HEX FOLK CONTRIBUTORS
Issue 1 ~ Spring 2007

Erik Baumann (Orekja)
Externsteine
I was born in Halle, Germany in 1985. After school and some months in the army I moved south as student for history and old German languages to the University of Erlangen in 2006. A few years ago the camera became a best friend and is always with me. Beside photography I spend much time on German and Scandinavian mythology, old literature, psychology, philosophy, sometimes writing and of course music where I found my passion in Black Metal and European Folk. ps: please also take a look at my deviantart gallery: www.orekja.deviantart.com thank you.

Cody Dickerson
Interview with Steve von Till
Weißt du zu Ritzen?

Pattie Dickerson
Birth Story
currently reside in rural southeastern Idaho with their two daughters, where they seek a more traditional lifestyle.

Cody was born in Idaho in 1979. He's contributed to various private Heathen publications. He works as an ironworker and blacksmith and spends his free time in the vast expanse of Idaho's wilderness with his family, attending to their quaint homestead and independently researching Germanic and Indo-European history, culture and myth. He is a member of the Wolfbund and studies traditional Germanic magic and rune lore within that context. Some evenings you may find him weeding the garden, listening to his favorite Darkthrone LP, or squeezing on his Grandfather's bandonion. He can be reached at perchtentanz@gmail.com.

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 interest are Welsh folklore, Pennsylvania Dutch folk art, and homeschooling.

Alison Grandmason (Swanhilde)
The Allure of Brisingamen
was born in 1961 and has lived most of her life in Michigan, where she resides with her husband and son. She majored in fine arts in college, and has worked in various art fields over the years. Currently, Alison works for a major paint manufacturing company as a Decorative Products Specialist/Store Decorator. In her spare time she still paints and produces works that can be used ritually. Banners, casting cloths, and other pieces. She also has a strong interest in hex signs.

Alison’s interest in heathen esoterica was piqued in 1989, and it was then that she began a path of learning that has been both mentally stimulating and spiritually fulfilling to her. Particular fields of study include, but are not limited to, the feminine mysteries as they apply to an Odinic paradigm (emulation over adoration) and the use of runes magically and in divination. She has been a guest speaker at North Central Michigan College and has taught workshops as well as being a proficient rune reader.

Ensio Kataja
Days of the Week
(b. 1971) is a Finnish writer and an Elder Fellow of the Rune-Gild. He has been studying and working on Runic Tradition for over a decade. His first book, Riimujen viisaus (The Wisdom of the Runes), was published in 2005 by the Finnish publishing house Athanaton. He is currently writing his next book and masterwork for the Rune-Gild. Kataja is a contributor to English Rûna magazine and also writes a regular online column PYHÄ at wihaz.wordpress.com.

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

Katherine Mathis
Birth Story
holds a BA in History from the University of Texas. She is married with one child, and has previously published in Renaissance Magazine, Intaglio, and other various small journals and magazines. Katherine is a solitary practitioner of Celtic Paganism.

Rima Staines
Her Storybook Children
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

Jeff Grandmason, a.k.a. Valúlfr Vaerulsson
Norse Shamanism—Another Perspective
was born and raised in Michigan in 1960. Growing up in a rural setting provided the environment in which he was to thrive and learn about the ways of the natural world. In addition to an early interest in history, he was reading the works of authors such as Poe, Lovecraft, and various Greek philosophers by the age of 13. When he was 12 he carved his first runes into his desk at school, something he had seen in a book, not knowing the implications of it till many years later. Over the course of the next 5 years he began to develop a strong sense and appreciation for anything occult, which continues to this day. During the summer of 76’ through fall of 78’, Valúlfr would travel the US, from Florida to Alaska, always staying off the beaten path, camping in the woods and wilds of the west, continuing to learn the ways of the natural world. In 1978 Valúlfr entered the US Army where he would further educate himself in European history and western occultism. Shortly after leaving the military, Valúlfr began to take up eastern spiritual practices such as Bhakti, Kundalini, and Tantric yoga. In 1989 Valúlfr “re-discovered” the runes, and has been a practicing Rune Magician since. Valúlfr has taught Germanic Culture at a local college, and has lectured on rune magic in various other venues as well. Additionally, he was recognized as Rune Master by an international school that teaches Germanic culture and magic in 1999. Today, Valúlfr resides with his family in northern Michigan at Myrkskógar Höll, headquarters of the Wolfbund, of which he is the Director.

Jeroen van Valkenburg
Muspellheim
Northland
(Leiden, 1973) is inspired by ancient myths and sagas that he encountered during his study of Archaeology at the University in Leiden. Especially the stories from the Viking era (9th to 11th Century A.D.) play an important role in his works. His interest mainly lies in the religious and mystical side of Viking culture. He tries to capture their magical and mythical atmosphere in his creations. His oil paintings can sometimes be regarded as icons of gods and goddesses long forgotten. His work has been exhibited in many galleries in Holland and abroad. His work is also well known from all the book/cd/lp covers he has designed.
www.jeroenvanvalkenburg.exto.nl
www.myspace.com/jeroenvanvalkenburg

Madeline von Foerster
In the Garden
Odinn's Self-Sacrifice on Yggdrasil
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

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