Giles Shire
Born at Giles Shire. Crowned by the Viking name.
I. The Origin
Giles Shire is the origin of Viking Honey®.
Here, land, inheritance, bee, blossom, nectar, and name came together.
Born at Giles Shire. Bound to no place.
II. The Inheritance
Frank Russell Abernathy was a World War II veteran. He retired from the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.
In 1960, Frank and Ava Dell Giles Abernathy purchased the land that would one day become Giles Shire.
The land they established would become the origin of Viking Honey®.
In the summers of their youth, Frank and Dell’s three grandsons—Jimmy, Greg, and Mark—roamed the land that would become Giles Shire. One of them would return and give the place its name.
III. The Return
Jimmy Giles studied at Mississippi State University and the Sorbonne, worked for IBM on Madison Avenue, and was living in Germany when the Berlin Wall fell.
Then he returned.
He named the land Giles Shire.
Without the return, there would be no Viking Honey®.
IV. The Bee
Viking Honey® began in the work of the hive.
The hives were opened, read, and tended.
This was the work beneath the myth.
V. The Nectar Source
Giles Shire is revealed.
The Nectar Source is not.
The power is keeping it a secret.
VI. The Birth of the Myth
At Giles Shire, the bee was never small.
Beyla gave the bee her sacred work. Thor stood over the hives. Huginn and Muninn carried thought and memory. Odin saw what had taken root. Heimdall guarded what lay beyond.
