Asatru Codes of Conduct

The Nine Noble Virtues

The Nine Nobal Virtues are a set of moral and situational ethical guidelines codified by John Yeowell (a.k.a Stubba) and John Gibbs-Bailey (a.k.a Hoskuld) of the Odinic Rite in the 1970s.

They are based on virtues found in historical Norse paganism, gleaned from various sources including the Poetic Edda (particularly the Hávamál and the Sigrdrífumál) and as evident in the Icelandic Sagas).

  1. Courage: By facing Life’s struggles with courage, we constantly extend our capabilities. Without courage, nothing else can be done!
  2. Truth: Blind faith has no place in Asatru. No pie-in-the-sky; we must act in this world as we see it and as it really is rather than calmly wait for the next
  3. Honor: We must be true to what we are, and we insist on acting with nobility rather than baseness. Our Standards must be banner held high in our hearts.
  4. Fidelity: We stand true to our faith and our values. Loyalty is the basis for all enduring human activity, and we hold it in the highest esteem.
  5. Hospitality: The isolation and loneliness of modern life is not necessary. The willingness to share what one has with ones' fellows, especially travelers, is a vital part of our way of life.
  6. Discipline: We hold to the discipline necessary to fulfill our purpose. We stand willing to exercise the self-control and steadfastness necessary in these difficult times.
  7. Industriousness: Let us dare to be all that we can be! Let us take risks and taste the richness of life. Passivity is for sheep. We refuse to be mere spectators in life.
  8. Self Reliance: We depend on our own strength and character to achieve our goals. We seek only the freedom necessary to our quest, whatever it may be.
  9. Perseverance: We hold to our path until its completion and are not ashamed to be strong. The cult of the anti-hero will find no support in us, and the gods we follow are not for the weak.

Asatru Folk Assembly

  1. Strength is better than weakness
  2. Courage is better than cowardice
  3. Joy is better than guilt
  4. Honor is better than dishonor
  5. Freedom is better than slavery
  6. Kinship is better than alienation
  7. Realism is better than dogmatism
  8. Vigor is better than lifelessness
  9. Ancestry is better than universalism

The Nine Charges

(As with the Nine Noble Virtues, codified by the Odinic Rite in the 1970s)

  1. To maintain candor and fidelity in love and devotion to the tried friend: though he strike me I will do him no scathe.
  2. Never to make wrong some oath: for great and grim is the reward for the breaking of plighted troth.
  3. To deal not hardly with the humble and the lowly.
  4. To remember the respect that is due to great age.
  5. To suffer no evil to go unremedied and to fight against the enemies of Faith, Folk and Family: my foes I will fight in the field, nor will I stay to be burnt in my house.
  6. To succor the friendless but to put no faith in the pledged word of a stranger people.
  7. If I hear the fool's word of a drunken man I will strive not: for many a grief and the very death groweth from out such things.
  8. To give kind heed to dead people: straw dead, sea dead or sword dead.
  9. To abide by the enactments of lawful authority and to bear with courage the decrees of the Norns.

The Six-Fold Goal

Another behavioral guideline discussed in A Book of Troth by Edred Thorsson (1989) and was adopted by certain Asatru groups in the such as 'Ring of Troth' and the 'Asatru Free Assembly'.

  1. Right
  2. Wisdom
  3. Might
  4. Harvest
  5. Firth
  6. Love
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