There's an additional level of complexity/fail involved, given the history of Norse neo-Pagan groups (and, umm, some of 'em would thrash me for lumping them in with other neo-Pagans; it's a touchy subject) and the White Power movements.
I don't know TNH, nor the racist Asatru groups, well enough to sort out whether the word includes racist overtones, or just happens to be part of a language associated with a group associated with racist activities. (Mygods, that's too many layers of meta.) I know there are racist Asatru groups (the keyword to search for is "folkish"--not all "folkish" groups are racist, but all the racist ones ID as "folkish"); I don't know if they're more likely to declare people "nithing" than others, and have no idea if it's use on people outside of the groups themselves.
Plenty of modern Norse/Germanic Pagans won't have heard of the term--but none of the ones who do, think it means "lowlife scumbag." They have plenty of more colorful words for that.
As far as "current" use--there are Pagan groups working to revive/reconstruct the religions of the Norse, Egyptian (Kemetic), Celtic, Slavic, Roman, and Greek cultures. This includes active use of a huge collection of words that were never translated to English, or the translations were so mangled through the Christian filter that they're useless. (Most non-Christian forms of clergy, for example, don't translate well.) So all of those groups have at least a handful of words that are considered archaic, but are widely known within the group. Words dealing with religion and magic top the lists.
no subject
I don't know TNH, nor the racist Asatru groups, well enough to sort out whether the word includes racist overtones, or just happens to be part of a language associated with a group associated with racist activities. (Mygods, that's too many layers of meta.) I know there are racist Asatru groups (the keyword to search for is "folkish"--not all "folkish" groups are racist, but all the racist ones ID as "folkish"); I don't know if they're more likely to declare people "nithing" than others, and have no idea if it's use on people outside of the groups themselves.
Plenty of modern Norse/Germanic Pagans won't have heard of the term--but none of the ones who do, think it means "lowlife scumbag." They have plenty of more colorful words for that.
As far as "current" use--there are Pagan groups working to revive/reconstruct the religions of the Norse, Egyptian (Kemetic), Celtic, Slavic, Roman, and Greek cultures. This includes active use of a huge collection of words that were never translated to English, or the translations were so mangled through the Christian filter that they're useless. (Most non-Christian forms of clergy, for example, don't translate well.) So all of those groups have at least a handful of words that are considered archaic, but are widely known within the group. Words dealing with religion and magic top the lists.