The Kindred System in Heathenry

In Heathenry, the kindred is the primary social and ritual unit: a committed community of practitioners who gather regularly for blótar, sumbel, shared meals, and mutual support. The word “kindred” carries its ordinary English meaning of family or kin-group, and this etymology is intentional. Heathens understand the kindred as a chosen family, a group that has taken on the reciprocal obligations and intimacy of kinship through shared practice and commitment to one another.

The kindred model reflects the social structures of ancient Germanic peoples, who organized their religious and civic life through clan, tribe, and household rather than through the parish or congregation structures familiar from Christianity. For Heathens, worship is not primarily a private affair between an individual and a god, nor is it a large institutional gathering. It is a communal act embedded in ongoing relationship between people who know each other and have made real commitments to one another.

History and origins

Ancient Germanic societies organized themselves through several nested social units. The household was the smallest; the clan or extended family broader; and the thing (assembly) broader still, serving legal and political functions for a wider community. Religion operated at all these levels. Household shrines honored the landvaettir and family dísir; blótar at the clan level honored the gods of the local region or family; great blótar at sacred sites like the temple at Uppsala drew communities from wider areas together.

When Heathenry was revived in the 1970s, organizers consciously modeled community structure on these historical patterns rather than on Christian ecclesiastical organization. The Asatru Free Assembly (later Asatru Folk Assembly) and the Odinic Rite both developed kindred-based organizational models in the early years of the revival, and this pattern became standard across most of the Heathen world.

The word “kindred” itself is an innovation of the modern revival; ancient Norse communities would have used terms from their own languages. But the social logic it names, community as kinship rather than congregation, is deeply rooted in the historical material.

How kindreds function

A functioning kindred typically has a core group of committed members who gather regularly, usually at seasonal blótar and at less formal occasions throughout the year. Leadership varies: some kindreds use a gothi or gythja (priest or priestess) model where one person leads ritual; others rotate leadership or operate by consensus.

Membership in a kindred is taken seriously. Most established kindreds have some form of formal membership process that involves a period of getting to know one another before formal commitment is made. Because the kindred is conceived as a form of kinship, the decision to join is understood as a significant commitment, not simply signing up for a mailing list.

Frith is the ethical glue of kindred life. Members are expected to maintain goodwill and right relationship with one another, to be honest, to keep their word, and to bring disputes within the kindred to some form of communal resolution rather than letting grievances fester. Violations of frith are taken seriously and may result in a member being asked to leave. The gothi or a designated elder may serve as mediator when conflicts arise.

Sumbel, the ritual of formal toasting, functions as a community-building practice as well as a devotional one. When members stand in turn to toast the gods, the ancestors, and to make oaths or boasts before the assembled kindred, they are placing their words and reputations before the community and the divine witnesses simultaneously. Sumbel reinforces the bonds of the kindred and marks significant moments in members’ lives.

Solitary practice and virtual kindreds

Geography, personal circumstance, or the ethics debates within a local community may leave a Heathen practicing alone or at a distance from any established group. Solitary practice is widely accepted as valid, and many experienced Heathens built their foundations through years of solitary work.

Online communities and virtual kindreds have developed as a significant feature of modern Heathenry, allowing practitioners in areas without local groups to participate in shared sumbel, study the sources together, and build community despite physical distance. While online connection cannot fully replace the embodied intimacy of an in-person kindred, it has made the tradition accessible to many who would otherwise practice in isolation.

In myth and popular culture

The social and religious unit of kin-group and extended community in ancient Germanic culture appears throughout the Norse sagas as the fundamental frame within which honor, hospitality, and religious obligation were understood. The Saga of the Volsungs, Egil’s Saga, Njal’s Saga, and the broader saga literature consistently depict religious life as embedded in family, household, and community rather than in individual devotion or priestly mediation. The blót, the oath, and the sumbel are communal acts whose meaning and force depend on witnesses and shared commitment.

In the Elder Eddas, the relationship between the Aesir as a community of distinct divine personalities with reciprocal obligations provides a mythological model for the kindred structure. Odin’s hall Valhalla is itself conceived as a warrior kindred in an extreme form, a chosen community of the distinguished dead whose shared feasting and preparation for Ragnarok mirrors the kinship obligations of the human hall.

The specific word “kindred” as a term for a modern Heathen community unit reflects a deliberate choice made by twentieth-century revival organizers to use English language that captures the kin-model without requiring the specific cultural ownership of Old Norse or Old English terms. The Asatru Free Assembly, founded by Stephen McNallen in 1974, and the broader organizational development of American Asatru in the 1970s and 1980s established the kindred vocabulary that has since spread internationally.

Contemporary Heathenry in popular culture has received increased attention through the mainstream success of Norse mythology-related media, including the God of War video game series (particularly the 2018 and 2022 installments), Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology (2017), and the television series Vikings (2013 to 2020). These representations have introduced many people to Norse religious concepts while also creating misconceptions that Heathen kindreds regularly work to address.

Myths and facts

Several misunderstandings about kindreds and Heathen community deserve clarification.

• Heathenry and white nationalism are sometimes conflated in public discourse because a minority of Heathen organizations have historically promoted folkish (ethnically exclusive) positions. The majority of contemporary Heathen kindreds are explicitly inclusive and have worked actively to distance the religion from racist interpretations of its symbols and theology.
• The kindred model is sometimes described as a revival of a specific ancient institution with a direct historical lineage. Modern kindreds are a conscious reconstruction based on historical evidence, not an unbroken survival of ancient practice; the kindred as currently practiced incorporates both ancient patterns and modern organizational necessities.
• Some people assume that belonging to a kindred requires Norse ancestry or a connection to Scandinavian culture. Most inclusive kindreds do not require any ethnic or cultural heritage for membership; the criterion is genuine commitment to the tradition and to the community.
• The sumbel, the formal toasting ritual, is sometimes described as an ancient and unchanged practice directly transmitted from the Viking Age. While it is documented in the Old English poem Beowulf and in saga sources, the specific forms practiced in contemporary kindreds are modern reconstructions informed by those sources rather than direct continuities.
• The Norse gods as depicted in Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe are familiar to many people as a first encounter with Thor, Odin, and Loki. Heathen practitioners generally note that these portrayals are far from the historical mythological figures and from the deities as understood in devotional practice, and the films are not a reliable guide to Heathen theology.