Barnes preceded them — he was a forerunner. In fact Barnes would have agreed with Cowper: `God made the country, man made the town'. The mere thought of what man had done in towns saddened him: `Many a plain wall rises between workman and the glory of the passing sun, and has shut out his window-framed piece of blue sky, and the cheering whiteness of the flying cloud. Many a day of smoke has blackened the clearness of the sweet spring-tide; many a bright-leaved tree has heretofore given way to crowded shades of narrowed rooms. Many a rood of flowery sward has become rattling streets, where for songs of birds, they have the din of hammers. Many a cheek has been paled, and lovely piece of childhood marred, by longsome hours of over-work' . He found it unnatural that man should work by night and sleep by day; in the country, `we don't grow up pe,le an' weak But we do work wi' health an' strength' ('Sleep Did Come Wi' the Dew'). And in `Open Vields' he wrote:

  
Well, you mid keep the town an' street,
Wi' grassless stwones to beat your veet,
An' zunless windows where your brows
Be never cool'd by swayen boughs;
An' let me end, as I begun,
My days in open air an' zun.

Barens was a traditionalist, yearning for the pre-industrial past which he had known in his childhood.' And here he professed a certain regionalism, for Dorset after all had for long been bypassed by the Industrial Revolution, remaining uncontaminated by grasping industrialism. There was no doubt in Barnes' mind that the country was superior to the town, and he expressed it in poems like `Praise 0' Do'set', `Farmer's Sons' Farmer's Woldest Da'ter' [Oldest Daughter], 'Blackmwore Maidens', 'John Bloom in Lon'on' or `My Orcha'd in Linden Lea'. But in reality it is implicit in his whole work, both poetry and prose. In general he could not understand why the vital activity of agriculture was not more highly valued. If then we are to look at Barnes' social values, we are to look first at this critique of the new urbanised nineteenth century society of the Industrial Revolution.

Perhaps the first tangible results of the changes that came to Dorset were the Enclosures and the merging of farms. The enclosures effectively pauperised the rural classes, for farms were brought up by a few large owners and as a result, `now they don't imploy so many men Upon the land as work'd upon it then', as Barnes wrote in his Eclogue, `Two Farms woone, This merging of farms meant the capitalisation and industrialisation of farming. Barnes defined such merging as: `The kindness which is done by capital when it affords employment to people from whom, by a monopoly, it has taken over their little business is such as one might do to a cock by adorning his head with a plume of feathers pulled out of his own tail' . The aim of the merging of farms was not to continue traditional, contented, self-supporting, village community, but to maximise output and profits at its expense. It also took away any opportunity and motivation for the thrifty labourer to save enough to one day work his own farm, a theme that was close to Barnes' heart and as early as 1829 he had written to the Dorset County Chronicle speaking of this. Poverty and distress grew and Barnes talked of it quite openly. Thus in `The Hwomestead a-Veil [Fallen] Into Hand', where out of eight farms only three were left, he wrote:

  
  An' all the happy souls they ved
Be scattered vur [far] an' wide.
An' zome o'm [some of them] be a-wanten bread,
Zome, better off, ha' died,

This can be compared with the former state of the smallholder, example in his poem, `The Hwomestead':


An' I be happy wi' my spot
0' freehold ground an' mossy cot,
An' shoulden get a better lot
If I had all my will.
I'm landlord o' my little farm,
I'm king 'ithin my little pleace;
I don't break laws, an' don't do harm,
An' ben't [aren't] afeard o' noo man's feace.

