There is no people more feared than the Viking, they have gone down in history as barbarian invaders, cruel and ruthless warriors from the north who looted, conquered and killed with their deadly axes, however they were incredible navigators, merchants and discoverers, whose mythical stories echoed in the ancient east. Its legends and poems, written in ancient and magical runes, tell alliances and skirmishes between clans and villages, mythological stories where the fierce gods of Asgard, Thor, Migdar, Odin, the Ragnarok or the Valhalla appear, that majestic hall of the fallen where they lived, guided by the Valkyrie, the warriors killed in battle...

Adventurers, warriors, survivors, barbarians, nomads and plunderers, the epic Goths crossed half the world, living mythical episodes. Related with the Nordic universe, they worshiped the kingdom of Asgard, their eagles and crows that whispered to Odin the thought and memory of the mortals, guide them from the legendary corners of Scandinavia, crossing the Balkans towards the West. They saw the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Muslim, and built a new powerful hispanic state where they coexisted with the three cultures.

Bringing in the work of Robert E. Howard was almost a must here at Culters. Heroic Fantasy and Conan has accompanied us since we were children, at home we devoured, in addition to the adult comics of Totem and Cimoc, the super conan and their wild sword. The cimero barbarian, that rogue-air hero who took on Lovecraftian creatures, demonic armies and sorcerers, had us completely overshadowed. Today we are especially interested in how much of ancient cultures there is built in all that Hyborio universe - which emerged after the sinking of Atlantis - of his stories. Serve this "Conan in heroic times. The Era of Hiboria" as a tribute and reminiscence of all that.

Landscapes of shady lands, winds from the north, peaks and hills surrounded by lush forests populated by tribes and warriors fighting in neighboring countries that take us to a lost era before the Neolithic. In those places we see European barbarians similar to the Celts, Goths, Vikings, Vandals, Cossacks, Tatars ... Druids, mercenaries, invaders, thieves, pirates, sailors, adventurers, savages, kings, civilizations, regions, mountains, jungle and desert, distant places and mythical, mysticism and Nordic beliefs, medieval culture ...

We find a perfectly recognizable cosmos, from north to south, from the West to the Far East, emerged after the decline of the precataclysmic civilizations - dominated by the kingdoms of Kamelia, Valusia, Verulia, Grondar, Thule and Commoria -, after wars, migrations and crossbreeds. Different places populated by the most varied races of the Hyboria era. Here are some interpretations:

Zingara —located on the Iberian peninsula, land of knighthood, chivalry, nobility and conspiracies, you travel through Celtiberian Spain but also Imperial Spain in other passages—, Vanaheim —Nordic town with red hair whose name comes from the Scandinavian god Vanir—, Asgard —Norse inhabitants with blond hair whose name comes from the Scandinavian god Aesir—, Nordheim —constituted by Vanaheim and Asgard, is a snow-covered Norse territory inhabited by peoples similar to Germans and Vikings—, Hyperborea —whose name evokes the mythical land of mythology. Greek, inhabitants of Norse culture that shows similarities with the Finns, Varangians and Russians—, Cimmeria —the land of Conan, the Cimmerians are the ancestors of the Celts, Gauls and Scythians—, Aquilonia —one of the most powerful, cultural and militarily, led by Conan, located perhaps in France, Great Britain or Italy - Argos and Nemedia - along with Aquilonia arose after the collapse of the Acheron Empire by the invasions barbarian ions (similarity to the Roman Empire) -, the Pictish lands - the tattooed Pictish inhabitants of northern Britain, with similarities to Native Americans versus European settlers or perhaps indigenous peoples versus Roman invasions of Britani -, Brithunia - similar to Roman Britain—, the Empire of Acheron —whose name was brought from the Greek mythology of Acheron, one of the rivers of Hades—, Zamora —browned and dark-eyed, semi-made people who recall the inhabitants of Ancient Palestine. , an exotic town of dances and initiation rites—, Stygia —a territory whose inhabitants are versed in magic and secret arcana, worshipers of Set, the Egyptian god—, Shem —Semitic references, resembling Arabia, Palestine, the Middle East, deserts with nomads and city-states, people from whom Phoenicians, Hebrews, Assyrians, Canaanites ... descended, protectorate of Styigia, like Palestine with respect to Egypt, Khitai - think of traditional China - Yamatai - a fantastic and stereotypical Japan—, Ophir —a desert kingdom similar to Arabic, a reference to the biblical region Ofir, perhaps referring to Africa or India, famous for its gold—, Black Kingdoms —primitive African natives—, Corinthia —populated by navigators and philosopher, similar to the land of the ancient Greeks—…

Daredevils, robbers and adventurers of the sea... «The worst enemies of the human race» or «The bravest defenders of freedom»? Terrible looters of nabios, corsairs, buccaneers and filibusters, commonly known as pirates, whose greatest splendor took place during the golden age of piracy (between the XVII and XVIII centuries) on the Caribbean coast, which under the Jolly Roger flag faced the great European empires for the dominion of the sea and the looting of the booty.

