A Comment To "Vargsmål" And Other Books By Varg Vikernes

Unfortunately my work as writer is known because of a book called "Vargsmål" (Varg's Speech) that I wrote when I was 21 years old, in late 1994. When I wrote it I had just received a 21 year conviction and I was isolated in a security block in Bergen prison for about a year. I wrote the book because I felt a strong need to defend myself against all the media lies and lie-propaganda. All my correspondence was stopped, I was allowed to talk on the phone for only 10 minutes a week and receive one (one hour) visit every week, so writing a book was basically my only way to disclose the lies of the media and talk back.

"Vargsmål" was written in anger, while I was young and on isolation, and the book is marked by this. What made it even worse was the fact that the prison authorities confiscated the manuscript, and for several years I wasn't allowed to even proof-read it. It was an unfinished manuscript, consisting of many separate articles, and ideally I would have been able to make some changes before it was published, but I wasn't. Eventually I gave up and just published it as it was - with all the errors and not-so-balanced articles. I figured that it was better to live with the embarrassing errors, than not to publish it at all.

Another problem with "Vargsmål" is that it was written especially for Norwegians. I took it for granted that the reader was familiar with the story and the Norwegian media-reality. This will make the book a bit odd to others, as they don't always have the insight necessary to know what I am actually talking about.

Before the book was translated into Swedish - some years ago - I was able to make some corrections, but I chose not to remove the poorer articles included in the text, in an attempt to accept my mistakes and live with them, rather than try to "revise" the book.

I obviously haven't been able to read through the Russian translation to see if that translation is good or not. Not only have I a Russian vocabulary like a 4-year-old, but the Russian I know I have learned from young Polish and Lithuanian criminals (who use words like "korva" in every single sentence), so half of what I do know is probably not even grammatically correct.

It has been easier when it comes to the English translations though, and I say translations rather than translation, because I know of at least two English translations. The one I saw, in 1999, was sent to me by the guys at www.burzum.com, and it was so bad I didn't know if I should laugh or weep or what. The translator had managed to translate sentences like "Jeg er germansk" ("I am Teutonic" or "I am Germanic") to "I am German". Now why on Earth would I say that I am German? "German" in Norwegian is actually "tysk", and that doesn't even resemble "germansk", so this mistake is pretty amazing. The whole translation was so horrible that I didn't even manage to read through all of it. One of the things I don't handle very well is stupidity and incompetence, and this translator was just so incredibly stupid or incompetent that I had to stop reading in order not to die from a heart attack or something.

My fear is that when people think of "Vargsmål" they think of this horrible attempt at an English translation. "Vargsmål" is not a very good book to start with, although I think it has some good points, and if a horrible translation of a book that is not very good to start with is what I am known for, that does not make me very happy (and we do want me to be happy, don't we?...).

So, I say that unfortunately my work as a writer is known because of "Vargsmål". However, the only other book I have had published this far is "Germansk Mytologi Og Verdensanskuelse" (Teutonic Mythology And Worldview), written (in 1998) in Norwegian, so it has not been read by that many people. I called it "Teutonic" rather than "Scandinavian" solely to provoke the politically correct "intellectuals" in Norway, who seem to regret the fact that the Germans ("those horrible Nazis") share our religious and cultural traditions. The problem with publishing a book in Norwegian is that I am so boycotted in Norway that any form of distribution will always be hopeless, and even libraries refused to take it, and if they did, they often refused to let people borrow it (!?). A student I talked to in 2003 in Tønsberg told me the librarian let her borrow it only after she had assured her that it was for an essay she wrote in context with her university education and that she was old enough not to be influenced by it. Apparently we have a political censorship in the public libraries in Norway. (How very "democratic".) There is in other words no wonder that I am not well-known for writing about mythology... It should come to no surprise to anybody that the media in Norway has ignored this book completely, so I don't think many Norwegians even know it exists.

The third book I wrote in Norwegian, in 1999, was called "EihwaR", and it is a philosophical/political/historical novel in form of a dialogue between a student and an oppositional. By then I had become pretty patient, so I had no rush getting it published, and after a while I decided to translate it into English, and changed the title to "The Religion Of The Blood". This English translation will be published, but probably not until next year, possibly later (for tactical reasons...).

The fourth book I wrote, also in 1999, and in both Norwegian and English, was basically just a translation and interpretation of "Völuspá". Originally it was an attempt to use the text for political and religious purposes, but I rewrote the political interpretations to make it more serious and eatable, and expect to publish it some time next year, or possible later, under the title "The Runic Völuspá". I initially planned to include it as a part of another book ("The Mysteries And Mythology Of Ancient Scandinavia"), but decided not to.

The fifth book I wrote, in 2000 and 2001, was called "Teorier" (Theories), later changed to "Theories". I wrote half the book in Norwegian, and then changed my mind and wrote the second half in English. ("Very" practical...) It contained several short stories about the prehistoric era, and presented some theories to the origin of different customs and beliefs we have or out forefathers had, but I ended up binning the whole book. The only reason I mention this book is that I know that some people know about it, and in case they wonder, I can tell that it will not be published, but I have instead recycled some of the ideas, in other books.

The sixth book I wrote in English, in 2003/2004. It is called "The Cult Of Hel" and it is some sort of gothic-fantasy novel. It is a fictional story based partly on real events and will probably be the book that is the most interesting to Black Metal and Goth fans. It contains some of the "theories" from the fifth book, by the way, and elements from the short story "Perþ". This book will most likely be published next year.

The seventh book I wrote in 2004, and it's first and foremost an English translation of "Germansk Mytologi Og Verdensanskuelse" (GMV), but it's also rewritten and improved. This book I have called "The Mysteries And Mythology Of Ancient Scandinavia". In a sense it is just the same book, but I have made so many changes and included so much new material that it is in effect a completely new book. Unlike GMV it contains a description of all the high festivals, the ancient Pagan calendar, and the Pagan religion (not just the mythology). This book will most likely be published next year too.

I could not have written the two latest books unless I had been arrested in October 2003, so in a sense I am happy everything went to Hell back then. After that I was 24 hours a day in a cell for about nine months, reading books, taking notes, processing the information and basically just delving deeper into the material. It was actually very fruitful (well, in this context anyhow). I understand very well why people spend time in monasteries, where there are few or no distractions, and in a sense being isolated in a prison cell can be compared to a stay in a monastery - or rather a hermit's cave.

I have also written some short stories, one of them being published in the Internet ("Perþ"). It was written in Norwegian and I don't know if the English translation is any good, or even if the translator was aware of the fact that it was meant to be a children's story. "Irminsûl" is a published "short essay", if you like, and is basically just the first of the 12-13 theories that were written for "Teorier/Theories", and it was published as a booklet. I am also aware of the fact that "A Guide To The Norse Gods And Their Names" has been published, and this was actually just a list of names and their translation that I sent to a comrade in Flandern (in Belgium) as part of our correspondence, and he decided to publish it. It is based on the Norse names included in the GMV and all the information in this booklet can be found in both GMV (in Norwegian) and in MMAS (in English).

Well, I guess that's all the books and booklets I have finished this far, so there is not much else to say in this context.

Thank You for the interest.

Varg Vikernes
15th of December 2004

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