I am posting the email below with Mr. Gawtry’s permission.  As you read this, keep in mind that Watkins is not a fly by night bookseller, its doors opened in 1894!  Some will argue that this is just a change in marketing, but change is not always good; death and disease are manifestations of change.  The economic pressures on independent booksellers worldwide are indeed a fatal disease that may soon exterminate these valuable community resources.

I don’t know that the tide can be turned – people are often cheap, and think of nothing but their own gain with no consideration of the long term consequences – but more of us should be aware of what is happening, both in the United States and elsewhere.

The Net Book Agreement was a British regulation that has never existed in the United States, but we are seeing the exact same thing happen here as a very few large corporations increasingly create what is essentially a monopoly in bookselling by driving the small, independent retailers out of business.  You may disagree, but it will be a sad day for me when I can only purchase books online or from a box store.

Please support your local bookseller!

From: Stephen Gawtry [mailto:Stephen.Gawtry@ntlworld.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 9:44 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Re: Closure of Watkins

 
Dear friends and colleagues,

Some of you may have already heard the sad news, but I’m afraid that Watkins Books has gone into administration and the shop closed on Tuesday, February 23^rd. Watkins has been struggling for the last few years to keep its head above water. The tide turned with the collapse of the Net Book Agreement and the rise of discounted books. Independent bookshops relied on the bigsellers like Harry Potter or the latest Dan Brown to enable them to survive and stock the classics and slow sellers. Once the Net Book Agreement went, supermarkets were suddenly allowed to sell the bigsellers at heavily discounted prices, literally taking the bread from the mouths of the independents. When “The Da Vinci Code” first came out in paperback, Watkins was buying copies from the wholesaler at around £4.50, while up the road Tescos in Covent Garden was selling it for around £3.50. I heard of one independent bookseller who drove to his supermarket and filled up a trolley with the latest Jamie Oliver book, as it was far cheaper than getting it from his regular supplier. On the last Harry Potter books, supermarkets like Asda were selling them as lost leaders. A vast mountain of brand new £16.99 hardbacks marked down to £4.99 so that every little ‘Potter’ fan would urge their parents to take them there and hopefully buy their weekly shopping at the same time. This is the real crime. These people don’t respect books. To them they are a throw away commodity. What other area of retail gives away the latest brand new products like that? The collapse of the Net Book Agreement has enabled the supermarkets to take the cream of the bestsellers and demand huge discounts from publishers, thereby depriving bookshops of their life-blood. But what happens when there is suddenly nowhere to buy the classics, the text books, the car and computer manuals? Yes, if you know exactly what you want, you can order online. But what if you don’t know? What if you need to look at the book or to browse and see what is right for you? This is the reality. As of 2009, 500 independent bookshops in the UK had closed since the demise of the agreement in the late 90s. That number will vastly increase over the next year. Online sellers like Amazon have compounded the problem and the recent recession has just about brought the high street to its knees. Even specialist shops with loyal customers like Watkins are now struggling to survive. I always thought Watkins would pull through somehow and have not yet given up hope. There are several people interested in buying Watkins and hopefully it will rise again from the ashes and be given a new lease of life. Having worked at Watkins since 1993, I have seen many changes, met many dear friends - authors, publishers, distributors, work colleagues - and of course customers! I would like to thank everyone for their continued support over the years. Like Watkins, long may it continue!

Those of you who have adverts, books or articles in the Spring or Summer issues of the Review, please note that I have every intention of continuing with the Review and will do my best to get future issues out when I can. I will let you know more once I know more myself.

Best wishes,

Stephen Gawtry
Editor, The Watkins Review

Travels Through Middle Earth: The Path of a Saxon Pagan has been reviewed in ‘Witches & Pagans’ magazine.  The editor was kind enough to send me a copy of the review:

TRAVELS THROUGH MIDDLE EARTH: THE PATH OF A SAXON PAGAN

ALARIC ALBERTSSON

LLEWELLYN, 2009

In The Path of a Saxon Pagan, Alaric Albertsson decides to share his experiences and his beliefs of this Anglo-Saxon tradition relative to his personal path instead of speaking for all Anglo-Saxon Pagans, and he does this quite marvelously. Travels provides an introduction and more into Anglo-Saxon Heathenry today, while still honoring and reflecting on the contributions of the ancestors and the journeys through Middle Earth, and the other realms and customs within the fyrn sidu, or the “old ways.”

