In Conversation with Hyldyr
Hyldyr is an independent and experimental publishing house based in Olympia, Washington state, USA. Hyldyr (pronounced like hill-der) is a Middle English word for the elder tree. Uniquely and singularly crafted, the publishing house was formed in 2021. They published their first works in 2023, and the house produces “high-quality and extremely unique editions built to withstand scholastic scrutiny, to function as art objects, and to provide our readers with keys to hidden worlds.” Hyldyr emerges from an academic milieu, and the founders note that the work “...developed out of the web-based resource project Mimisbrunnr.info, itself an evolution of a student-led reading circle originally sponsored by the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Georgia for several years in the 2010s.
Hyldyr emblem.
OL: Thank you for the opportunity to chat with you today about this wonderful publication of yours. Going back to the very roots of Hyldyr, the development of the Ár Var Alda (ÁVA) reading group in Olympia, Washington set the stage for your work to come. At what point in the various incarnations of the group did the notion of forming a publishing house begin to constellate?
H: Thanks for chatting with us! Hyldyr's story is an unusual one for a publishing house. After the Ár Var Alda reading group led to Mimisbrunnr.info, the resources we developed for the site became increasingly complex. Once we got to the point of commissioning original art for some of our resources (and we saw how well they were received), we decided to make the jump to physical media and Hyldyr was born. We published our experimental first releases in 2023 and have been aggressively publishing since then.
OL: Such reading groups are immediate, embodied, and communal. Was there a distinct aim or a challenge in conveying this group atmosphere through a publication?
H: Back in the early 2010s, I (Joseph) was asked to take over an earlier version of the Ár Var Alda reading circle by Alexander Sager, my mentor at the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Georgia. The reading group had been translation-focused and it primarily involved a small group of graduate and PhD students associated with the university's Department of Linguistics, Department of English, and Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies.
Rather than continue that approach, we decided to make the group as accessible as possible. We typically read and discussed various English translations and consulted the original languages (mostly Old Icelandic and Old English) as needed. Over time the group grew large.
Discussions during early reading circles often involved recent archaeological finds and relevant new publications. I developed mimisbrunnr.info as a news-focused project in an attempt to form a central place to aggregate this information. Over time, the website developed instead into a unique resource-focused project. Hyldyr evolved from there.
Hyldyr’s work Nine Plants Spell.
OL: Your work features a tremendous deal of translatory work. To what extent did you draw upon your academic connections to the University of Georgia during the development of Hyldyr? For example, in your publication The Comparative Völuspá: The Viking Age Prophecy of Birth, Death, & Rebirth, you utilize the translation work of long-gone figures like Henry Adams Bellows (1885-1935). Were these translations subject to unique scholarly appraisal from your own contacts?
H: At Hyldyr, we draw from a network of academics to produce entirely new translations (such as The Galdrabók: Forbidden Icelandic Folk Magic by Kári Pálsson, 2024) but we also utilize historic translations from academics active in the past. In the case of Henry Adams Bellows, we present his translation beside two others, allowing readers to compare them alongside contemporary commentary. The Comparative Völuspá: The Viking Age Prophecy of Birth, Death, & Rebirth (2024) developed from a mimisbrunnr.info resource (also called The Comparative Völuspá, 2022-ongoing). In it we compare a variety of historic translations of the Old Icelandic poem Völuspá, a Viking Age pagan prophecy that has long been and remains a subject of intense study. The Comparative Völuspá is an extension of a bigger project comparing English translations of the Poetic Edda (Eddic to English, 2017-ongoing), the first and only study of its kind.
Two Hyldyr works, including the above-mentioned text The Comparative Völuspá: The Viking Age Prophecy of Birth, Death, & Rebirth.
OL: A fantastic feature of Hyldyr is the stylistic and aesthetic continuity of the individual works. How did the conscious decision to unite these works stylistically play out?
H: Thank you for the compliment! We knew from the beginning that we wanted to take a particular stylistic approach and all of our design is completed in-house. We draw inspiration from especially late 1800s and early 1900s book design and also utilize depictions and references to our namesake, the elder tree (Middle English hyldyr), wherever we can. Readers will also spot references to more ancient history: For example, all of our publications end with a tree-like symbol found on a variety of Elder Futhark runic inscriptions.
