What has recently occurred in Gamla Uppsala is a desecration – an assault, not only against the land but against our shared heritage, our folk memory, and the rest of our ancestors. When around forty looting pits were discovered on December 9th, something deep trembled within many of us. This is not merely vandalism – it is a violation of sacred ground.
Gamla Uppsala is no ordinary place. Here Ásatrú still lives today, as strong as it was a thousand years ago. It is one of our most significant cult sites, an ancient centre where faith, tradition, and honour have been woven together. That someone, out of carelessness or greed, would dig into this soil with a metal detector is an attack on everything we as heathens and bearers of cultural heritage stand for. The Nordic Asa-Community condemns this with full force.
To dig here without permission is not only a crime against the Heritage Conservation Act – it is a crime against reverence. It is to trample upon the forefathers who walked before us, to cut into the weave between past and present, a weave of tradition, blot, and faith that we safeguard with both heart and action. We call this what it is: pillaging of a sacred place.
Whether objects have been stolen or not, the damage is already done, for the will to desecrate was there – and it is that will we meet with our wrath. Therefore we raise our nidstang: against the guilty, their greed and irreverence, a nidstang bearing the heathen curse against those who defile sacred places. May their misdeed pursue them until justice is served. May their name – if it is ever revealed – stand as a warning of how not to treat our cultural heritage.
Gamla Uppsala is a place where the spirit of Ásatrú has watched through centuries of storm and the passing of time. A deeper memory lives here than the eye can see; the soil is woven of faith, blot, and ancestral power. Every dug hole is a mockery of this weave, an attack on something greater than a single mound.
We urge all who feel reverence for our Nordic heritage: watch over our sacred places. Let no one pass unshaken when destruction occurs. If you see suspicious activity – contact the police immediately. Sacred places demand sacred responsibility. Ásatrú lives – and with it lives our duty to protect the places that bear its history, memory, and spirit.
Those who desecrated this place have shown their contempt. We show our steadfastness. The nidstang stands raised. And we will not let this desecration be forgotten.
Words of the Nidstang
Here we raise our nidstang over the shadow-like steps of the desecrators,
against the hands that struck the sacred earth and blasphemed the mounds of Uppsala.
Desecrators wander
defenceless in the slumber of night;
defilers cut into the soil,
shame they bear in their breast.
You who with the glow of greed dug in the ancient soil of Ásatrú,
you who broke the peace where kinsfolk have carried their faith – hear our judgment:
Nithing you are now called,
nithing you shall remain.
Shame shall shadow your path,
shadow your mind and name.
You touched sacred soil where the bound power of the blót still dwells,
where the spirit of the Æsir lives in wind and wetness,
in grass-blades and grey stone, which have always watched over this place.
The memory of the earth watches,
darkness measures your deed;
the weave of fate twists against you,
wolf-walk awaits your reputation.
Ásatrú stands here still, as it stood a thousand years ago,
and the depth of this soil feels betrayal when betrayal is done.
Therefore we raise this pole – the spear of words, the rune of spirit –
against your deed and against your courage that failed.
Cursed be your steps,
ruin follow your mind;
the wrath of the earth watch you,
the root of wrath grow in you.
Thus speaks our heathen judgment.
Thus are words bound to action.
Thus stands this nidstang raised
until the fate of the desecrators is sealed.
/ Nordic Asa-community 2025–12–12
