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HEX FOLK CONTRIBUTORS
Issue 2 ~ Fall 2007
 Antonius Block
The Language of Myth
Review of Beowulf & Grendel…
Ingui of Bernicia – Illustration
I was born December, 1979. Since my teenage years, I have devoted most of my time to various interests the fields of art, music, and linguistics. I have been interested in the indigenous pre-Christian beliefs of Europe for most of my life and much of my artistic inspiration stems from early traditional cultures.
I work full-time as a graphic designer, but I also keep myself busy with pen and ink and other conventional media outside the office.
I love traditional music and I play a variety of instruments, some of which I’ve built myself.
I am strongly interested in comparative studies, and I believe that many of the difficulties in understanding the Germanic myths (and many others for that matter) can be overcome with the aid of historical linguistics, comparative religion, archaeology, and anthropology.
 David V. D'Andrea
Death – Illustration
believes in the tradition of the “memento mori,” the visual reminder of the transience of life on this earth. Through signs and symbols such as aviform in flight, sigillary calligraphy, disembodied wings, and skeletal forms, he seeks to perpetuate the avowal that is death, and in turn catharsis; to create archaic crests for modern battles of loss, love, and hopeless abandon. In 2006, David received a BFA in Illustration from the California College of the Arts, where he studied under the legendary Barron Storey. Today he calls Oakland home and continues his work as a freelance Illustrator. Other interests include cryptozoology, obsolete electronics, sacred geometry, psychometry, and other mysteries of mind, space, and time. www.dvdandrea.com
 Pattie Dickerson
Recipe – Goulash
Pattie was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1979. Anxious to escape the din of the city, she moved to Idaho with her husband where she is now a full-time mother and homemaker. She enjoys outdoor activites such as camping and fishing, teaching her daughters, sharing her rich heritage with them and maintaining pax templi between domesticated and feral animals. Her current areas of intrest are Welsh folklore, Pennsylvania Dutch folk art, and homeschooling.
 Jason Ford
Fermentation
Nadleehi is a natural health enthusiast, dedicated to re-empowering self and others to nourish spirit, mind, and body with simple ceremony, whole foods and food-like herbs. Working within and studying the Wise Woman Tradition, interests of Nadleehi's include organic gardening, nature, ethnobotany, and especially the study of altered states of consciousness as they relate to healing and spirituality.
 WANTED: Gerhard Hallstatt
Death Story
Austrian artist and outlaw, founder of the Austrian industrial folklore project Allerseelen, former publisher of the magazines Aorta and Ahnstern. Loves to travel. Claims to speak several languages. Loves poetry. Claims to be poet but never published a book. Loves music. Claims to be musician but does not know one single note and plays no instrument at all. Loves mountains. Looks like a rucksack bomber. Always carries with him a rucksack containing maps, books and other items. Maps: These may be maps of cities like Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Lissabon, Moscow or mountain maps from remote areas in Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Spain. Books: These may be books by writers like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hermann Hesse, Ernst Juenger, Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Friedrich Nietzsche, Alexander Pushkin, William Shakespeare. Other items: biscuits, water, wine. Claims to stand with his poetry and music in a strange tradition with various occultists, symbolists and visionaries of his homeland Austria. Distinguishing marks are absinthe-green eyes, scars, a hidden tattoo. Take care and control: All his dreams come true.
"The choice of poetry and quality of music here are impeccable."
www.lunar-hypnosis.com
"Allerseelen represent a standard of excellence that is almost unheard of in the world today. The music of Gerhard Hallstatt is, by intent and effect, a spiritual experience. If you have ever doubted the ability of art to destroy and re-create those who will let themselves be touched by it, immerse yourself obsessively in his work, and see who you are when you come out the other side." www.starvox.net/crypt/novcd.htm
www.myspace.com/allerseelen
www.geocities.com/ahnstern
Aorta c/o Petak, Postfach 778, 1011 Wien, Austria
 Juleigh Howard-Hobson
Threshold Warding
Juleigh Howard-Hobson is the editor of the Asatru Folk Assembly's Runestone Journal (www.runestone.org). She's edited and contributed to the 2004 Arets Boker award winning Norwegian-press literary collection Undertow. Her writing has appeared everywhere from Aesthetica Magazine (York, UK) to Going Down Swinging (Melbourne, Australia). Named a 'notable short story' writer in the 2006 Million Writer's Award, she is currently one of the few formalist poets to have work nominated for the Best of The Net Award 2007. Her chapbook Sommer and Other Poems is available from Ravenshalla Press (ravenshalla@yahoo.com). She is a former associate of The RuneGild, and a proud member of both the AFA and the Odinic Rite. She is married to the award-winning artist blacksmith Dave Hobson, with whom she homeschools three children. Their threshold is maintained according to the wisdom of the Northern Folkways they follow, as are all aspects of their lives.
 G.B. Jones
The Maze – illustration
is an artist based in Toronto, Canada. Her drawings have been presented on record and CD covers, T-shirts and posters, and in magazines, books, galleries, and museums throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe.
In her work, G.B. Jones seeks to explore hidden histories from a Heathen perspective.