[At this point it might be worthwhile making a small digression: If Barnes thought this of the result of the merging of smallholdings in the nineteenth century, what would he have thought of the unemployment caused by the emergence of multinational corporations since the Second World, the takeover and merger fever since the 1960's, the advent of the Superstore or for that matter the development of customs unions, fashionably called `trading blocs', with their `single markets'?].
   Barnes saw the baneful effects of the Enclosures and industrialisation in the rise in crime-rates in his own day, as we have seen in thy; quoted `The Hwomestead'. In his 'Views of Labour and Gold' he demonstrated statistically that crime actually rose in proportion as farms grew in size. Of the impossibility for the labourer to better himself by saving and starting his own 'farmling', he said: `The result is that the possession of property, whether to a large or small amount, retains a man from breaking the laws of his country' . He went on to demonstrate that crime rose even more with urbanisation, quoting statistics for Liverpool and Manchester, where the amount of crime was `ten times that which prevails in the yeomanry counties'. Since Barnes considered that much of crime was a result of poor social conditions, it was to some extent a social responsibility. But in having said this, we should not think of Barnes as some kind of 'softee'. Barnes was never negligent and considered leniency to criminals a great mistake. Wrongdoers had to be punished, the innocent had to be protected. There was no reason to be kind to rogues, all had to see that honesty paid, and he thought it unmerciful to the victim to leave the wrong done to him unrighted. However, with his usual balance Barnes was not only against punishment out of cruel vengefulness, but also against the do-gooder who pays more attention to attempting to reform the criminal than to helping the victim. Although Barnes understood the responsibility of society, he also understood the importance of personal responsibility for one's acts. Indeed this same notion of personal responsibility and self-discipline or moral training was the very pacific to his teaching methods.

Some of Barnes' social thought is contained in articles he wrote for the local Poole and Dorset Herald in 1849, under the collective title  ' Humilis Domus', subtitled `Some thoughts on the Abodes, Life and Social Conditions of the Poor, especially in Dorsetshire'. (Some of these later in his Views of Labour and Gold). Here he raised a critique against the social changes in English society at the time. Objecting   to the National Debt, he considered that its existence causes every worker to have to work longer hours in order to pay it off. Although Barnes was hardly opposed to work as such, he did object to overwork,  'workaholism' as we might now call it.  

...From 'The Rebirth of England and English The vision of William Barnes' by Andrew Phillips' Anglo-Saxon Books My link

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More from his book:

In 1862 a third and final collection of dialect poems was publish followed in 1868 by more `National English' poems. His poetry was then to be reprinted many times in the coming years and after his death into the present century. In 1863 A Grammar and Glossary of the Dorset Dialect came out. Thus, despite his very time-consuming pastoral work as a priest which he carried out with great conscientiousness and sincerity, walking up to twenty miles a day visiting his parishioners, as well as his literary work, William Barnes managed to continue his antiquarian and linguistic activities. In particular in 1869 he wrote Early England and the Saxon English and in 1878 An Outline of English Speech-Craft (An English Grammar) and in 1880 An Outline of Rede-Craft (Logic), these last three quite extraordinary books written largely in his own Saxon English, full neologisms based on Old English speech.
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In 1861 he wrote TIW: or, a View of the Roots and Stems of English as a Teutonic Tongue, another highly original linguistic work.

Not forgetting a visitor said of Barnes, he 'spoke in pure English, with a beautiful simplicity and correctness'.
..............................................

Saving Our English Language
Extracts from ‘The Rebirth of England and English The Vision of William Barnes’
By Fr Andrew Phillips

His Eclogues especially have led several commentators to compare Barnes with Cobbett. But Barnes, though often radical was not at all a Radical, if anything his views could be compared to those of Ruskin and Morris, with the important difference that Barnes preceded them — he was a forerunner.
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I am lingual conservative'; and it is therefore that I wish to see a purer, and more self-enriched tongue, instead of being a jargon of four or five others. William Barnes, `Formation of the English Language', Supp. Vol. CIII of the Gentleman's Magazine, pp. 591-2, 1833

Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.
Sir Winston Churchill, 2 November, 1949


Following the Norman Invasion of 1066, the English language was invaded by French words which replaced English words. This new vocabulary concerned above all the matters which concerned the Norman ruling class. Thus the vocabulary of Government, Law, Religion and military matters are still largely Norman-French. English words were displaced and replaced. Thus, for example, by the fourteenth century Chaucer used nearly 500 French words in the Prologue to his Canterbury Tales.

The fact that English has two different sets of words for animals and the meat of animals is very telling: the fact that we say cow, calf, pig, deer and sheep indicates simply that such peasants who bred such animals were English, whereas the words beef, veal, pork, venison and mutton indicate that those who ate the meat of those animals were the Norman masters. The Norman outlook and Norman traditions even today belong to the British Establishment, be it through the names and blood of the English (or rather Norman aristocracy, the Norman-founded public schools, Norman-founded Oxbridge and the predominance of graduates from both Westminster, Whitehall, the Established Anglican Church and officer-elite in the armed forces.

