Untitled - Awaken Video

Preface v
(a)
Figure 1. Frontispiece of the old book
city or just visiting on summer vacation) and about half the adults of my parents’
generation accepted the reality of elves. I remember the time when old Pussig
VanGunten and his wife climbed the tree in front of their place, and told the road
crew that if they were going to chop down the tree, they would have to chop it down
with the two 80 year olds in it. Pussig was smart enough not to tell the road crew
just why the tree couldn’t be chopped down, but most of us knew who really lived
in that tree. So, when I pulled the smelly old book down, it felt familiar.
I creaked open the cover and read the quote by some guy named Thomas Carlyle.
“I think Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting than any
other. It is, for one thing, the latest; it continued in those regions of Europe
till the eleventh century: eight hundred years ago the Norwegians were still
worshippers of Odin. It is interesting also as the creed of our fathers; the
men whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless we still resemble in
many ways. Strange: they did believe that, while we believe so differently. We
have tolerable means to do it; for there is another point of interest in these
mythologies: that they have been preserved so well.
“Neither is there no use in knowing something about this old Paganism
of our fathers. Unconsciously, and combined with higher things, it is us yet,
that old faith withal. To know it consciously brings us into closer and clearer