I won’t pretend to know much about Fyrn Sidu, but Albertsson is refreshingly informed in a way that isn’t pretentious or overbearing.  One chapter is dedicated to mead-making, and while the information can seem somewhat overwhelming and daunting at times, he’s clearly aware of this and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Albertsson has a sense of humor you don’t often see reflected on oneself in their work, and that humor made me like him even more. He doesn’t dumb down the information, but does his best to present it in a way that encourages you to read further.

Albertsson also teaches us how to create a wéofod, the Saxon altar, and how to prepare and celebrate the húsel, ritual or ceremony.  There is in-depth introduction into a person’s orlay, or wyrd (“fate”) that kept me wanting to read more, and a discussion of the Nine Noble Virtues that provides a great guideline to incorporate in any spiritual practice.

My favorite elements within Travels Through Middle Earth are his in-depth discussions on the ancestors.  I don’t think I have come across a book in quite some time that relays the importance of honor within the ancestral realm as well as with the deities. Albertsson makes sure we understand that the Gods shouldn’t be viewed as “divine vending machines”; the way we treat them reveals the true value of our personal honor.  This is what I want to hear. This is what I want to read from an author addressing Pagan cosmology.  Our word is crucial in all that we do, and Albertsson doesn’t leave this stone unturned.

Whether you’re a Saxon Pagan or simply someone interested in delving into the mysteries of Middle Earth, this book is full of information and introspection that takes you deeper into a practice that’s rarely written about.  The chapter on “Honor and Wyrd,” in itself, makes this book a worthwhile read.  Travels Through Middle Earth may be the journey of  “a” Saxon Pagan, but I believe Albertsson represents “the”

Saxon Pagans quite honorably.

SILVERMOONE.

4 out of 5 broomsticks. 

(Before you ask, I don’t know why I didn’t get the fifth broomstick.)

A few days ago a friend emailed me to let me know that a copy of Travels Through Middle Earth: The Path of a Saxon Pagan is one of the new library acquisitions at Harvard University.  That pleased me a lot.  At first I was not sure if my reaction was appropriate, but when I told my friend Sam, himself a librarian, he responded saying, “That’s quite a distinction.  The Harvard libraries buy a lot of books, but they don’t buy junk.”

I do not and have not described myself as a scholar, nor have I ever pretended that TTME is a scholarly work.  Nevertheless, when it comes to distinguishing between personal insights and historical fact, I believe the book is as good as most and better than many.  To hear that Harvard University considered it a worthy acquisition reassures me that this is not entirely a conceit on my part.

As you probably know if you have read Travels Through Middle Earth, the Saxons used a synodic (moon-based) calendar.  For those who would like to time their húsles and holiday devotions to this calendar, here are the Saxon months coming up this year:

December 2nd: ÆRRA GÉOLA.  The beginning of the Yuletide.  “Early Yule”.  Mothers’ Night - the winter solstice - falls during this month.

December 31st: ÆTERRA GÉOLA.  The last of the Yuletide.  “Late Yule”.

January 30th: SOLMONATH.  Yule ends.  Saxon traditionally offer sol-cakes (bread or cake) to the earth during this month.

February 28th: HRETHMONATH.

March 30th: EOSTREMONATH.  The Feast of Eostre.

April 28th: THRIMILCI.  Summer begins.  Those following a lunar calendar may wish to celebrate May Day now.

May 28th: ÆRRA LITHA.  Litha - the summer solstice - is celebrated during this month.

June 26th: ÆFTERRA LITHA.

July 26th: WEODMONATH.  This is a good time to observe Lammas for those adhering to a lunar calendar.