OL: You speak in great admiration of William Morris. Morris’ galloping work cannot be fully encapsulated here. However, his blending of both Germanic studies and DIY crafting outlooks seems to be particularly suited to your work. In what ways do you consciously envision, or
situate, yourself in Morris’ tradition? Do you feel that you have inherited something special through your approach to the work at hand?
Portrait of William Morris by Frederick Hollyer, 1887.
H: Morris (1834—1896) idealized a time when human-made crafts were valued and people were more than numbers. Morris desired mankind to control machines, not for humanity to be controlled by machines, and his concerns are just as relevant today as they were during his time. Consider for example how we now witness the work of people replaced by machines by way of automation built on the unpaid labor of writers and artists (generative AI).
Morris was a complex figure (like any human being) and he is pretty obscure today, especially outside of the UK. However, Morris was profoundly influential and his influence on, for example, the Arts and Crafts Movement certainly lives on, as does his profound impact on fantasy literature (especially through the works of J. R. R. Tolkien) and in areas like textile design.
We are certainly influenced by Morris. That influence manifests in a variety of ways: Consider for example the elder plant patterns featured in each of our publications (beautifully illustrated by Rim Baudey). We expect that Morris's influence will only grow in the future, with or without our input. It may well be a time for a new wave of romantics.
Hyldyr edition of The Comparative Hávamál: Historic Guidance from the Viking Age God Odin.
OL: In the contemporary sphere, a great wealth of zines and small-press publications have proliferated through the folkloric, occult, and magical communities. What is your experience in maintaining contacts with these groups for the sake of learning, sharing, and exchanging information? Are there any publishing houses that you communicate most closely with?
H: It does seem like we are in the middle of an interesting era of independent publishers and zines with some kind of connection to folklore or related topics. And that's excellent! We are happy to see it and we hope it continues.
Some readers will know our friends Sylvia and Tristan Eden from the original art and manuscript replications that they have produced for some of our titles. They run Leodrune Press (USA). Readers who find Hyldyr interesting should also check out Uppsala Books (USA), Troll Cat Press (USA & Norway), Hwæt! (UK), and Becoming the Forest (Norway). Readers will find that they notably overlap with and differ from Hyldyr.
OL: If you were to recommend an inroad to linguistic and folkloric studies through your work, would you recommend a particular edition? From a more general vantage point, do you have any words for the newcomer who may feel daunted by the scope of Germanic linguistic and folkloric material?
H: While Hyldyr is grounded in an academic approach, none of our publications require any foreknowledge of historical linguistics or folklore studies. Hyldyr books are for everyone! Our advice is to take a look at our catalog, identify what interests you most, and follow your interests. So that readers get the absolute most out of this incredible material, we treat each of our publications with great care and fill them with as many details and supplementary items as we can manage.
As we see it, each of our publications is in reality a key to a much more expansive universe: We for example offer a unique and lushly illustrated book focused on obscure but jaw-dropping English and southern Scandinavian folklore focused on the goddess-like Lady Elder Tree (Lady Elder Tree: Northern Plain Animism & Witchcraft by Hopkins & Hjarnø Rasmussen, 2024), an English-Icelandic translation of the most famed early Icelandic grimoire alongside a never-before-translated but shocking Icelandic grimoire (The Galdrabók: Forbidden Icelandic Folk Magic by Kári Pálsson, 2024), and a collection of a pitch-black folklore-infused German romantic tales written in the early 1800s that may well haunt you for the rest of your days (Dark Forest Longing by Ludwig Tieck, 2024).
What we're doing at Hyldyr is unique and ever-exciting, and we're only going to get more and more ambitious as time goes on!
Hyldyr’s work The Elder Futhark. The Oldest Runes: An Illustrated Guide.
OL: Thank you for taking the time for this conversation today. We look forward to seeing your work further unfold, and we anticipate our opportunity to detail it in our online catalog.
H: Thank you for chatting with us. Best wishes to you and the project! And to our readers out there, we thank you so much for joining us on this journey.
We thank Hyldyr for their time and consideration and, for more information, direct our readership to:
We are eager to feature new upcoming interviews with our readers, and thank them for their ongoing support and encouragement.
All our best,
— The Occult Library Staff