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PODCAST

The Sacred Flame

Mathias Nordvig and Amina Otto

The Sacred Flame Podcast is about the pre-Christian traditions of Northern Europe hosted by Mathias Nordvig and Amina Otto. It"s available on Buzzsprout and most podcasting platforms. The Sacred Flame Podcast comes out twice a month with information and perspectives on Northern European traditions, mythology, history, and philosophy.Mathias Nordvig has a PhD in Old Norse mythology and teaches Scandinavian studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder.Amina Otto has an MA in Old Norse and Gaelic

society & culture philosophy

All Episodes

57:46

Songleikr - Nordic folk music with Maria Franz,...

The Sacred Flame ·

2026/02/06

Did you know that Heilung's Maria Franz has been deeply involved with the coolest Nordic folk music project for over 20 years? Together with her co-singers, Ingrid Galadriel and Kasia, Maria joined Amina and Mathias for a fun conversation about how to make Nordic folk music, singing in obscure Norwegian dialects, creating songs about widows wearing chastity belts, and awakening the trolls in northern Norway.

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84:04

Tattooing in Ancient Northern Europe with Sean Parry...

The Sacred Flame ·

2026/01/23

Amina and Mathias join Sean Parry from Sacred Knot Tattoo in a fascinating conversation about tattooing in ancient northern Europe. Sean is a Welsh tattoo artist and a veritable well-spring of knowledge about history and culture in the British Isles and Ireland. Our host and guest have fruitful conversations about the possibility that Vikings may have tattooed, and what might have happened with art in ancient Britain. They also bat around a couple of tattoo ideas...

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72:46

Elves, Fairies, Hidden Folk, and Dwarfs - All the...

The Sacred Flame ·

2026/01/16

Amina and Mathias sit down and talk about elves, fairies, hidden folk, dwarfs, and all the different "minor" entities in Nordic and Gaelic mythology and folklore. They dig deep into folktales about elves, what the names of these categories of beings mean, and how people have related to them in pre-Christian times.

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69:43

Ancient Nordic Sun Cults ... and a chat about the...

The Sacred Flame ·

2026/01/02

It's a new year and a new season. Amina and Mathias sit down and chat about ancient Nordic sun cults. Did people really worship the sun that much and what is up with the claims that all the rock carvings around Scandinavia, Ireland and the British Isles are depictions of a sun cult?

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64:12

Yule Traditions in the North Part 2: Spirits and...

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/12/22

Amina and Mathias continue their conversations about Yule traditions in the North. This time they are talking about spirits and other beings that we encounter in the folk traditions from the Alps and all the way through Scandinavia and Britain. They talk about Krampus, Santa Claus, Mari Llwyd, the Nisse and much more. After this episode, the Sacred Flame takes a break until the beginning of 2026!

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77:04

Yule Traditions in the North Part 1: Ancient Rituals

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/12/12

Amina and Mathias dive into Yule traditions in the North. first, they talk about some aspects of pre-Christian Scandinavian jól -including if it even really existed, its place in the calendar, and what rituals took place in the period- and then they branch out to Celtic traditions. At the very end the pair derail themselves and get sucked into a conversation about Germanic and Celtic loans, the origin of things we think are Celtic and Germanic, and the stereotypes about Celtic and Germanic pe...

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88:28

Vikings in narration with author Gregory Amato

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/11/30

Amina and Mathias sat down with author Gregory Amato. He is the author of the book series Spear of the Gods, which takes place in the Viking Age. Gregory Amato has strong opinions about how authors represent the Viking Age and Vikings. He is not fond of the stereotypes and toxic masculinity that are often a part of contemporary narration of the Viking Age. Instead, Gregory writes Viking Age fiction from a perspective that respects the diversity of the time and selects period specific values t...

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69:40

The Wild Hunt in Pagan Europe

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/11/14

Amina and Mathias are diving deep into the myth of the Wild Hunt in different European cultures. They explore the connections between the Wild Hunt and Odin, local folklore about trolls that invade your farm, the southern German Krampus traditions, transcendental rituals and witchcraft, the secret cult of the Benandanti in northern Italy, and stories about berserkir in Scandinavia. They of course also get deep into Irish lore about Cuchullain and Pwll, and why the Brits are afraid of geese!

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74:52

Slavic and Northern European Fall Traditions with...

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/10/31

Amina and Mathias sit down with Alexandra (Sasha) Zavyalova to talk about Slavic and Northern European pagan fall traditions. Sasha is from St. Petersburg, Russia, and belongs to the Modovian minority called Erzya, a Finno-Ugric people. She has been raised in the pre-Christian Erzyan traditions, and is herself a student of northern paganism. Along with Sasha, the two hosts go far and wide in conversations about connections between Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, and Finno-Ugric autumn and early win...

