What is a Heathen?

This was originally meant to be a handful of things, first a "Why I'm Heathen" then a "What does Heathenry mean to me," but I realized that both of these require further unpacking. As per usual, I'll never claim to be an expert on anything, but I can explain as I understand it.

So lets start simple:

What is a Heathen?

At it's heart, Heathenry is a general term for a continuation of the pre-christian religion native to the Germanic cultures of Northern Europe. Speaking in the broadest commonalities, it involves some measure of ancestor veneration, and a belief in various forms of spirit: land wights, house wights, etc. It involves certain world-view concepts such as Wyrd, Orlog, and Luck. Of course, what any of that means is up for debate.

If you asked a hundred self-identified Heathens, you'd get as many answers. This is not because Heathenry is a blanket religion like Wicca in which just about anything can be included, but because Heathenry is a folk tradition that varies naturally between groups, regions, and points in time. The modern landscape is little different. Though we share some general precepts, how we relate to those beliefs and what we do with them varies quite a bit.

I am not going to get into the various 'denominations' that have cropped up. I'm not familiar enough with Odinism or Theod to tell you much about it, and while I probably have the most in common with Asatru, I don't like to define myself by it. Instead, I prefer to go by heathen. It's a good term, simple and straightforward - which is, to my mind, what a good heathen term should be. More importantly, it's mercifully devoid of the political implications of some of the other associations. 

There's a history to the term I can appreciate as well. Heathen is itself a dirty word. It comes about after the conversion to Christianity, to designate the people "of the hearth." It refers to the people they thought of as hicks and hillbillies who still practiced their naive, native ways. Heathen was the word for those too backwards and uneducated to realize that they should abandon their cultural heritage in favor of the foreign God and his chosen authority structure on earth, rising up from the south and east. It was meant to be a  pejorative, but for me it evokes the kind of stubborn resistance to outside force and loyalty to one's past that I would expect from Heathens today. 

I'll wear it with pride.