White Wyrm Rising - who is Edmund Dee?

In my previous post I talked about the book White Wyrm Rising: A Journey into Modern English Nationalism, which was published by Anglo-Saxon Books via its imprint Athelney.

The book is credited to "Edmund Dee", but something about this seemed fishy. I have written at length about the nationalist circle which the writer belongs to, and yet I had never come across anyone named Edmund Dee until this book was published. What's more, the author shows a fascination for King Edmund - the overlap in names seemed a little too big of a coincidence to me. So, I concluded that "Edmund Dee" is most likely a pseudonym.

So who is the author of the book?

As I noted in my first post about Anglo-Saxon Books/Athelney, a Google search on the title "White Wyrm Rising" prior to the book's publication turned up two relevant hits. One was a posting by an Anglo-Saxon Foundation member named Edmundy:

And for those of you who haven't twigged yet: Edmundy. Edmund Dee. It doesn't exactly take a Holmes to realise that Edmundy might be plugging his own book here.

Darren Clarke, as pictured in the East Anglian Daily Times.

As I demonstrated here, "Edmundy" is actually Darren Clarke, secretary of the Ipswich English Community Group and one of the more memorable people to appear in Exposure's segment about the Steadfast Trust. If you require further proof that Darren Clarke is the true identity of Edmund Dee, then here are a few more connections...

In this excerpt from White Wyrm Rising, Edmund Dee expresses an interest in metal detection and shows familiarity with Father Bryan Houghton's 1970 book Edmund, King and Martyr:

Compare this with Darren "Edmundy" Clarke, who expresses an interest in metal detection...

...And shows familiarity with Father Bryan Houghton's 1970 book Edmund, King and Martyr:

Next, Edmund Dee recounts how, alongside four locals, he helped to deliver a survey questionnaire on behalf of the Leicester English Community Group:

This photo, uploaded by the LECG, would appear to show the deliverers in question... and the group includes Darren Clarke:




While discussing his involvement with the 2012 March for England event in Brighton, Edmund describes how he and his neo-Nazi pal Steed carried a banner advertising an "English community website" with a slogan saying that the government is the enemy of the English people:

Take a look at this video of the march. At about 8:15 in, we can see what is almost certainly the banner in question, held by three men. And the man on the right is clearly Darren Clarke:

As we can see, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Edmund Dee is Darren "Edmundy" Clarke.

In the interests of balance, I should mention that there is also a point in the book where Edmund Dee mentions "Edmundy" in the third person:

But then, if Clarke were writing the book under a pseudonym, he would obviously be trying to hide his identity. Isn't it quite possible, then, that he would refer to himself in the third person so as to throw people off?

If Edmund Dee is Darren Clarke, then we are left with one last question of identity...

The final question: who is Atrociter?

As noted, Edmundy/Clarke was one of two people who I found had posted about White Wyrm Rising prior to its publication; the other was a Stormfront member who calls himself Atrociter (FSTDT has an archive of this person's more remarkable postings):




We now have a pretty good idea of how Edmundy/Clarke came across the book while it was still unpublished, as he appears to have written it. But how did Atrociter come across White Wyrm Rising?

We could theorise that he learnt about the book from Edmundy's post, which was made four days previously. But if we compare the two posts we can see that Atrociter went into rather more detail about the book - almost as though he was privy to the writing process.

So is it possible that Atrociter, too, is Darren Clarke?

Let's look at the evidence. Atrociter says that he lives on the Suffolk border - a description which fits Sudbury resident Clarke:

Edmund Dee relates how he attended a demonstration at the Tower of London on 27 January 2014:

This demonstration was also attended by Atrociter:

This is particularly significant when we consider the small scale of the demo:

"Wodensson, Nes, Edmundy, 3 Sons and the other woken Englishmen", apparently. (Clarke/Edmundy can be seen on the left, holding a flagpole)

Atrociter likes to refer to non-white people as "orcs" - a habit that is common at the ASF but rare at Stormfront:

This habit is shared by Darren Clarke:

Meanwhile, Atrociter and Clarke/Edmundy have the same taste in bumper stickers:

Edmund is concerned about media portrayals of interracial marriage, particularly in advertising:

(And as an aside, Darren Clarke's Facebook likes include "White Girls Who Date White Guys"):

Meanwhile, Atrociter shows a similar concern about interracial relationships in adverts:

Edmundy refers to London as a "lost city":



And Atrociter uses the same turn of phrase to identify Peterborough:

Atrociter also shares Clarke's fondness for St. Edmund and has posted about him at Stormfront a number of times (And is that an Eadmund silver penny in his avatar? I'm reminded of Darren Clarke's interest in metal detection...)