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78:11

Norse-Gaelic underworld mythologies and fall traditions

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/10/17

In this episode, Amina and Mathias discuss underworld mythologies and how they seem to link up with ancient fall traditions in the European North. The conversation takes our two hosts from pumpkin spice and licorice through conversations about (and mispronunciations of) the ancient Welsh hero Pwll, the Franco-Danish hero Ogier the Dane, the Swiss-Lombardic hero of Dietrich of Berne, over the founding of Czechia and the founding of Krakow and the Czech-Polish cultural hero Krok, all the way to...

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58:09

Fall traditions in the pre-Christian North

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/10/05

Mathias Nordvig and Amina Otto discuss fall traditions in the pre-Christian North on The Sacred Flame Podcast. They manage to cover the entire North Atlantic region in a conversation that takes us from the origin of modern Halloween traditions in witchcraft trials between Scotland and Denmark to pre-Christian Nordic rituals, and folktales about the Wild Hunt. Mathias Nordvig has a PhD in Old Norse mythology and teaches at University of Colorado in Boulder, USA. Amina Otto has an MA in Old N...

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66:47

Viking Madness

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/08/08

What is madness? What was madness back in the Viking age, and what is madness today? The concept of madness may seem clear to us, but at the end of the day, it is certainly always dependent on cultural context. In this episode, I discuss western madness and where it comes from. I depart from Carl Jung's attempt to blame the atrocities of Nazi Germany on Wotan/Odin and dive into a cultural examination that takes us from Serbia's Iron Gates national park and Kosovo to gold mining in Nevada's Mt...

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80:23

The Eternal Return: we live, we die, we live again

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/06/18

The Eternal Return ensures that we always come back to this particular moment in history. The notion that time recurs and we return to the same moments in time has been present in European philosophy since Pythagoras and was an important aspect of Stoic philosophy. We live, we die, we live again. The Eternal Return is certainly also a cultural phenomenon, which stipulates that the human ages will return, moving through cycles of ups and downs. The sociologists William Strauss and Neil Howe ha...

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62:17

Viking Enlightenment

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/05/20

In this episode about Viking Enlightenment, we explore the intricacies of a heathen worldview, and the forms of life that it leads to. Inherent to the heathen worldview is the understanding that we have material needs that must be fulfilled, and that a reciprocal relationship with Earth is central to that. We must establish bonds of relationship with this world, and worry less about what comes after death. This means, too, that when we are faced with forces that try to pry away our resources,...

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50:53

Barbarians at the gates

The Sacred Flame ·

2025/05/13

In this episode, we consider some aspects of nomadic identity and social organization. Why? Because at the end of the day, the peoples in human history who have been most influential on the direction that world history has taken have been nomads: wandering humans. From the Yamnaya, Scythians, and Huns to Arabs and Mongols in Eurasia, the classical nomads have been the ones facilitating trade and putting pressure on empires. Aside from these classical nomads, we may also think of the colonizin...

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63:52

Community and sacrifice

The Sacred Flame ·

2024/11/01

In this episode I explore what it means to give something to a community, to sacrifice something, a part of yourself or something you own. It is important to know just how much to give so that you can avoid losing too much. These are the words of wisdom from Odin. I have often found myself giving too much to a community, and when what you give does not come back in some form of reciprocal acknowledgment, we get disappointed. The last four months have been incredibly busy, and I thought that i...

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79:11

Vikings on Mushrooms: A Note on Ritual Use of...

The Sacred Flame ·

2024/06/28

In this episode I’ll take you on a trip through the historical components behind the idea that Vikings did mushrooms before battle. We will explore the context for why that claim emerged in the 1600s, when the Danish scholar Thomas Bartholin first put it out there, and why it’s the kind story that’s thoroughly a myth in the sense of something that's entirely made up. After that, I’ll offer some comments on the idea that psychotropic agents are helpful for the purpose of reaching a higher self...

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66:47

Sigmundr and Sinfjotli Go to the Woods: Masculinity...

The Sacred Flame ·

2024/06/01

In this episode I'm talking about Viking wolves and those manly men out there who think of themselves as "wolves." We're diving into the wolf's history in the Nordic story-world and how it relates to contemporary male fantasies about individualism, rugged masculinity, and being a protector. We will be learning about honor, legal codes in Scandinavian history, habeas corpus, and why Tyler Durden in Fight Club is an irresponsible fool.

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79:44

Rune Magic Part 2: From the Viking Age to...

The Sacred Flame ·

2024/04/20

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85:17

Rune Magic Part 1: The History of Runes and the...

The Sacred Flame ·

2024/02/10

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