August 24th: HALIGMONATH.  Bede tells us that the Saxons traditionally gave offerings to their gods throughout this month of harvest.

September 23rd: WINTERFYLLETH.  Winter is approaching.

October 23rd: BLOTMONATH.  Winter begins.  This is a good time to observe Hallows for those who are following a lunar calendar.

November 21st: ÆRRA GÉOLA.  The first of the Yuletide.

December 21st: ÆFTERRA GÉOLA.  The latter part of the Yuletide.  This year the full moon ushering in the first of Æfterra Géola will also appear on Mothers’ Night.

Not long ago I received a letter saying, in part, “As for praise of your book, I mean every word and I gave it an equally glowing review on our Grove’s mailing list.  I’m also very curious to see how the next book turns out.  Magick is a fairly out there subject where everyone is more or less entitled to their own flights of whimsy, so if you manage to keep it even half as down to earth as the first book I’d consider that a tremendous accomplishment.”

The ‘next book’ he refers to is, of course, Wyrdworking: The Path of a Saxon Sorcerer, which I am currently finishing up.  Will it be down to earth?  I should probably leave that for the reader to decide.  Now that the first draft is done, I can promise that Wyrdworking will be as honest as Travels Through Middle Earth.  The book opens with a discussion of my own definition of magic, to ensure that the reader knows exactly where I intend to take him.  Wyrdworking is not a book about spirituality, enlightenment or personal transformation.  It is a book about magic.  Old fashioned, cauldron stirring, wand waving magic.

Fully half of the book explores rune magic.  I describe how each of the 29 runes of the Futhorc reflect an aspect of Anglo-Saxon culture and tradition.  But the rune chapters also include simple, practical advice for combining runes for various purposes.  This part of the book will also serve very well as a study guide for anyone who owns the Martin Rune Deck, which will be released by WolfDen Designs next month.

A chapter on galdor (voice/sound magic) discusses how to design effective incantations.  Is this down to earth?  I don’t know, but most of the techniques I present are found in the old Anglo-Saxon magic charms from the 9th and 10th centuries.  And according to people who have attended talks I’ve given on galdor, the techniques work.

The chapter on wortcunning (herb magic) gives enough information to get the budding herbologist started on this path.  In addition to listing useful herbs, I explain how to prepare magic potions and ointments.  Again, is this down to earth?  I think so.  The techniques I describe are historical, time honored methods of utilizing the power of herbs.  Although my own magic is influenced by my intuition and personal experience, it is fundamentally based on Saxon tradition and folklore.  I have kept what works and discarded what does not.

This approach, blending lore with experience, is found throughout the book, and I constantly strive to differentiate between the two.  I include ‘wyrd stones’ in the chapter on wiglung (divination), openly admitting that these are almost sure a 20th century creation based on Wiccan philosophy.  Nevertheless, I have found wyrd stones to be remarkably accurate, and they seem to fit into a Saxon style of sorcery quite well.  And, although I will leave it to my readers to form their own opinions, this is why I personally believe Wyrdworking is down to earth.  It is honest.  Not a treatise on historical, pre-Christian Saxon practices, nor merely a “flight of whimsy”, the book is a practical guide to this Saxon sorcerer’s path, put forth as well as I can.

Yesterday I wrapped up the first draft of Wyrdworking.  At this point it is almost 94k words, which (to give some perspective) is a little less than twice the length of TTME.

I’m really happy with the way the book is shaping up.  Of course there could be (and probably will be) a lot of changes before its 2011 release.  I am setting it aside for a week or so.  Then I’ll go back through the manuscript to collect the words I’ll be putting in the glossary, and to look for anything in the text that I want to change.  Once the glossary and bibliography are finished I’ll need to sketch more than 50 runes and images going into the book.  I should have everything ready to mail to Llewellyn by mid-November, which is fine, because my deadline is mid-January. 

Then begins the year-long process of editorial changes, cover art and soliciting blurbs.