This is not to mention the extensive use of Norman-Latin by barristers, the prestige associated with the knowledge of Latin and French and subsequent use of Latin and French expressions by the elite. Even the toffee-nosed accent until recently with 'R.P.' or B.B.C. English', the accent of the upper class, is merely a Norman accent, that of invaders who could not speak English properly and then, ironically, passed on their accent to succeeding generations as a status symbol, the sign of their superiority and prestige over the English peasantry. Wrote the poet Maurice Hewlett; The Norman Conquest, that successful raid made a conquest...was then when foreigners acquired an ascendancy, which they have never yet dropped.

Now historically there have been many who objected to the Invasion. Immediately after the Invasion, their resistance took the form of armed struggle. Later, however, their resistance to the Normans took, other, more subtle forms. For example in the Protestant merchant-class, overthrowing an outdated monarchy in a civil war, justified itself by claiming that it was claiming it was casting of the Norman Yoke imposed by the Conqueror. Unfortunately, though off a high tax tyranny (and William the Conqueror's rule had certainly tyrannical and high-taxing), their revolt had not been radical enough to go any further. However, the form of resistance we shall deal with here is not political but linguistic.

In the sixteenth century the Elizabethan thinker and writer Sir John Cheke (1514-57) wrote: 'Our own tung should be written cleare and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borrowing of other tunges.'

He was closely followed by a disciple, Roger Ascham (1515—68), who promoted 'the Englyshe tongue as opposed to Latin and Greek and expressed himself in the lively, pure speech of the common people'.

The famous writer Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599) also sympathised with Saxon English. And in the seventeenth century the Levellers not only sought a denormanising of the political system by a return to the Old English communitarianism, but they also sought to cleanse English of Norman words.

William Camden (1551-1623) leant his weight, writing: `The olde English could express most aptly all the conceiptes of the minde in their own tongue without borrowing from any other'. And in the seventeenth century, writers like Sir John Hare and Francis Whyte spoke of the matchlessness of 'the Saxon tongue' and called for French words to be purged from the tongue and be replaced with words from the old Saxon'.

It is to this stream of thought that William Barnes belonged. Since his time, and indeed partly due to his influence, others have joined this current of thought. They also include the Archbishop of Dublin, Richard Trench who in 1855 wrote' English Past and Present' and writers such as Dickens, Morris, Hardy, Hopkins, Orwell and the linguist and historian of English Jespersen. They all suggested that English could have remained free of Latinisms and that English justifies itself only as long as it grows organically from it's own Anglo-Saxon or Old English roots. Hopkins, for example wrote: -It makes one weep to think what English might have been. No-one however, has ever taken these ideas as far as William Barnes. Thus William Morris invented the word 'songcraft' to replace the word 'poetry' — Barnes invented hundreds of words from English roots and stems to replace foreign words, he remade `Saxon English', swimming against the linguistic tide of English history, doing the opposite to what the Normans did after their Invasion. Just as he wished England and the English to return to their true English roots, so he wished to see the English tongue return to its true English roots. What exactly were his motives?
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The third stage in Barnes' development must be as pedagogue, and Barnes was an excellent one, loved by his pupils, of whom many went far in career thanks to him. Now, Barnes was a teacher at the time of the Industrial Revolution, a time of swift social change, including educational change.

Although compulsory education came in at only the end of his life, he had spent nearly forty years in the teaching profession. He had always wanted his pupils to understand what he was saying - and thus he faced the dilemma of all pedagogues — how cold put across complex ideas in a simple way and in a simple language? Perhaps it was this that prompted him to write: `The English are a great nation and as an Englishman, I am sorry that we have not a language of our own; but that whenever we happen to conceive a thought above that of a plough-boy, or produce anything beyond a pitch-fork, we are obliged to borrow a word from others before we can utter it, or give it a name; as to conclude the English language is most rich in literature of every kind, our writers should aim to purify and fix it, for if they go on corrupting it, their own writings after some time, will not be read without a glossary, perhaps not at all'.

