MIDGARDSBLOT FESTIVAL

Heilung, Enslaved and more raise the ancient spirits of community

Within a forest, bordered by the Oslo fjord and Viking burial mounds, Midgardsblot Festival is celebrating its fifth year. A small event of about 3,500, it’s essentially a hybrid between a metal festival and a Viking re-enactment ceremony – with the clientele mainly a mix of leather-clad extreme metallers and pelt-wearing Vikings guzzling mead from horns. The festival begins with the opening Blot ritual. Led by the almost comically contrary small and tall dishevelled Viking duo Benny and Gustave – the nucleus of pagan folk troubadours blood – on the sacramental altar. Throughout the ritual, one thing is made clear: while such a spectacle could intimidate, Benny and Gustave emphasise how it doesn’t matter what you believe, or even if you do: you are welcomed to Midgardsblot with love, into a festival that is about community, acceptance and, perhaps most importantly, rebirth.