Approximately half of Wyrdworking is devoted to rune magic.  But these are not your former Priestess’s runes.  Ignoring most new-age ideas about the runes, I turn to the lore, to the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem, to discern the inner mysteries of these ancient symbols.  There is also more of a focus on rune magic - in contrast to divination - than you find in most rune books. 

The remainder of the book explores other magic skills; galdor (sound magic), wortcunning (herb magic), seething (trance magic) and scrying.  The final chapters illustrate how to combine these skills for effective spellwork.

Today I finished the text for a booklet that will be packaged with the Martin rune deck.  These 33 cards are the work of Pagan artist Taren Martin and will soon be available through Wolfden Designs.

I cannot find words to express how excited I am about this project.  The images on the cards are the result of extensive collaborations between Taren and myself.  Every effort was made to depict on each card the meaning of the corresponding passage in the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem.  Perhaps more importantly, every effort was made to avoid depicting anything else.  My personal peeve with other rune decks (other than most of them being Elder Fuþark and thus lacking 5-9 runic characters) is the artists’ tendency to depict their own fanciful interpretations.  In a deck I recently purchased, the thorn rune had an image of dancing imps or devils, even though there is nothing in the rune poem to suggest any such idea.  Taren and I have worked very hard to keep the Martin rune deck faithful to the lore.

Beyond this, however, the illustrations on these cards are beautiful!  My very favorite is the image for the os rune, showing the silvery magic flowing out from Woden’s mouth.  Sigel, peorth, gear and ing are also personal favorites.  There is a card for each of the 29 passages of the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem, plus four more for the runes that have no surviving lore.  Taren and I both felt it was important to include these for people who would like to explore the potential of the calc, gar, cweorth and stan runes.  These cards have a distinct look to ensure the rúnwita remembers that any interpretation is purely intuition on his or her part.

I’m hoping that Taren will be able to kit me out with a deck to take to Between the Worlds and Earth Warriors later next month, but these cards probably won’t be available to the public until mid-October.  An announcement and appropriate link will be posted here as soon as they are released for purchase.

No, it’s not the same thing as Lughnasadh.  The latter is a festival honoring the Celtic god Lugh.  The Celtic festival may or may not have been a harvest celebration.  I don’t really know much about Celtic traditions.  What I do know is that the Lammas celebration has nothing to do with Lugh or any other foreign god or goddess.  Lammas is very specifically a harvest festival described in the 9th century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a “feast of first fruits”.  And the Anglo-Saxons are unlikely to have honored any gods other than their own at this time of year.  They did not readily assimilate Celtic culture.  If they did, I would be typing this in Welsh rather than in English.

Lammas celebrates the harvest of winter wheat.  This is sown in the autumn and is ready to harvest, usually, by mid to late June.  My godson Alaric (henceforth referred to as Alaric the Younger) and I had a discussion about this over pizza earlier this year.  His wheat was almost ready to harvest, and he’d noticed this event occurs 5-6 weeks before the traditional harvest festival date.  However Alaric the Younger harvests his wheat with a combine.  The huge machine cuts the wheat and separates the grain from the chaff rapidly as it progresses across a field.  Until very recently - a blink of the eye in the course of human history - winter wheat was cut by hand and tied, again by hand, into sheaves.  After the village’s wheat had been sheafed, it was later brought in and threshed by hand.  The grain then had to be ground into flour.  And only then, weeks later at the Lammastide, could the wheat be presented in its final, edible form as a loaf of bread.

And this is what Lammas (Hlafmæsse) means, the loaf-offering.  The central act of any Lammas húsel should be the offering of bread.

Lammastide is a very special time of year for me, because it was on Lammas Eve, 1971, when I first pledged myself to our gods.  I think of Lammas as my “rebirthday”, and this year I will be 38, in Pagan years.  In the summer of 1971, the year Jim Morrison died, I had been told about the old gods.  But like many people, I was hesitant to take that big step into polytheism.  Then on Lammas Eve, I awoke in the middle of the night feeling miserable and lost and very much alone.  Those feelings dissipated as the goddess Hertha (Hrethe) came to me and invited - urged - me to follow an older path.  On that night I found a candle, lit it and poured out my heart to the old gods.