On the subject of the importance of Anglo-Saxon he wrote in an article of 1847: `To neglect wholly the language and our forefathers seems like the folly of a crew who would tear out an authentic leaf of their logbook because it was not written by the hands that filled up the rest. Barnes wanted the innovations of the nineteenth century not to have Latin or Greek names, but English ones. Names of Latin or Greek origin in English he called not English but Englandish'. And the common people could not understand this foreign English — source of so many Dickens' `Malapropisms'. He wanted to breath new life and value into English through the English roots of English. This is why he called himself a `revolutionary'; he wanted a rebellion against standard Latinised English', he `asked for a renaissance of the native English language'. As was Barnes' wont, by being traditional, he was being radical — going to the roots of English. Thus Thomas Hardy showed Barnes one of the first `bicycles', Barnes' reaction was immediately to object to the word `bicycle' and coin the word ‘wheelsaddle'. And frankly do we not now regret failing to use the word 'wheelsaddle' instead of `bicycle'? We can at once visualise a'wheelsadle', but a bicycle' is a purely abstract concept. In the same way for 'omnibus' Barnes invented 'folkwain'. What could be simpler or more concrete?


Barnes opposed the linguistic establishment and probably his greatest mental adversary was Dr. Johnson who in his ultra-Latinate dictionary represented all that was bad in English, the obsession with words of none-English origin which remained an incomprehensible jargon to the unschooled. In this Barnes saw the class snobbery of the period — one who littered with Gallicisms and Latinisms thought he was showing attained knowledge, in the same way that today someone from the third world or Eastern Europe shows off by littering his speech with Americanism. In fact, however, such people were not showing off their knowledge, but their ignorance. As Barnes, familiar with some seventy languages and author of ninety-five books and articles, mainly on language wrote: 'The truth is, that, till lately, the learned commonly studied few others languages, but the Latin and Greek; and thus knowing little of the Gothic (Germanic) languages, and therefore not understanding the nature and powers of the Saxon part of the English, they neglected it is a useless rude tongue, of which nothing could be made; and as extending science brought in a need of new words, they took them from these great tongues of antiquity, when they might have made them of simples of their own'. And again, written in his own Saxon English as if to prove the point: `English has become a more mongrel speech [hybrid language] by the needless inbringing [unnecessary introduction] of from Greek and French, instead of words which might have been found in it's older form, or in the speech of landfolk [country-people] over all England, might have been formed from its own roots and stems, as wanting [missing] words have been formed in German and other purer tongues. Thence English has become so much harder to learn, that, in it's foreign-worded fullness, is a speech only for the more learned, and foreign to unschooled men, so that the sermon and book are half-lost to their minds... Some of the mongrel form of our English has arisen from the slighting [denigration] of Saxon-English, and other Teutonic tongues at our universities and in our schools...'

Barnes knew enough about Germanic and Slavic languages, let alone the Non-Indo-European ones, to realise that English could also be used to make learned compounds. Indeed a mere knowledge of Old English was enough to confirm this: thus in Old English, -'modest' is 'shamefast', `pious' is 'awefast', `honourable' is `aweworthy', 'hospitable' is 'guestly', `flattery' is `lightwords', 'mediceine' is 'leechdom', 'temporary' is `whilewendly', `orthodox' is `beliefful' 'secular' is 'wordkind', religious' is `godkind', `possessed' is `devilsick', and 'merciful' `mildhearted'. Old English was a literary language, particularly developed in its West Saxon or Wessex form. It had plenty of learned compounds to express religious, philosophical or other concepts. The tragedy was that learned compounds had been lost at the Norman Invasion when the learned class was lost — through genocide, exile and dispossession.
_________________

Barnes was a Nature-lover and therefore could not tolerate artifice, including in speech. As we have seen at the end of Part Two, because he loved nature he was a patriot. He could also be called a 'language-patriot', for his home-love made him also love the speech of the Saxon English, reflected in the dialect of Dorset folk. Saxon English was poetic English, it was the English of his 'hwomely rhymes' and his sermons, which the congregations understood and whose hearts were touched. The Saxon English of Dorset was the speech of Alfred the Great, of St Edward the Martyr, of Wessex and therefore the speech of Old English literature, culture and civilisation. And something similar could also be said of South Saxon (Sussex dialect), Middle Saxon (Middlesex dialect), East Saxon (dialect) and even the Anglian dialects of Mercia (the Midlands), East Anglia and Northumbria. (Certainly several words that the present author has read in Barnes- poetry are the same as those in his own East Saxon dialect).

