The first impression a had of England, was at a vacation when I was thirteen. I remember the funny looking punks in the street, and the nice landlord in the hostel, who served chips, sausage and eggs in the morning. To my mind, it seemed really complicated. I was only thirteen, so that was not so strange.

Then England has kind nudged in on me from time to time. I remember reading the classics of Joseph Conrad, the epic stories of the seamen, and it made my impressionable phantasy go absolutely abounkous. It made me a sailor, then sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Ivanhoe. It spoke to my imagination.

You see my family descends directly from the same stock as you guys. My name Engberg is a family name of Angles. Today Angels is not exactly the centre of the world stage, but my little petty aristocratic family has been smallholders and priests in Angels for many hundred years.

Then I met England again in a new form. I am a grundtvigian, and grundtvigians are adherents to Grundtvig, a philosopher who lived hundred and fifty years ago. He was a romantic, living at the same time as Goethe. He drew his inspiration from a philosopher called Herder, a German philosopher who saw culture as something beautiful. This was a hundred years BEFORE the advent of Nazi Germany. And Herders ideas are much different that Hitler. Hitler was for purity and dominance. Herder believed in romance.

So my name, the first one Asger, is inspired by the tradition. Because Grundtvig was all for the old gods, the asatru. He knew everything about it. All the different gods, their lives, the Vikings, the world they lived in. But where the Vikings were the goth metal of the old time, Grundtvig changed it to something else, to a beautiful, romantic age where the Vikings roamed in pact with nature, and their heroes and bards were living in a world of beauty. He was a romantic.

Now, I have been behind one of the largest revivals of the northern culture. In England, you guys can either choose between your Roman identity or your Anglo Saxon identity. These days, it seems to me, that the Anglo Saxon identity is the most popular. I suppose it is a effect of the fall of the British empire, and the need to look inwards and find a new identity that fits the new millennia. As a consequence, you guys look for your roots and turn to the other part of your identity, as Holland, as France as Russia. You look for your roots here in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

Now, in these days where powerful actors try their best to hinder this movement, it is extremely dangerous. Take Tommy and all the flack he had to take, take myself, where this searching for roots is all they really hate me for. Not when I try to search for my Jewish roots, or help the Egyptians find their roots. No the roots of the Danes are absolutely vilified.

This is what some of all this “racism” talk is about. They try to hinder our realization of ourselves. The same people who are all about the “identity” of the Native American Indians are totally against their own folk identity.

Then, this is understandable, if it was about racism. The thing is, it is not about race, it is about culture and identity. We have the right to realize our own identity. We are not American Indians, but we have as much right as everybody else, to be ourselves. I have a father from Bangladesh, I loved him. But I have a Danish/Jewish mother and I loved her as much. And it is my right to realize the identity she gave me.

G-d bless the fair hills of England.