Urlac

 

 

Old Norse:            Ørlög; Nauðr

Anglo-Saxon:             Orlæg

Old High German:            Urlac; Urlag

 

 

            Every culture and every ethnic group has traditionally believed in a multitude of deities. Whether those groups organized as small bands, as tribes or as large nations, these deities have been recognized, worshipped, propitiated, and honoured by the collective community. Whilst this may be commonly recognized, few realize that all the various world cultures have also known that all their deities are manifestations of one prevailing spirit. Just as the Amerindians called this spirit Wankan Tanka (later semi-christianised as ‘the Great Spirit’), the Hindus called it Brahmâ, and the West Africans knew it as Olódùmarè, so our ancestors knew this godhead as Urlac.

 

            Most modern Heathens, upon reading the above paragraph would brand me a heretic if there were some sort of Heathen orthodoxy by which we could measure ideas. It seems to go against all that Heathenry represents. The character of our faith can make it very comfortable to adopt in its polytheistic form so that one might honour the götter in a perfectly valid and satisfying way. However, it is this very nature that can hinder a deeper appreciation of our faith, as this more profound comprehension may seem to contradict all that we had previously learnt. This resistance only means that one is not ready for that level of understanding. Such a state should not be considered lesser than…; but rather that different people need to focus on different things in their own spiritual development.

 

All the early Germanic tongues had words for ‘God’ (OHG Got;ON Goð; A-S God) long before they had words for other types of beings.[1]

 

To understand where Urlac fits into our theology, one must first understand the concept of Divinity. A. Rud Mills (Anglycan Church of Odin) referred to this godhead as the Father Spirit. He explained[2]

 

 “God the Nordics regarded as being too great for any man to

wholly understand or wholly comprehend. But something of God

they could in some measure understand… ¶The God of every man

or race[3] could be different, with varying degrees of difference. Views

of God varied. Some types of races of men had an almost identical

idea of God… That was because their race was the same. They were

expressions of a similar unseen power in God. They expressed in

their lives similar modes of life. ¶Some types of races of men had

different ideas or impulses, different views of God and the world,

because they belonged to different races and were the expressions

of different powers in God. ¶These different powers in God were

recognized by our Nordic people  and sometimes called the Father

Spirit of the particular race or type of person.”

 

 Mills goes on to explain that the gods of our folk—and especially Odin (Wuotan)—represent the understanding our folk share of this god, but that other cultures bore their own understandings of this same God.

Guido von List echoed this idea, referring to the godhead simply as the Nordic God[4]. List’s use of the term was very similar to the Hindi concept of Atman, the divine spark within each individual.

Although we may recognize that there is one god, we do not worship this god across cultural lines like the Muslims, Christians, and Bahi’ís do. Instead, we prefer to focus on those gods that are traditionally known by our people. Stubba[5] (Odinist Committee) describes this concept as “the god-force around and within us”. He generally discusses the gods and goddesses as separate beings. But when asked “But surely it would be preferable to have one god for all humankind?” with the implication that all peoples ought to worship this same god in a consistent fashion, Stubba responded: “Why? One god or many gods, it really does not matter. Our true gods are actually worshipped by peoples all over the world, using their own mythologies and adapting their worship to local cultures and conditions. We prefer to worship the gods in our own way with people of our own kind. And we respect the rights of others to their own beliefs. …”

 

It is also interesting to note that although the gender of Urlac is never overtly mentioned, custom mentions only a male gender. Most today would agree that Urlac is beyond gender, and that masculine terms are only used for convenience based on the conventions of Germanic languages. However, there have been the occasional postulates arguing for a more feminine identification.

 

            As Urlac is so well known throughout ancient Heathendom, it may seem strange that we hear so little about him. There are two reasons for this.

            The first reason is that Urlac is so distant from mankind that his effects on us are extremely subtle and generally go unnoticed until someone takes the time to really look at long-term events and developments. Further, Urlac is not worshiped, as, being so vast and distant, men cannot truly comprehend this god. How does one show reverence to something or somebody that one does not understand?

            The second reason is historical. Because Urlac is so distant from mankind, what lore did exist about him had been lost long ago. By the Viking Age the understanding of Urlac had been virtually replaced by a vague group of three sisters known as the Wurtâ (ON Nornir; A-S Wyrdæ), and this is the conception that is better known today.  Urlac came to be relegated to a concept analogous to garma[6], and his personality came to be lost[7]. However, Jakob Grimm[8] informs us:

 

“It is a deviation from the oldest way of thinking, to put the

settlement of destiny into the hands of the gods; yet it is a very old

one. Undoubtedly the faith of many men began early to place the

Highest God at the very head of the world’s management, leaving

those weird-women merely to make known his mandates. The

future lies in the lap of the gods… which is performed by the

paternal or maternal deity.”

 

Because later forms of Heathenry were more accepting of the idea of the Wurtâ rather than of the Father Spirit, and because most of our written sources come from these later eras, many revivalist movements of today are much more comfortable accepting the later model. As neither model is necessarily “better” or “more accurate” judgements across Heathen traditions are not often met. Both ends of the spectrum are right— or at least for their own traditions.

 

 

 ~~SteveAnthonijsz

 

 

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