In Barnes' Saxonising of Latinate English, his wish for purity of speech, there was no crude nationalism (as there was in Hitler’s language policies in the Germany of the 1930s). Barnes was never crude, but a fine patriot. What he stood against was not the use of foreign words for foreign things but the use of foreign words for English things. Thus after the Norman Invasion, "judge' took the stead of 'dema'; 'cause' of 'sac'; `bail' of 'borh'; and the lawyers said `arson', for 'forburnning'; burglary for 'housebreach'; and 'carrucate', for `ploughland". The use of Norman-French and Latin was only the expression of Norman arrogance and ignorance. It was the pride and contempt of the invaded, an ignorance of the native, English culture, it was cultural and linguistic imperialism.

To prove his point Barnes wrote several works in Saxoninsing English, in particular we might mention, Early England and Saxon English. However, there were two works written almost completely in Saxon English, these were his work on English Grammar and Logic — Rede-Craft. He described the former as, 'a small trial towards the upholding of our own strong old Anglo-Saxon speech... I hope that the little book may afford a few glimpses of new insight into our fine old Anglo-Saxon tongue... I have tried to teach English by English and so have given English words for most of the lore-words [scientific terms), as I believe they would be more readily and more clearly understood... there are tokens that, ere long the English youth will want to an outline of the Greek and Latin tongues ere he can understand well his own speech'.He wanted to write about subjects that are full of Latinisms, to truly prove his point that English could be much more English and therefore less Latin than conventionally was.
__________________

Barnes showed great courage in doing this, he could have after all have written about topics such as farming or thatching. But this would have been a fraud, for Barnes well knew that most vocabulary of these topics is `Saxon English' anyway.

However some of Barnes' successes have come among the English Freed of the constrictions of Establishment English, Anglo-Norman 'Englandish', those who emigrated, perhaps especially to 'New England', were free to use their own speech. Thus the English dialect of the 'fall' (of the leaf), `gear', `lonesome' and `ongoing', now all common in the United States, were used by Barnes. Moreover, and this would surely delight Barnes, it is now common in North America to say of not 'mindset' and not mentality' and `standout' and not `exception'. Barnes would have appreciated `sidewalk' and we have also heard 'sidewalker' — a good Saxon substitute for `pedestrian'. The folk life of a younger people is giving utterance to Saxon English. Barnes would have been glad. Similarly, under American influence, we talk of a `lone-parent' family rather than a ‘monoparental' one (Barnes' idea — see Word-hoard) and 'people power' rather than `democracy'.

Admittedly the two elements in the latter compound are not English but they do sound English. The unharnessed energy of English abroad has given us expressions such as 'walkman', 'watchman' and the `World Wide Web', the latter of which though resolutely modern, is all Old English alliteration and vocabulary. The 'New England/Old English' movement has also led to a partial denormanisation of spelling. Barnes was very much against the the 'untruthful spelling' of English and would have approved of `center' not centre', 'defense' not `defence', `inquire' not `enquire', the latter of which Barnes foresaw in his 'inthrall' for `enslave'.

This may look meagre, but Barnes' greatest vindication is not so much here, in the field of dialect words now become standard ones in at least part of the English-speaking world, but elsewhere. It is firstly in the phrasal verb (and noun). Both existed in the Victorian period but most were considered to be too vulgar to be used in literature. However, today, with the democratisation of literature and literary language and its closeness to the spoken language, phrasal nouns have become innovative and fertile forms of language.

Thus it would seem needless or even stuffy to use accept, demand, denigrate, despise, endorse, extinguish, persuade, produce and production when they can be replaced by take on, call for, run down, look down, back up, put out, talk out off, turn out and output. In a similar Latinate words were so popular in Victorian times, have indeed been replaced in many cases by English ones. The short (Anglo-Saxon) word is always preferable to the long (Latin) one. Thus we say not ameliorate, deteriorate, emphasise, environs, precursor, ramifications or vicinity, but rather highlight, outskirts, forerunner, ins and outs and neighbourhood. In this respect Barnes' most direct and successful heirs are the Plain English Campaign. And herein lies Barnes ultimate victory — the triumph of plain English over complex and heavy Latinate English. It is a victory not of Latinate exotic 'manqualm' or 'push-wainling' but a victory which is plain - fittingly discreet, almost unseen — like the man himself.