This last post is particularly interesting. As well as plugging White Wyrm Rising again, Atrociter mentions Woden's Folk - which he refers to as "Wodensfolc".

I'm not sure why he used this unorthodox spelling, but out of curiosity, I did a search on it:

Out of six hits, four refer to some kind of video game, while one is the Atrociter post above. The remainder is an Anglo-Saxon Foundation posting which was made by...

...Darren "Edmundy" Clarke.

It's also worth mentioning that Atrociter is a fan of Englisc Gateway, the website which hosts the Anglo-Saxon Foundation:

As a final tidbit, look at this excerpt from Edmund Dee's account of the life of King Edmund:

Coincidence, or...?

Is Atrociter actually Darren Clarke? Let's recap:

• Both knew about White Wyrm Rising and its contents before the book was published;
• Both live on the Suffolk border;
• Both are supporters of Englisc-Gateway;
• Both attended a small-scale demonstration at the Tower of London on 27 January 2014;
• Both own bumper stickers saying "What's so 'great' about Britain? I'm English!" and "St Edmund - True Patron Saint of England";
• Both refer to Woden's Folk as "Wodensfolc", a spelling apparently used by no-one else on the Internet.

And that's on top of the overlapping traits that are common amongst Englisc nationalists - celebrating St Edmund's Day, referring to non-white people as "orcs", complaining about portrayals of interracial marriages in the media and so forth.

Anglo-Saxon Books purports to be a respectable publisher. If it has released a propaganda book written by a Stormfront member - and the evidence certainly indicates that it has - then that is a very serious thing indeed.

English Heritage and all that

Tim Hawke: Humourless killjoy.

I started this post a couple of months back, but then along came the Exposure: Charities Behaving Badly documentary and I got sidetracked. Just as well I waited, really, as the documentary shone a little bit of light on this particular incident from the Steadfast Trust's history...

Back in 2013, Tim Hawke (at the time a trustee of the Steadfast Trust, and - last I heard - chairman of the Ipswich English Community Group) spluttered with indignation after a trip to Battle Abbey:

The quotation - apparently one of several which decorate the Battle Abbey cafe - comes from 1066 and All That by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, a spoof textbook originally published in 1930 and something of a national institution ever since.

The book is filled with deliberately absurd statements to give the impression that it was written by a confused schoolchild ("John was so bad that the Pope decided to put the whole country under an Interdict, i.e. he gave orders that no one was to be born or die or marry"). The quotation about the Norman Conquest is another obvious joke: it was good that we were invaded, because afterwards we weren't invaded again. Anybody with a sense of humour can see this.

So, does Tim Hawke lack a sense of humour, or is he only pretending to be offended? After all, the Steadfast Trust is dedicated to pretending that English people are the most persecuted group in the country; it is easy to imagine Hawke and his peers rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of having something to have a good moan about.

The Steadfast Trust condemned the sign in a newsletter:

'English Heritage Offensive Wallboard 

Supporters of the Steadfast Trust brought to the attention of their charity a very offensive wallboard display on the grounds of the English Heritage site of Battle Abbey in their Café.
The Steadfast Trust has made a complaint to English Heritage after this was further confirmed by a Trustee of the charity. The contents of the complaint is provided below and we shall keep you informed of how this issue progresses. 

Dear English Heritage 

The Steadfast Trust has been made aware by a number of its supporters of a large wallboard which is publicly displayed at the onsite café at Battle Abbey. 

On it there is offensive wording concerning the after-effects of the Norman Conquest .
The wallboard proclaims "The Norman Conquest Was A Good Thing as from this time onwards England stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation".

It is clear that an English Heritage researcher has lifted a quote from the satirical history1066 and all that by W.C Sellar and R.J Yeatman which was written in 1930. However sensibilities change and English Heritage should be aware that this rather dated, superficial satire sits uncomfortably with todays visitors. Modern interpretations of the aftermath of the Norman invasion show us that rather than being good the wholesale destruction of English culture, loss of its king, ancient aristocracy and elite fighting force was an unimaginable catastrophe on an unprecedented scale for the surviving English population. The Steadfast Trust and its supporters would therefore request that you consider the offence and upset this wallboard has caused to those of our cultural charity (which actively promotes English Heritage and its aims), as well as to those of the general public. 

Please remove this insensitive paragraph from the wallboard. 

Yours sincerely 

Trustee Mark Taylor 

Steadfast Trust 

P.S. The Steadfast Trust would be prepared to consider offering a grant towards the funding of such re-wording . 

[...] 

Its important that we as a community do not tolerate such insulting information being imposed upon our younger generation.'