I didn’t offer a loaf of bread that year, but I’ve observed this traditional practice ever since.  I think the best offering is a loaf you have baked yourself.  If you don’t have any experience baking bread, here’s a tip:  Buy a bag of the pre-made unbaked loaves you can find in the freezer section at your local supermarket.  Thaw the dough overnight in your refrigerator, and then give it a personal touch the next day.  Knead in whatever you want - raisins, nuts, spices - to create a unique and interesting loaf.  After this, all you need to do is let the dough rise and then pop it in the oven for half an hour.  The directions are on the bag.

While you’re waiting for my own book on northern magic, be sure to check out The Book of Seiðr: The Native English and Northern European Shamanic Tradition, by Runic John. Very little has been written on the subject of northern magic, and most of that has been almost entirely theory with very little practice. In The Book of Seiðr, Runic John shares his years of experience to help the reader explore the northern shamanic tradition on a practical level.

When I first read this book I was a little disappointed by the use of Norse terminology and cosmology, but I think this is because I’m an American. Over the years I have noticed that those of us on this side of the ocean often feel a need to assert our “English-ness”. I would have liked more Anglo-Saxon terms, but that is really a very small criticism for such a groundbreaking work.

The book opens with a chapter sharing passages of lore from the Norse Eddas and sagas. Then, in the very next chapter, Runic John gives the reader exercises to help open his mind to visions and sensations beyond the ordinary. This sets the tone for the rest of the book. Runic John doesn’t leave the reader behind as a passive observer, he brings you into the experience with meditations, instruction and exercises. By chapter six, a chapter appropriately titled “Learning to Walk”, an ambitious reader will be able to take his first, brief shamanic journey.

In later chapters the reader will be introduced to various spirits he or she may encounter on his journeys. Runic John also discusses shamanic techniques of healing and divination. The final chapter discusses the various tools that a practitioner may want to acquire.

The Book of Seiðr is an excellent resource for anyone seriously interested in the arts of faring forth. And Runic John sent me an email just the other day to say that he would be happy to answer any emails if you don’t understand something in the book or have some question. So be sure to get a copy of The Book of Seiðr, and send your questions to RunicJohn@hotmail.com. His book is published by Capall Bann (ISBN 1861632290).

Now that I’m back from Missouri, I’m moving ahead with my next book.  Its tentative title is Wyrdworking: The Path of a Saxon Sorcerer.  As the title indicates, this book will focus on Anglo-Saxon magic.  For those who are interested in this subject, it will be a companion to Travels Through Middle Earth: The Path of a Saxon Pagan.  And although Wyrdworking will be able to stand alone, I will highly recommend that people read the first book before progressing on to this second one.

I have an outline and a general idea of where I’m going with Wyrdworking, but there is still plenty of time over the next couple of months to tweak the manuscript.  If you have any thoughts or ideas of what you would like to see in a book on Saxon magic, I would love to hear from you.  Just send me an email at alaric@alaricalbertsson.com.  I can’t promise that I’ll use all of your ideas, but I do promise to give all of them serious consideration.

So you have an idea of what Wyrdworking will be like, here is what I have so far.

* A discussion of the nature of magic, and how it relates to and differs from Saxon spirituality.

* The tools and components of Saxon magic.  Crafting a wand and/or staff.  Magical components that a Saxon sorcerer may want to have on hand.

* The Anglo-Saxon runes (Futhorc).  Crafting a divinatory rune set.  Making runic charms.

* Wortcunning (herb magic).  How to brew potions and concoct herbal ointments.  Growing your own herbs.

* Magical healing.  Love magic.  Prosperity magic.

I’ve reduced the entire book down to five bullets here, but I think this gives some idea of what I’m doing.  Of course if I use your idea you will be credited in the introduction!  I am very excited about Wyrdworking so far.  I think it is going to be a helpful guide for anyone interested in pursuing the art of traditional Saxon wiccecræft.