Barnes' critics might at least concede the above, but even so they would still no doubt continue to mock his more original neologisms. Who they might ask is going to call a `university' a 'lorestead' or a bus a 'folkwain'? But perhaps all this is symbolically significant, perhaps after all, there are things in our modern world that are so ugly that they only deserve to be called by ugly and foreign words. They do not merit to bear Old English names. If the things themselves are spiritually foreign and ugly to us, then their names must also be spiritually foreign and ugly. It is no coincidence that one of the words that Barnes failed to translate was `civilisation'. He never managed to penetrate into the essence of the word and define its real meaning. Perhaps that is no surprise years after Barnes' death, Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilisation, he replied that he `thought it was a good idea'. Perhaps the civilisation of the concentration camp, genocide, the Atom Bomb, ecological catastrophe simply does not deserve to be put into the speech of Old English.
_________________


Over a century has passed since William Barnes' death. Since his times Wars have come, Empire has gone, United Kingdom and Europe have come — and tomorrow they in turn will be gone. And as the new millennium approaches we may think of Shakespeare's words: ' What to come is still unsure'. We are physically much more comfortable since William Barnes was amongst us, but at what cost? England today has lost beauty, it is, as Barnes would have had it, all 'glorylorn' As he wrote:

For aught that's nice You pay a price... To buy new gold Give up some old.'

Part of the price has been the loss of roots, not only here but in many parts of the world, as others too pass through the same processes as ourselves: The tale is important because the history of this small island of the shore of Europe became world history, its speech became world speech, and, perhaps more important, its social and economic experience social and economic experience became that of the rest of the world'. It may be that in these troubled times that William Barnes will at last come into his own as the much needed philosopher and friend of the people of many lands, creeds and languages. As we go into a new millennium, his gleanings in so many fields may yet guide us in today's restless and rootless world, throwing light on future paths for our country.

Barnes is a forerunner. It is our belief that this idyllic poet, with his angelic mind and `true and loving heart', this `half-hermit, half-enchanter' has answers to many of the questions which trouble us today. He found, already in the nineteenth century, roots. He found those roots of England and English in their past, in Old England and Old English. He saw through the veneer of his own time to Saxon England; in 'soulsight' he saw Alfred at Winchester and Edward at Corfe. He wanted the rebirth of Saxon English but also Saxon England and its whole civilisation of chesters and minsters, lying like a white stone in the English collective memory In other words he envisioned the denormanisation of England and English, through that, the spiritual rebirth of England and English. Although for Barnes, as for us, the Norman Conquest had taken place physically, for him it had not taken place spiritually, for in his soul he lived both before it and in a continuing Old England of the present. And this is William Barnes' England. For Barnes' voice is the voice of Old England



The Rebirth of England and English The Vision of William Barnes
Book My link

This book has a good word-hoard.

[Steven]

If nationalism is the antidote to multi cultism then I don't see why the Old Ways cannot also be an antidote. Christianity in the Anglo-Saxon period was completely different from what the Normans forced on our folk. We need to look again at what we had, the kind of living that brings real experience, even if the span is shorter. Quality over quantity.

Steve

[Eassex cempa]

As we seem to be lead, shoulder to shoulder, by America I would be interested to see what happens if Romney wins the race for the White House.
Romney is a member of the Christian based Mormon faith and they have some ideas about blacks that could be interesting.
They claim that 'Cain' was made a black man as punishment for the murder of his brother.
Unless things have changed recently, it follows as the Mormons see the black as an underclass and born of evil and they can't hold office within the Mormon priesthood.
I wonder how that would translate into racial equality considerations or would we see Romney put his religious convictions to one side for the evil that is the political bandwagon ??

E C

[Steed]

Here's a question (to all) - what does Christianity offer an Englishman that the Old Ways don't?

[Yngvi]

Steed - I can give you a good list of what the old ways can give us over Christianity. Although the only thing I can really see that the religion of Christianity can give, is it obviously has been more established over the years and has more coinage in the bank. More cash to give to charity and especially to homeless people. It can give salvation in exchange for your soul. But would people be homeless if they were to follow the old ways?

But a religion will not survive without a people. The people are the religion. So in hindsight we could quite easily re-establish a religion among kindred and carry on the good work of the folk with all the benefits the old ways can bring.