G.B. Jones is represented by SUNDAY gallery in New York City. www.sundaynyc.com
 Julius
Death Story
Born in 1968 in Canada, my ancestors hail from England, Ireland, Wales, France and Germany. Over the past few years I have been uncovering my heathen roots, and have found myself drawn to Odin and the runes.
I live with my wife and cats in our newly acquired home, which has been in my family since the early 1940s.
 Katia (HaateKaate)
Living by the Dark Mist - photograph
I was born in the very middle of 1973 and have always believed the mark of the 30th of June had its significant influence on many bits along my life-path; with both Sun and Moon in Cancer and under the strong affect of Leo in the Ascendant. It lasted years, the learning how to intertwine all the elements; master the contradictions of Sun and Moon; light and dark; Fire and Water; then finally achieve the desired decent harmonious balance.
Big part of my young life I spent in mountainous areas of Bulgaria, in the heart of nature; this surely had its effect and helped the feeling of deep love I carry for the idea of fatherland, roots, cultural and folklore patrimony.
In the means of photography I found a long searched way of expressing myself and my perception of inner and outer world with all of its shades, hues and spirits.
I am a mother of two daughters - my Flame and Resurrection that took me to the exceptional spaces of love and taught me there are no limits for the heart and no obstruction for the will… or maybe just refreshed the memory of always known but untimely buried truths. kate2ili@yahoo.com
www.myspace.com/kaatehaate  Andrew King
LXVIII Cybele – Cover Art
Born in the West Country, Andrew’s initial creative work was in the visual arts, studying at Caerleon and Lampeter. After many years of experimentation, he began his mature work with the first of his Emblematic paintings in 1991. In 1994 he started making documentary recordings of vernacular song, music, and customs. He moved to London in 1995 to further this work and the illustrative compositions that he was doing for a number of the Post-Industrial/Neofolk bands of the time (Current 93, Sol Invictus, L’Orchestre Noir, Ernte, etc), and to complement this made his first attempts at his own mangled versions of traditional song the following year.
Since then he has created a number of sporadically issued albums and carefully chosen compilation appearances. Although his first album was issued by World Serpent, his breakthrough release was The Amfortas Wound (issued on Athanor) a cathartic collection of murder ballads and mystical anthems. Subsequent releases have included a mini-album on OEC, a split CD with Changes, a number of carefully chosen compilation appearances, and collaborative work with Les Sentiers Conflictuels, Brown Sierra, Andrew Liles, KnifeLadder, and The Triple Tree, whilst his recent live work has included vocal and percussion work for Sol Invictus and Duo Noir.
Along with his visual art practice, he has continued his folklore and archival work through these years, having worked for both the English Folk Dance & Song Society (1999-2001, 2007) and the Sound Archive of the British Library (2001-2005), his area of specialisation being pre-1914 cylinder recordings of British traditional singers.
In 2006 his second American exhibition “False True Lovers,” at CounterMedia, Portland, Oregon, was organised, hosted and curated by Hex Magazine.
www.myspace.com/AndrewStewartKing
 Teresa Luedke
Kitchen Medicine & Magic
For the past 4 years, my husband of 18 years, and I, have dedicated ourselves to learning the ways of our Heathen/Asatru ancestors through mythology, lore, and practice. We started Kieferwald Sippe, a Heathen kindred, in November of 2003, where I serve as Harugarin.
I've been an amateur naturalist/botanist for more than 30 years, and for the last 10 I've been practicing healing modalities, such as reflexology, aromatherapy, ayurveda, and massage therapy. I also enjoy cooking, handcrafting, and socializing with other area Heathens and Pagans.
I think these interests come naturally through both of my grandmothers, who, I feel were practicing the arts of the 'hedge-wife'!
Discovering the many 'simple' uses for plants, both wild and domestic, has occupied many pleasurable hours in my life. My husband also shares some of my enthusiasm but my daughter shows none! My hope to pass on what I have learned centers on my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter who already loves to smell the flowers and feed the chickens!
I have recently been attempting to create my own hedge garden, by introducing useful plants on our 7 acre homestead in an effort to naturalize them. Contact Teresa about her column—Kitchen Medicine & Magic: hearthfire@hexmagazine.com
 ManWoman
Thundersign
—Reclaiming our Sacred Symbol
ManWoman was born in 1938 in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada. In 1958, out of gratitude for remaining alive after a near-fatal accident, he took a vow to be “God’s artist.” One month later, he had a spontaneous out-of-body experience and ecstatic awakening.
After four years of art school, in 1965, on his twenty-seventh birthday, he went into a trance and his soul soared up into the inner Light. For one year he was flooded with all the classic mystical experiences—heart openings, third-eye openings, flights of the spirit, union with the universal force—all of which at first terrified him and then compelled him to dedicate his life.
Long before the feminist and Goddess movements became popular he was given a new name, ManWoman, to express his new found wholeness, the integration of his entire being.
A Wise Old Man in a dream marked his throat with a white swastika and told him to reclaim it as a sacred symbol. He accepted the challenge.