Well, at least Mark Taylor acknowledges that the sign is meant as a joke, something that Hawke appears not to have noticed. But his filibustering about how offensive he finds the sign becomes laughably hypocritical when we consider the kinds of comments that Taylor appears to have posted on YouTube under the name "Seaxwielder":

Hmmm... trying to get in on that growth industry yourself, Mark?

On 19 October 2013, the Rye and Battle Observer published a report about the sign being vandalised to read "The Norman Conquest was a Holocaust which still effects [sic] the English today":

'A PRO-SAXON movement could be behind a graffiti attack at Battle Abbey, police have said.

Two men walked into the Battle Abbey cafe on Monday afternoon with a homemade stencil. One man placed the stencil over text on the wall while the other man proceeded to spray red paint over it. The graffiti read ‘Holocaust which still affects the English today’ - referring to the Battle of Hastings. The two men then fled, heading in opposite directions.

Battle Police were called to the scene just after 4.45pm. A short time later, officers arrested a man in Mountjoy, whose hands were found to be covered in red paint. The man was questioned by police and admitted the offence.

The man, who hails from Poole in Dorset, had no previous convictions. He received a caution from Sussex Police. The second vandal has yet to be caught. English Heritage says work is underway to remove the graffiti from the history display. A spokesperson for English Heritage said:

“Unfortunately, a group of people came to Battle Abbey and sprayed the walls of the cafe with graffiti at around 4pm on Monday October 14. “English Heritage staff called the police who arrested one of them.

“We have covered the graffiti and are urgently investigating the best way to remove it from the wall which is part of our display about the history of the site. “We are helping the police with their investigations.'

Exposure revealed that Darren Clarke was one of the men responsible for this vandalism. The documentary also revealed that Clarke was involved in a later bout of vandalism at Norwich Castle Museum, and that Tim Hawke knew of his activities there.

The graffiti was celebrated by the English Shieldwall campaign group:

Atrociter, a member of Stormfront, also endorsed the vandalism, referring to the sign as "Pro Norman bollocks":

Julia "Angelcynn" Howman chimed in as well, deriding English Heritage as "Marxist":

Ah, isn't political philosophy so much simpler when you can use "Marxist" as a catch-all term for anyone you disagree with?

Tim Hawke was amongst those lending their support to the act of vandalism, sending an angry letter to an English Heritage representative:

'Back in August I informed you that Battle Abbey was displaying a terribly ignorant and offensive statement. It has come to my attention that the board displaying the following statement…‘The Norman Conquest Was A Good Thing’ has been defaced with the words ‘Holocaust which still effects the English today’ (I have attached a picture of this to the email). Sadly I must confess to having total sympathy with those who committed this act.  I do hope English Heritage has the sense to recognise the awful outrage that has been caused here by English Heritage. 

[...] 

Unless you take steps to correct your errors I do know that the kind of behaviour that took place on Monday October 14 will continue and sadly escalate to alarming levels. 

You have a large number of venerable structures throughout the nation which logically could be vandalised in protest of your actions at Battle. Windmills such as Saxtead Green Post Mill or Berney Arms Windmill could be totally destroyed through simple acts of arson and imagine the harm this would cause to our organisation were it made known that this stemmed from an Anglophobic act at Battle Abbey by English Heritage. 

You are the custodians of the English peoples heritage and by deliberately insulting our proud/tragic past with your childish controversy you risk so much, particularly when the many aggrieved can strike at any time at any place. 

I do hope you have the intellect to take my advice seriously, if not then it will be clear that you hold nothing but contempt for the English and there will be those who understand that further corruption of our historic sites by English Heritage may only be stopped through aggressive displays. This would sadden me greatly.'

[Emphasis mine.]

It sounds like something out of an old gangster film, doesn't it? Gee, ma'am, look at all those purdy windmills. Sure would be a shame if someone set fire to them...

What, exactly, was going through Hawke's mind when he wrote this? Does he seriously believe that there are "many aggrieved" who are prepared to launch an arson campaign against historical monuments because of a joke about the Battle of Hastings?

If he does believe this, then he must surely be aware that such people could only come from the Englisc nationalist movement. Hawke is a prominent figure within this subculture, so if he is truly concerned, then he would be better off trying to discourage his flock from acts of terrorism, rather than blaming English Heritage.

Finally, I will leave you with this posting from Lee Ingram's Steadfast Trust-approved English Advocates Facebook page:

...Which round about sums up my thoughts on 1066 and All That.

Dan Rayner

I've been thinking about a post on Dan Rayner, founder of Nationalist Asatru News. I recently noticed that RationalWiki.org had already done the job by posting an article about him - which has since been deleted on the grounds that he is too obscure to be worth covering. So, here is an archive of their deleted article...