If we are to change our way of thinking to save the folk - I truly believe we need to look deeper to our roots. Our people may have fled the old ways, but the old ways have never fled from us.

[Dan of Biggleswade]

Yngvi, on 31 August 2012 - 08:43 AM, said:

Steed - I can give you a good list of what the old ways can give us over Christianity. Altough the only thing Christianity can give is it is more established and has more coinage to give to charity. But a religion will not survive without a people. The people are the religion. So in hindsight we could quite easily re-establish a religion among kindred and carry on the good work of the folk with all the benefits the old ways can bring.

Yngvi, i believe you were correct when you said, 'the people are the religion'. But does this mean Heathenry or Christianity? I don't believe it is either. I believe the religion of the people is the spirit of Anglecynn, that common heritage and blood of sacrifice that binds us all together, that feeling of security and belonging that we spoke about @ the meet on Woden's Day. But i do believe the two faiths should be embraced and revered as vital elements of our identity, nonetheless.

But first.... we have to win back our sovereignty!

[Yngvi]

Dan of Biggleswade, on 31 August 2012 - 08:57 AM, said:

Yngvi, i believe you were correct when you said, 'the people are the religion'. But does this mean Heathenry or Christianity? I don't believe it is either. I believe the religion of the people is the spirit of Anglecynn, that common heritage and blood of sacrifice that binds us all together, that feeling of security and belonging that we spoke about @ the meet on Woden's Day. But i do believe the two faiths should be embraced and revered as vital elements of our identity, nonetheless.

But first.... we have to win back our sovereignty!

That we do Dan

But we also need to shake off the enslaved soul mentality and arise as warriors looking to secure the soil of the folk for the next generation, otherwise we may aswell commit mass suicide!

Or worse - continue to allow the CofE to join Juadism and Islam in its leading role of Abrahamic enslavement

[Dan of Biggleswade]

Yngvi, on 31 August 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

That we do Dan

But we also need to shake off the enslaved soul mentality and arise as warriors looking to secure the soil of the folk for the next generation, otherwise we may aswell commit mass suicide!

Or worse - join Juadism or Islam in its leading role of enslavement

Christian's like Alfred the Great had no trouble fighting for his countrymen. Nor did Oliver Cromwell shy from doing what was neccessary to bring the King to justice. Our society doesn't know what it means to fight for itself, modern life is very comfortable and distracting. Focus should be given to bringing down those barriers, not the bringing down of christianity.

[Yngvi]

Dan of Biggleswade, on 31 August 2012 - 09:14 AM, said:

Christian's like Alfred the Great had no trouble fighting for his countrymen. Nor did Oliver Cromwell shy from doing what was neccessary to bring the King to justice. Our society doesn't know what it means to fight for itself, modern life is very comfortable and distracting. Focus should be given to bringing down those barriers, not the bringing down of christianity.

Christianity was a political tool of the times. It has been recorded that the early Christian converts, Alfred included would kill and attack any persons practicing in the old ways. Remember the ancient Witch hunting? I don't wish to glorify any religion which enslaves my folk and ancestors. Especially a belief deep rooted in Eastern mythology.

But deep inside the tradition and culture is hidden many of our ancient beliefs. As mentioned above - it is the people which make a religion and it is now time for the people to arise from the slave mentality and march forward together to rescue our soil. Our ancestors blood fills the veins of England's heart and if it loses its beat then it will cease to exist.

[AelfredSeax]

Dan of Biggleswade, on 31 August 2012 - 08:57 AM, said:

I believe the religion of the people is the spirit of Anglecynn, that common heritage and blood of sacrifice that binds us all together, that feeling of security and belonging that we spoke about @ the meet on Woden's Day.

That is Heathenry right there Dan mate   !

[Penda]

Some great points, all valid.   My thought is that there is sadly no way we will get a large percent of the population following the old ways any time soon - people are more likely to believe in nothing but science than follow a religion - though I'm sure when the full 2011 census results are published we'll find that there are more folk listing themselves as 'Pagan' (though what number of those will be Wiccans or Druids asf remains to be seen).