 Jack Montgomery aka Gray Owl
Traditional Germanic Healing Arts in America: Powwowing
Shadowdancer was born in South
Carolina. He makes his living as an academic librarian in Kentucky. He has
studied world religions academically and personally since the early 1970s.
Gray Owl is also a folklorist and practitioner of Powwow and Hoodoo, both historically American shamanic traditions. He has written numerous articles for Pagan magazines and is currently writing American Shamans: Journeys with Traditional Healers to be published in 2007 by BUSCA Press. (www.buscainc.com)
He also became a professional musician in 1966 and guitar, bass, harmonica, mandolin and Appalachian dulcimer. His first CD, /Onward to Avalon/ has enjoyed success in the US and abroad, and was awarded 5 Broomsticks (highest rating) by NewWitch Magazine. His 2nd CD /Everywhere I Look/ is receiving airplay on college radio stations and streaming radio worldwide. Both CDs reflect his beliefs regarding spirituality as well as magic, myth and archetypes.
 Rima Staines
Soup and Pipe – painting
was born in London in 1979 into a family of artists. She spent part of her childhood traveling around Europe in a Bedford Van-cum-home and now lives in West London in a remarkable thatched house called the Hermitage which, with its round windows, arched doorways and forest looks like it could have come straight from a story. All of these things have fed her imagination richly and her work conjures up an ancient and strange yet familiar fairytale world.
Rima is an artist who paints and draws the things she sees when exploring this fairytale realm ... where she spends most of her time. Although she was born a Londoner in the 20th century she has always had one foot in Early Medieval Europe. She doesn't really know what to do about this. Rima's curiosity leads her through the many worlds of words, languages and lettering, books and stories, puppetry, nature and interesting people, music, superstitions, folklore and fairytales, and most of all the otherness that can be found on the periphery of our lives, the strange and grotesque, the absurd and unnerving ... that topsy~turvy in between place where things are not quite what they seem...
Rima paints and draws on wood and paper. She enjoys entwining script and image closely and loves to write rhyming stories to tell her characters' tales using forgotten words and other languages. She also makes Things from Wood and has been initiated into the mysteries of Binding Books.
Currently she is working on an animation project, ideas for her own illustrated books and offering private drawing tuition to children and adults.
Website: www.the-hermitage.org.uk
 Oscar Strik
Voyage to the White Island—A Folktale in the North Sea Tradition
was born in 1985 in the Netherlands. He holds a BA in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Amsterdam, and is currently working towards a MA in Linguistics. Besides being a linguist, he works as a semi-professional folklorist, volunteering at the folktale documentation and research department of the Meertens Institute for Dutch Language and Culture.
In his spare time, he writes stories, poetry, and music, inspired by his surroundings and the tales and songs of older times. Professional and non-professional interestes include: the history of language(s), language change, endangered languages, runology, mythology, folklore, fairy tales, folksongs, music, nature, space, etc.
He currently lives in Hilversum, the Netherlands, with his partner Diane, with whom he maintains the musical and cultural webzine Evening of Light – www.eveningoflight.nl
 Madeline von Foerster
In the Garden
I was born in San Francisco. My family's cultural origins: German, Austrian, and Russian, exerted varying degrees of influence on my identity. I attended art school in Mannheim, Germany, for a time before returning to the San Francisco area to complete school at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Although as a child different things attracted me than do at the present, my aesthetic sensibility has actually been rather consistent. I have always appreciated things that looked old and slightly arcane, and I loved the beauty inherent in mystery...
www.madelinevonfoerster.com
 Taylor Wade
Atop a Mountain – poem
I was born in Southern California in 1986 and moved to Portland 17 years later, where I live today. At a young age, I became keenly interested in my heritage, which lead me to develop a passionate appreciation and love for European history, culture and the myriad of supreme aesthetic endeavors that have risen and flourished throughout Europe over time. Philosophy, music, religion and literature are the areas in which my attention has been intensely focused, laying the foundation for my creative manifestations. I am soon to begin work on my BA in German literature, and am also working on becoming a writer and composer.
 Robert Ward
Were Valkyries Real?
In the 90s Robert Ward published a magazine called The Fifth Path which proved to be very influential, since it was one of the first magazines to focus on what then was called Apocalyptic Folk (now more commonly referred to as Neofolk) as well as the Heathen ideas frequently associated with that genre of music.
After the ‘death’ of that venture, Robert became more and more involved in organized Asatru. He used his graphic arts skills and publishing experience to transform the Asatru Alliance’s magazine—Vor Tru—into an exceptional publication, that could boast greatly improved layout and content. This metamorphosis lasted for about ten issues, from issue 49 to 59. He also authored several articles such as an overview of “The Hammer of Thor,” “The Wild Hunt,” and reports about Ötzi and the Caucasian Mummies found in China. His vision was to develop Vor Tru as a vehicle to help gain more visibility and respect for Heathenism, a vision not shared by everyone involved, which eventually led to his disillusionment.
During the last years of his life, Robert nevertheless forged ahead with new plans for a Heathen focused magazine called Northwind. It is from this unpublished project, that the present article has been culled. In this spirit of kinship, and in Robert’s memory, we are proud to present it here, three years after his untimely passing on September 17, 2004.
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