Dan Rayner is a 20 year old British white supremacist, holocaust denier and internet-conspiracy theorist crank. 

Rayner is a member of various white nationalist websites and blogs, and identifies as a 'pagan racial separatist'. He founded the Nationalist Asatru News in October 2013 which he describes as an "operational News company and political community organization outfit, having already completed 2 public meetings". In reality, it is little more than a shoddy website. Its sole member is also Rayner, and his two public meetings consisted of fewer than ten neo-Nazis (including a former Birmingham BNP organizer) who would go on to describe Rayner as a "weirdo" on the VNNforum.

[Note: From the link provided as a source, I am not sure which member is being referred to here. The word "weirdo" is not used in the thread, although "JackbootShaman" refers to Rayner as a "very weird kid"]

Aside from being a racist, Rayner is an Asatru pagan, and he has described his nutty racialized religious views in an interview hosted by Red Ice Radio.

He attended a "pro-Golden Dawn" fascist demonstration alongside National Front members outside the Greek Embassy of London on 9th November 2013.

Rayner currently is a Politics & Philosophy student at the University of Sheffield, England. The university is apparently aware of his extremist views, but has not been able to expel him. In August, 2014 he uploaded a video to YouTube where he is shown cycling around parts of Sheffield with a camera, moaning at the amount of Muslims he sees.

An assortment of skinheads and neo-Nazis at Stormfront have fallen out with Rayner, since he has described National Action as a "Jewish infiltrated" group.

Rayner also claims Nick Griffin is Jewish, which has caused him to be unpopular among British National Party members. Instead of voting BNP, Rayner has called for white nationalists to vote tactically for UKIP in the 2015 General Election.

In a desperate attempt to gain some followers, he has shut down his poorly received Nationalist Asatru News website and relaunched it as englishnews.org, stating that Asatru News was merely a "test phase". English News contains more insane ramblings from the man himself but is essentially the same website

Dan Rayner on LinkedIn
Facebook page

The nationalist books of Athelney

Athelney is (or was - I have conflicting evidence as to whether or not it still exists) a small publisher devoted to books on English nationalism. As far as I can tell, it has put out a total of six titles: An English Nationalism, by Tony Linsell; The English Dragon, by T.P. Bragg; English Witness to their Darkest Hour, by P Scrivener; Necessary Words, by Raymond Tong; The Deculturalisation of the English People, by the Rev. John Lovejoy; and the anthology Views from the English Community. These books range from non-fiction to fiction to poetry, but are all centred around English nationalism.

"The English Community", in this context, being a shorthand for "people who generally agree with Tony Linsell."

I first came across the company when I bought a copy of Views from the English Community that had been withdrawn from stock at a library. All of the authors mentioned above contributed pieces to the anthology, along with a few other people. Here's what editor Tony Linsell has to say:

He also discusses the topic of interracial marriage:

Looking through the list of the other contributors, we find an example of the interesting intersection between nationalism and Tolkien fandom:

As noted above, Athelney deals in poetry as well as non-fiction:

By far my favourite contributor, meanwhile, is this fella:

Oh, yes. Weren't we all better off before our children had to put up with all those stories about dashed foreign animals that don't even come from Europe?

...Er, well, maybe not. But surely he's right about curiously-coloured fantasy creatures being a sinister invention of the PC police, unheard of amongst earlier generations?

 ...Well, okay, let's move on. Surely he's right about the settings of children's fantasy - I mean, we wouldn't catch classic fairy tale illustrators like Edmund Dulac taking European characters such as the Little Mermaid, Bluebeard and Beauty and the Beast and putting them in oriental dress, would we?

Nah, forgeddaboutit.

At the time of writing, visitors to the Athelney website are greeted with an error message saying "this account has been suspended"; I'm not sure what happened there. It can still be found on Archive.org, however, allowing us to read such sour comments as this:

"English nationalists are often accused of being racists but this is nearly always due to a response conditioned by institutions of the state and the media, especially the broadcasting media. It is a jibe that is rarely directed at Scottish, Welsh, or Irish nationalists. Those who most often and easily dismiss English nationalists as racists (e.g. Guardian readers - 'Progresives') are usually keen supporters of Palestinian, Kurdish or Tibetan nationalism..."

Also relevant is a publisher called Anglo-Saxon Books. The two publishers are clearly connected: if we do WhoIs look-ups on Athelney and Anglo-Saxon Books, we can see that both are registered to the same address in Swaffham. Also, the official Anglo-Saxon Books shop on Amazon stocks titles by both publishers.