Dead men tell no tales!!!

The irreverent and revolutionary Old skull, the spirit of fun. Skulls were used in the old traditions of satirical and ridiculous poems making social criticism and protest, dates 500 years ago. Also had been used in different plays like the ”Dance of Death” in the 14th century. People needed satire to help deal with the grim world (plagues and diseases) around them. But the symbol emerged in Mexico as a means of expression especially used with roguish and ironic tones against the nobles and powerful of the viceroy times. It is also used during the celebration of the day of the death.

"God is in the center, all roads lead to Him."

"Tradition is not a childish and outmoded mythology but a science that is terribly real"

The thinker, philosopher and poet Frithjof Schuon, promoter of the Sophia Perennis —influenced by the work of René Guenón—, and philosopher of the metaphysical current of Shankara and Plato, scholar of Christianity, Islam and Sufism, advocated the "Unity Transcendent of Religions" (above the devotional, totemic, animist, shamanic, telluric or lunar religions of a matrix nature where the possibility of Awakening to the Supersensible Reality or to the Supreme Principle that is found at the origin of the Cosmos is not conceived) as an antidote to modern nihilism.

Tradition, understanding this not as folklore or customs but as a reflection on the physical plane of the Transcendent reality, as a bridge between heaven and earth. Thus, man is not shielded before transcendence, he can come to see the light and update that transcendent seed within himself. An initiatory path of the hero to update the spirit that we carry in potential to conquer eternity, transmuting us into unconditioned sacred warriors of the world of becoming.

Let us think of Rome and its solar spirituality, of the Greek Dorians of Apollonian worship, that lineage that founded Sparta, of the Celtiberians with their warrior brotherhoods and the mors triunphalis, of the ascetic warrior cavalry of the High Middle Ages, of the Arthurian cycle, the Temple , the Holy Roman Empire, Taoism, Tantrism, the Vedas, the samurai and Zen Buddhism… where Tradition was very much alive…

That traditional world that also considered that the forces of nature were alive, they had a soul. Nature and the universe was someone. There was a sacral interpretation of virgin nature. From the Plains Indians —Schuon "saw something of the nobility and majesty of the Primordial tradition"—, the Celts, the Slavs, the Germans, classical Greece or ancient China.

Thus, there are clues in the world of Tradition to enliven the Sophia Perennis and face the darkness of the modern world or kali-yuga. The world of Tradition as an antidote to the Modern world.

Adaptation of the war scene of an Iberian horseman on horseback that appeared in the ceramic vessels of Liria in Elche, decorated with paintings and epigraphs written in the Iberian-Levantine alphabet. At the bottom of the drawing we have incorporated the bundle of arrows. Whose text talks about Zaldi (horse in Iberian), who is wild, indomitable and brave, with a stately appearance, rebellious and ready for warlike violence.

February 27, 380, the emperor Theodosius abolished the religion and festival of the Sun Invictus by the famous edict of Thessalonica. Until then the Romans worshiped the Sun god during the Republic, and with greater prominence in the Imperial era, since the gradual entry of different religions of salvation of monotheistic tendency, such as Christianity and Mithrism, was giving greater weight to the power of the star king, the one who conquered the darkness ...

Emperor Aurelian made it official on December 25 as the day of the birth of the Undefeated Sun (the main divinity of the Roman pantheon at that time) back in the year 274 and later Juliano the Apostate would declare Helios (Greek equivalent) as the only divinity, and would try to prevent the spread of growing Christianity.

Finally, during a long process of syncretism, both the Festival of the Birth of the Invincible Sun "Dies Natalis Solis Invicti" held after the Winter Solstice, when daylight increased, as well as many other acts and celebrations were gradually reconverted. Paganism would come to an end, a new stage would begin with a victorious sun reborn in the arms of a Galilean.