Guthlac, you've touched on some interesting themes - how much of Christianity is actually Heathenry renamed or disguised? Have our folk been practising Heathenry but with a Christian one God template over the top. The evidence says so. We know that the only way Christians could convert our ancestors was by taking the old ways and saying 'we do that to' or 'that actually means this..' in our religion. I'd imagine any conversion process would have taken a lot longer, & been a lot bloodier without using the old ways as their template. Which asks the question - could the Christian by name only - the ones that went to a church school, but grew out of religion, don't visit church except for weddings & funerals, but still write down 'CofE' on forms - could they be shown that Christianity here is actually a mix of an eastern faith with the Germanic old ways? If so, could they be shown that the old ways are the way forward once more... a pamphlet would be needed listing in plain English everything that was taken from the old ways. Maybe something we can work on.

As far as Christianity itself goes - we can't change it from the top, where it is infested with liberal globalist money men (the same as any big business) - but it would be nice for the more conservative / nationalist Christians to realise that their faith needs to be stronger in order to combat the immigrants who, for example, would like to see all non-muslims wiped from the face of the planet, and to recapture some of their demographic. That Saxon folk church - going back to roots and earth, sounds like Heathenry in a different name, like English Christianity in the year 900 may have been.

Steed - I don't think it offers anything that the Old Ways don't, except for larger numbers of Christians, but as said, that number is dropping and has been since the 60s. The Old Ways are spreading, albeit slowly.

[Steed]

Yngvi, on 31 August 2012 - 08:43 AM, said:

Steed - I can give you a good list of what the old ways can give us over Christianity....

Right Youngy, because a Christian would probably ask us what the Old Ways offer over Christianity.

With regards to DanOfB's post, our blood binds us, but the question posed in this thread is: If we must have a folk religion, what should it be? It goes without saying that blood binds us, but if we must speculate on religion...

Have the Christians here had personal consult with Jesus Christ? Do they believe that the Old Ways are evil? Do they believe that Christianity brought knowledge and civilisation to Germania? I'm just interested to know why any English Nationalist would be so determined to hold onto Christianity as something that defines the English people. I'm not judging them for it - just trying to understand.

[Penda]

Yngvi, on 31 August 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

That we do Dan

But we also need to shake off the enslaved soul mentality and arise as warriors looking to secure the soil of the folk for the next generation, otherwise we may aswell commit mass suicide!

Or worse - continue to allow the CofE to join Juadism and Islam in its leading role of Abrahamic enslavement

We touched on this on Wednesday - Christians are scared as they don't want to go to Hell. The Hel of the old ways was a different place entirely -

Quote

Hel is the lowest of the Nine Worlds besides Niflheimr resting below the World Tree. It is not at all a bad place, parts of it are an afterlife paradise while other parts are seen as dark and gloomy. Unlike the Christian purgatory, it is not an abode of punishment, but simply a resting place for the dead. It may be reached by the road Helvergr “the Hell way” or “Highway to Hell” if you like, a river of blood called Gjøll, or a cave called Gnípahellir. Hel’s gate called Helgrind or Nágrind is guarded by the ettin woman Modgud and the hound Garmr.
Below Hel and in a northern part of it lies the mansion of the goddess of death Hel. It is called Elviðnir “misery” and is surrounded by a wall called Fallanda Forad “falling peril.” Still deeper is Kvøllheimr, a place of punishment for the wicked. Within it is Nástrønd/*Nástrand “corpse strand” a dwelling made of adders for which there may be an Anglo-Saxon term in Wyrmsele “snake hall.” Here the evil dead are sent to forever have burning poison drip down upon them.

Heathen Temple

A very worrying prospect would be the merging of the 3 middle eastern faiths. One world faith to match the rest of the rampant globalism - I wouldn't rule it out at some point in the future.

[AelfredSeax]

I have a friend here in Northern Ireland, and when I talk of the Old Ways, he puts the wall up on certain trigger words, words that his teachers and Minister would have instilled in him from a child. The word Heathen itself is one of these trigger words. But until he hears a trigger word I can see him agreeing and going along with the ethos. My point is Christianity holds over the Old Ways the same tool as the Media hold over Nationalists. People hear the word Nazi, or racist and they close up, in just the same fashion School Christians do when they hear Heathen.

This mate of mine, doesn't go to Church anymore and hasn't since he was a child and had to. He also regards himself as English, because he can trace back all his roots to England. He is nationalistically minded so the Old Ways would suit him as much as the rest of us here, but the trigger words prevent him from doing so.