It would appear that AS Books and Athelney form a double-pronged strategy: the former aims for respectability, while the latter provides more controversial publications for readers who are already convinced.

Tony Linsell (As seen in this video)

I am not entirely sure who is behind this operation, but as an educated guess I would pick the aforementioned Tony Linsell. He is, as far as I can tell, the only person to have written books for both publishers, and is a dedicated activist in the cause of English nationalism.

Here's another of his books:

Our Englishness, now out of print, is something of an oddity. All sources I've seen agree that it was published by Anglo-Saxon Books, and yet it appears to be a political polemic more in line with Athelney's output. Here's the Amazon description:

'This work features contributions from seven writers who are positive about Englishness and their English identity. They argue for the existence of an English nation defined in terms of history, culture and community. They reject the "civic-society" and "civic nationalism" approach that current ideological orthodoxy demands.'

The book came out in 2000, the year of the first publications from Athelney. Is it possible that it was intended as a sort of dry run - Anglo-Saxon Books testing the waters under its own name before launching a sister company?

As its last title was published in 2008, I went looking for information on what (if anything) Athelney has been up to more recently and found something a little interesting. Two members of racist forums - Atrociter at Stormfront, and Edmundy at the Anglo-Saxon Foundation - mention an upcoming Athelney book called White Wyrm Rising: A Journey into Modern English Nationalism:

"You are right that the pen is mightier than the sword. Athelney Press are about to publish a book called 'White Wyrm rising-a journey into modern English Nationalism' in the next month or so, and this is aimed at the passionate but (deliberately) uneducated young to teach them their heritage and culture in a non patronising way. The author gives them the backdrop of history on his adventures over the last five years, revealing the reasons why we should really be spitting feathers and out on the streets. Folc on here will already know about the Norman holocaust and it's effects,the Great Rising when the English came within a fingertip of smashing the elites, and the draconian punishments the powers that be inflicted on the people to keep them in line. Of course for some of the youngsters, there isn't a hope. Their 'nationalism' starts and finishes with getting pissed with their mates, and having a shout at some Muzzies across the Police lines. But for some others, who can see things for what they really are, there are other roads out there for them to go down."

"I reckon the 'White Wyrm rising-a journey into modern English nationalism' will be published under the Athelney press. It's content isn't so academic. And perhaps Wodensson can leak a few details about another publication in preparation that members will definitely be interested in that will be out this year."

Here's the kicker. I did a search on the title "White Wyrm Rising" and turned up exactly four hits. Two of them are sites reprinting some kind of fantasy story which happens to mention a white wyrm rising, while the other two are the racist forums mentioned above:

The only two people to have publicly mentioned this upcoming book - if, indeed, Edmundy and Atrociter are two separate people, and not the same individual using different pseudonyms across two forums - are members of racist message boards. This, to me, speaks volumes about the kind of people that Athelney is in contact with.

Update: Just thought I'd mention a little extra that I found. A couple of days after writing this post, I came across another Stormfront posting from Atrociter. This time he's moaning about how "the ethnics have stole a march on us" and claiming that he spent the day with a trustee of the Steadfast Trust:

"I spent the day on Saturday with a trustee of the Steadfast Trust-the only charity for the ethnic English out there and he emphasised the need for English community groups to be set up everywhere, especially in the cities. It's shocking how much funding the various other 'communities' get from the councils and we-who pay the taxes-should be getting some of the money back our way too. If they can give 500 quid grants (and upwards) to Indian dancers, Somali mother and toddlers, African coffee mornings etc, they should give at least the same to English groups, or nothing to nobody so it's a win-win situation. Often on these pages we read of folc feeling isolated, despondant in the face of their areas changing around them and their families and a general feeling of helplessness. The ethnics have stole a march on us, continuously increasing in numbers till now they are the majority in places but still want all the help that was thrown at them when they were the minorities. We have to take a leaf out of their book and use what worked for them. The discrimination laws set up, much to the lefties disgust, apply to us too and councils cannot be seen to discriminate us. For more details PM or go direct to the Steadfast Trust website and start enquiring. They'll be happy to help you.
I don't know what's in place in Scotland, Wales or Ireland but although they don't have the mass immigration of England sooner or later certain towns will have their own tipping points. Every area should start preparing for the coming storm. At the very least you'll be 'linked up' with people with their eyes open."

The Steadfast Trust is an English nationalist charity (officially a non-racist one) that was co-founded by... Tony Linsell. Gets around, doesn't he?

You can read more about the Steadfast Trust here. Notice the list of trustees - I wonder which one of them spent his Saturday with a Stormfront member...