Aur Aur !! Wake up Ferro !! his battle cry. The Almogávares were mercenary soldiers, rude, reckless, defiant and fierce, the best infantry of the time they say, coming from the Pyrenean mountains that declared war on the most powerful Empire of the time, the Byzantine Empire. And the fact is that the emperor, despite the valuable aid received to bring the Turks under control, did not hesitate to betray these brave Catalans and Aragonese, assassinating their leader Roger de Flor. Revenge was immediate and this company of wounded guerrillas razed, burned and burned various cities, and seized the duchies of Athens and Neopatria (1337). His terrible vendetta - we do not want to imagine the fate of those who came across the action and anger of this strike force, so experienced since the time of the reconquest and already so showering in the handling of its fearful colltell, that mixture of brutal dagger and enormous butcher knife - has been left to posterity as "Catalan revenge."

Silio Italicus relates about the Celtiberians: “The Celts came united in name to the Iberians. For them it is an honor to fall in the fight, and a crime to incinerate his corpse. They believe that the dead will go to heaven with the gods if hungry vultures devour the lying body. " The vultures therefore help the soul of the Celtiberians fallen in battle in their transit to the afterlife.

In 409 the first Germanic invasion took place in the peninsula, Swabians, Vandals and Alans entered Hispania. The Arian Visigoths, with Alaric in command, sacked Rome (410) and headed, led by Ataulfo, towards France and Iberia. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476) and the great defeat of Vouillé (507), the Regnum Gothorum of Tolosa fell, which definitively displaced the Visigoths towards Hispania. There is a rapprochement between the barbarian Goths and the civilized Roman aristocracy. Confrontations, friendship and alliances that favor the birth and formation of Regnum Gothorum and the strengthening of the Hispano-pagoda monarchy of Toledo. Leovigildo will be the true organizer of the political unity that seeks the fusion between the Hispano-Roman and Gothic populations. His son Recaredo will achieve the desired legislative and religious unity in the III Council of Toledo (589), and his descendants will settle the Regnum Hispaniae with the territorial unity...

To approach the Tolkien universe on the anniversary of his death is, in addition to remembering his life and his original work, to approach the myth, his ancestral conception, his values and his wisdom. To travel through Middle-earth with its dragons, hobbits, dwarves, elves, giants, wizards, ents, demons, skin-shifters, orcs, uruk-hais, nazguls, men... through its amazing landscapes, kingdoms and places, and to be left alone with the epic episodes and battles against the diabolic hosts of the dark lord Sauron would be to miss his spiritual teachings.

Through the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings or the Unfinished Stories we can learn from the magical and ancestral wisdom of the great wizards or sacred sages, observe and teach us against corruption, degeneration, weakness, envy, the mastery and ambition that will lead to a scenario of struggle between good and evil, as well as contemplating with hope the incarnation, love, friendship and dedication of archetypal characters with heroic vocation such as Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo or Aragorn who will give us life lessons.

[Interpretation of Tolkien's original drawing]

The Iberians gained fame for their fighting prowess, but their writing systems, their trade, and their art show that they were much more than great warriors. Their mother tongue "Iberian" was spoken from the Hérault River (France) to Porcuna (Jaén) and they left thousands of inscriptions written in an original alphabet of signs that was a mystery for centuries that little by little is deciphering ... Written on coins , lead sheet, amphorae, mosaic, stone stele, silver crockery or trousseau, painted and engraved ceramics, copper plates, silver trousseau, walls ... Its enormous diffusion in the peninsula reveals to us how consolidated it was. The same alphabet was also shared with the Lusitanian and Proto-Basque languages.

[In the image the head of the wolf on the pectoral disc of the armor of the Iberian warriors]

["BAN" (people) "KEBERRIE" (Iberians) "EBAR" (from Iberia). According to the interpretation of the inscription on a bowl from the city of Turba]

Our tribute to all those bands that in the mid and late 90s created an autochthonous genre, "Celtiberian Black Metal". Distancing themselves from Viking metal, those groups permeated the national scene with their own identity based on the beliefs of the native peoples of ancient Iberia, their lyrics bring us closer to Celtiberian mythology, legends, heroes, gods, epics, nature, customs, rites, Iberian landscapes and the paganism of our pre-Roman culture.

Influenced by Norwegian and Polish black bands, the "barbarians" Nazgul was born in Madrid back in 1995 by the hand of its founder Defernos and the guitarist Thorgul, an emblematic reference band that defined the concept and was one of the germs of the later bands of "Celtiberian Pagan Metal".

