Kadmon

Kadmon is an Austrian artist and occult researcher whose investigation connected modern Black Metal with the folklore of the Oskorei, the legendary host of dead souls said to cross the night sky. Prompted by texts by Varg Vikernes, Kadmon examined the affinities between the old traditions and the modern scene; his essay, reproduced in Appendix II, makes that comparison a sustained subject of inquiry rather than a claim that the two are identical.

Identity and Research

The book introduces Kadmon through his work: after reading several texts by Varg Vikernes, he was inspired to investigate what connections might exist between Black Metal and the ancient myths of the Oskorei. The evidence establishes an intellectual response to Vikernes’s writing, not a personal association between the two. Kadmon’s role is that of a researcher drawing a cultural comparison across folklore and contemporary music.

His essay focuses on the Oskorei, described as a Norse name for a multitude of dead souls witnessed flying together across the night sky on certain occasions. In the legends, the host may swoop down and carry off a living person, and Odin or another heathen deity often leads it. Accounts of the phenomenon include reports by people who said they had seen and heard the host, placing the supernatural tradition alongside claims of direct experience.

The Oskorei and Winter Customs

Kadmon’s subject also has a customary, human dimension. The book relates the legends to winter practices that remained prevalent in rural parts of Northern Europe a few hundred years ago. Around Yule, groups of young men rode by night, sometimes alarming villagers with the noise and commotion of their arrival. Folklorists have offered different explanations for the legends, while the old accounts preserve both supernatural imagery and echoes of seasonal social practices.

Kadmon’s comparison reaches beyond the Oskorei to the costumed Perchten processions still held in Austrian towns on certain festival days. These include both benign or beautiful figures and sinister, demonically masked counterparts, known as Schiachperchten. The book associates the traditions with older worship of the Germanic winter and sky goddess Perchta, while distinguishing the surviving processions from their possible historical roots.

Parallels with Black Metal

Kadmon identifies correspondences between the recorded traits of the Oskorei and features of Black Metal: noise, corpsepaint, ghoulish appearance, pseudonyms, high-pitched singing, and even arson. The comparison works through a cluster of recognizable forms, not one isolated resemblance. In both traditions, the book emphasizes a public image of threatening, uncanny figures, though the folklore concerns a legendary host and seasonal customs while Black Metal is a modern musical subculture.

The book presents the parallels as striking but does not make them proof of direct historical continuity. It raises the possibility that a primordial image might be resurfacing in a modern generation, and frames the broader question of whether heathen metaphysics and Black Metal share some form of resurgent atavism as worthy of detailed investigation. That question belongs to the book’s further inquiry; it is not presented as a settled conclusion established by Kadmon’s comparison alone.

Rural and Urban Context

Kadmon describes Black Metal as an urban phenomenon, but the book qualifies that distinction. Many Norwegian musicians did not come from cities such as Oslo, Bergen, or Trondheim, and some lived in small villages. Varg Vikernes himself emphasized that he came from a rural area some distance outside Bergen rather than from the city. The book also points to members of Emperor and other bands as further examples of the scene’s rural connections.

This qualification sharpens rather than erases the comparison: the folklore’s rural setting cannot by itself be treated as a dividing line separating it from Black Metal. Kadmon’s essay supplies a framework of correspondences, while the book tests that framework against the varied settings of the musicians and leaves the relationship between ancient tradition and modern subculture open for closer study.