Customer Reviews

Songs of Yggdrasil: Shamanic Chants from the Northern Mysteries

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Looking at the CD from an Asatru standpoint, I found her chants, invocations, and nithing to be inspiring. The addition of echo and a white noise background effect gives her strong high voice a chilling quality. -It'll raise the hairs on the back of your neck when you first hear it. I recommend the album to anyone who's studied runic practice and interacted with a Asatru ritual such as a blot. It's easier to understand if you've heard the process before.

This CD comes with her Northern Mystries book (which I highly reccomend).

I agree with a previous reviewer that lacking the liner notes (when purchased with the book) is an unfortuneate oversight. However, for those who are interested in hearing the vibration of Rune names, some recital of norse poetry (translated into english) and an invocation for ritual, this CD is a must have.

Her voice is incredible and, where appropriate, chilling. Buy this CD!

If you like chilling, witchey, and erie sounding chants you'll love this CD!

As far as the technical quality of this recording, I can't say much. It sounds as if she is in a metal echo chaimber for much of this cd. As far as the accompanying sounds....can't say it's much there either. It sounds like something you'd hear on bad sci-fi.

However, to give credit where it is due, this is a decent way to start to learn galdr if you don't have an experienced teacher. I wish there were other recordings of Galdr avalible on the market. You may want to check out other chant recordings of the eddas avalible.

This is a great way to learn Odinist runic chants. Good for any one studying Norse Shamanism. It is a lot easier than reading chants out of a book. An Asatru must! Wyatt Kaldenberg

This is a good CD for serious thinking about the runes and the old Northern ways. BEWARE of Track 10. It contains things that should not be heard by children.

I should preface this review by admitting that I am not a rune practitioner, or northern magic practitioner. Perhaps this explains my lack of extreme enthusiasm for the recording, not to say that it is bad. Ms. Aswynn's voice is very powerful, and the words to her chants are, in some cases, little short of hair-raising. However, the copy I have (came with the book, Northern Mysteries & Magick: Runes, Gods, and Feminine Powers) lacks any explanatory text to explain what is happening in the recording. Not only are there no liner notes to list the words (probably not needed, as Ms. Aswynn's Dutch-accented English is not hard to understand after a few hearings) but there is nothing to explain what the different tracks are, or what she is trying to accomplish. As a person in an early stage of studying Asatru as a belief system, I found the recording emotionally affecting, but not very informative.

These are recordings of chants written by a priestess of Odin, meant to recreate the trance-inducing chants of the Norse seers. Aswynn is an accomplished priestess, author, and practitioner of Asatru. Her recording is vibrant, powerful, and intensely moving. The only caveat is that the words to these chants are not included in the liner notes, so the listener is unable to sing the the chants in their own worship/meditative practices, though the recording surely makes for beautiful ritual music.

This is a strange CD, containing various tracks of chants to Odin using the runes of the Elder Futhark. Most of the runes are presented in a series of individual chants, "The first one thou taught me ..." but it's a little hard to understand what's being said. Knowing the names of the runes makes it much easier to get it. Other tracks cover other sections of Northern mythology such as post-Ragnorak times. I bought this CD with her book, and after perusing the book I appreciated the CD much more than I did at first. She seems to be a real scholar of the runes and I'm glad to have this genuine authentic material, even though at first it's a little less approachable than the popularized rune books like Blum's. I would recommend this for a serious investigator of the power of runes. This CD is kind of haunting, almost eerie at first, but later powerful in a very elemental way.

If you are seeking a recording that can bring the actual Essence of the Runes and the culture that discovered them then this is it. Live, breath and feel the power of Odin as the Runes are chanted around you and through you.
These recordings show you the Runes as no written word ever could and can be used to raise your own vibration to match that of the Shamans.

This CD is valuable to anyone who is learning the Galdr technique of intoning the Runes. If you desire to work with the Runes as more than just a divinatory medium, the method Freya demonstrates here will manifest their powers in your sacred space.