In parallel, the Cantabrian Erun Dagoth creates a melodic and epic Death / Black musical project with Celtic Folk elements called CrystalMoors, whose themes breathe history - the Cantabrian wars for example -, mythology and nature of Cantabria - over time and outside the ranks of Crystalmoors, Erun creates a very interesting solo project called Briargh, straddling epic fantasy, paganism and Celticism. In 2018 they joined forces with the Hordak band - we who do not come from the BM, but from the power of Manowar, Running Wild, Blind Guardian or Helloween, we have discovered them with "Father" and they have conquered us! - to create the split "Árguma / Ophiusa ". Within this cultural paganism they have shared stages with bands of neofolk and dark folk roots, whose compositions sink in ancestral folklore and the magical beliefs of the Iberian peoples, such as Keltika Hispanna whose Black / Death influences are appreciated for example in their album "Terror Romanorvm ".

In this CBM tour we have come across hundreds of bands that have dealt with pre-Christian Iberian autochthonous cultures such as Aiumeen Basoa (1994), Numen (1997), Lux Divina (1998), Berserk (1998), Nakkiga (1999), Cyhiriaeth (2000), Omendark (2001), Carcharoth (2002) or Forestdome (2002).

Therefore, this small design is used almost in crude, to remember this genre and those bands that have raised and carried the flame of the spirit of the pre-Roman peoples of Iberia.

When we enter the extraordinary history of Ancient Rome we come across its legions, its conquests, its epic battles, its emperors and its Immense Empire, its founding myths and its gods, the principle of citizenship, the law, the senate and the Roman people (SPQR), but we also find stories of persecutions, of slave traders for the Mare Nostrum, of prisoners of war and gladiators who fought heroically in the arena of the Colosseum to conquer their freedom —Many of them, of course, confronted in the amphitheatres attracted by the search for recognition, fame and glory.

There was a remote time when the gods walked among men, a mythical era that ended up being corrupted until the dark age took over everything ... according to the old Hindu scriptures, the last avatar will come to free us from kaliyuga, the era without dharma ...

Faced with the blind faith in the end-time messiah and the isolated physical and spiritual retreat in a crystal palace, a path of the left hand arises within this entropy, an active spiritual and warrior path, where the tiger can ride, avoiding being eaten while waiting for fatigue to run...

The wisdom tradition invites you to radically immerse yourself in life, in your life, assume it, accept it, confront it, become aware, forge yourself and learn from it, without fear, enter its multiple scenarios, integrate all those disparate and opposing experiences, that burn in your interior, teachings that help you to be your own avatar, the light in the darkness... an invitation to admire the greatness, splendor and magic that surround your own existence, to live in truth and freedom, that makes you transcend by overcoming your own difficulties and miseries.

Tibetan Buddhism brings us closer to the god Mahakala, an internal, compassionate warrior, the protector of the dharma, the secret doctrines, the wisdom and the lineage, that ancient demon whose head adorns with his five poisons or klesahas that he transmuted into five wisdoms, an angry and wrathful divinity capable of bringing light into darkness, as a symbol of struggle that awakens pure energy and unyielding strength to overcome and dissolve the obstacles and negativities that impede the spiritual path.

In 1212 three kings put aside their differences and, shoulder to shoulder, galloped and charged in the Navas de Tolosa against the Almohad army of Miramamolín Al Nasir that was determined to reconquer Spain and reach Rome itself.

Horsemen, cavalry, council militias, military orders, Templars, Calatravos, Santiaguistas, volunteers, gentle men ready to fight the half moon. The confrontation was cruel. Terrible scenarios with metal ripping and tearing ...

When it seemed that all was lost for Christians, the banner of the three wolves was raised...

It is Lopez de Haro who, together with his son and his Castilian knights and innkeepers, set out at the head of the vanguard determined to immolate themselves. King Alfonso VIII of Castile, who looks at it excitedly, launches the attack shouting "Here, Bishop, we all die." Pedro II of Aragon and Sancho VII of Navarra followed him ...

The epic and the enthusiasm seizes everyone and it is that the three kings ride and charge just through the hills of the Navas de Tolosa de Sierra Morena...

It is a search and an encounter, when all the paths lead us to self-flagellation, to tricks and patches that have little or nothing to do with the true meaning of life, when accelerated technique envelops us and misleads us, camouflages the way, when the ruins of the past are those ruins that inspire but do not resurrect, then it seems that nothing remains, but the sterile contemplation of decadent nihilism or the addition / addiction to the "heroine" of modernity. Here then is a path to travel the world, our world, an awakening of self-knowledge, the path of the left hand for the kali yuga, an opportunity to conquer oneself, to taste the poison and turn it into an elixir, to be a test and an example. in front of our friends and enemies, to muddy us, to make mistakes and to rectify if necessary. Make the Dark Ages our stage and theater of life, our forger of character, our spiritual nourishment — along with the sources of perennial wisdom — to overcome, conquer and liberate ourselves.