Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson: Revived Heathenism

Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson (1924–1993), a native of Iceland, was a goði, or Heathen priest. He was instrumental in helping to gain recognition by the Icelandic government for the pre-Christian Norse religion. The Íslenska Ásatrúarfélagið ("Icelandic fellowship of Æsir faith"), which he founded, was officially recognised as a religious body in 1972. He lived his entire life in West Iceland. From 1944 on, he was a sheep farmer whilst also pursuing literary interests on the side. He published a book of rímur in 1945, a textbook on the verse forms of rímur in 1953, two volumes of his own verse in 1957 and 1976, and edited several anthologies.

Beinteinsson was regarded with much respect and affection amongst Ásatrú and Heathens. Not only was he a well known rímur singer, or kvæðamaður, in Iceland, he also gained an audience and followers in Europe and North America. Sveinbjörn can be heard performing Ásatrú marriage rites for Genesis and Paula P-Orridge (now Alaura O'Dell) on Psychic TV's LP Live in Reykjavik and on the double LP entitled Those who do not. Additionally, former Psychic TV member David Tibet (née David Michael Bunting) released a CD of Sveinbjörn performing his own rímur and reciting the traditional Poetic Edda under the title Current 93 presents Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson 'Edda' in two editions through the now defunct World Serpent Distribution.

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Now this is the man who revived Asatru or Heathenism in Iceland which has resulted in the recognizing of this religion (apparently an offshot of Judaism) if research pans out in three countries and has at least 45,000 members but could be nearly 100,000+ to nearly 200,000 people.

So Vikings are alive and well.

So a godi is a kind of priest in my religion, so don't think it is related to witchcraft.