Werkgroep Hagal

Werkgroep Hagal is a Flemish-Dutch Odalistic study group which was founded with the goal of studying, experiencing and promoting pre-Christian traditions in the Low Countries. Werkgroep Hagal especially focuses on the Germanic traditions of the Frankish, Saxon and Frisian forebears who took possession of our regions in the third century. These Germanic peoples, ultimately originating from the north of Europe, but in part already present in the north of the Low Countries, assimilated the remnants of an already largely Teutonized “Gallo-Roman” population in the south of the Netherlands and Flanders after the collapse of the waning Roman dominion. They were farmers and warriors, organised in extended families or sibs, who were accustomed to unremitting labour and battle and brought their traditions, standards and values with them from the north. The typical Germanic worldview, which they shared with kindred tribes and peoples in North-West-Europe, manifested itself in myths and legends, symbols, rituals and customs, and forms the entity which is nowadays called Ásatrú or Heathenism: Loyalty to the Æsir, the gods of our Germanic ancestors. Christianity and modernity, which pursue nothing else than the universal forcing into line of all human beings and peoples for the benefit of the spiritual and physical slavery of self-denial and mass consumption, have gone to great lenghts in both the distant and the recent past to banish this defensible archetype from the minds and hearts of the descendants of the grand Germanic peoples. Yet, to no avail!

The goals of Werkgroep Hagal are simple. A first spearhead consists of the study of the pre-Christian Tradition. By consulting a large range of sources, we’re trying to come to a reliable reconstruction of the living and mental world of our Germanic ancestors, with the intention of collecting this knowledge and making it available for consultation for all sympathizers and interested parties. To satisfy this purpose, Werkgroep Hagal is always pursuing the expansion of her large library. Informative articles are published in our biannual periodical Wende (meaning ‘change, reversal’) and on our website. Moreover, with respect to the qualitative content of the articles, we try to make a selection between relevant information and the large mass of speculative disinformation which has appeared during the last couple of decades. That is why Werkgroep Hagal republishes old and forgotten sources in the series Adelboekerij (meaning ‘the library of (spiritual) nobility’), which would otherwise not have been available for consultation. Furthermore we organise informative lectures on a regular basis, including the weekly digital radio broadcast Omroep Odal, which goes more deeply into the Germanic past and the survival of the Tradition in the present, by means of reports, tracts and interviews.

However, Werkgroep Hagal is far from a study fellowship alone, but consists of an active circle which focuses attention on the experience of the pre-Christian Traditions and the restoration of the Germanic heritage, denoted with the concept called Odal. Because of this we set out to take part in numerous activities and events concerning our ancestral heritage during the whole year, we visit historical places to ponder upon their implications for our identity and organise our own annual celebrations. In the distant past these annual celebrations, which were observed as a result of natural phenomena that bore a mythological meaning, formed a vital link in the life of the agricultural Germanic society and represent the relation of the free Germanic peasant with the natural environment that surrounded him. Many Christian holidays originate from these key points in the Germanic rhythm of life and were ‘christianized’ by the Church later on, when it proved to be powerless to ban these pagan holidays from popular culture. Most celebrations organised by Werkgroep Hagal occur in closed circle, but the annual winter solstice celebration, the Joelfeest, known in English as the Yulefeast, is open to all who want to attend and has had many visitors until now. Not surprisingly, Werkgroep Hagal has a so-called midwinter league at her disposal, which bears the name Midwinterbond Bernavra and attempts to breathe new life in the folkish rites surrounding the Germanic Yulefeast in the Low Countries. Werkgroep Hagal also devotes herself to the experience and preservation of local folkish traditions and has her own folk dance group with the name Volksdansgroep Wonne (meaning ‘gladness’).

Finally, Werkgroep Hagal also draws the obvious social conclusions and strives for an honourable, subservient and defensible Heathenism in the Low Countries in an active way. We have nothing less in view than the resurrection of the Germanic traditions in our present society! By means of informing the general public and expanding our ever increasing core of Steadfast Ones and Companions, we aim to make the population of the Low Countries aware of their Heathen roots again. Christianity has only been a thin layer of varnish on a rock hard Heathen core, and not even the modern, global consumer society and the ecological and cultural devastation it has wrought has the power to shatter this core, in spite of all earlier attempts. In any case we do not wish to return to a distant prehistorical past, but we regard the Germanic worldview as belonging to the character of our people and consider it as an ethically sound attitude to life, which offers an answer to present situations and problems. The ultimate goal is a society oriented towards Heathenism, honourable, subservient and defensible, through both words and deeds!

If you are interested in our activities, want to receive more information or if the above profile appeals to you, please do contact us. Send and e-mail to inlichtingen@hagal.be

Woden With Us!