Talk:Norse mythology/Archive 1

is *Scandic* the general way to put this? Or should we use *Nordic*? --MichaelTinkler

Hmmm. Perhaps, although the norse religion presumably originally came from germanic tribes and went through extensive mutation in the nordic countries, thereafter spreading with, and being influenced by colonizations in Russia, on the British isles and so forth...Maby something to write abaout :-) --Anders Törlind

Yes, this is a very complex area with considerable overlap. Many of my sources link or coincide; often the spellings of names differ (often to the point of unrecognisability) but the dramatis personae are functionally the same... sjc

On another note, here is my little wishlist for this page:
 * The development of the Norse mythology, from its eraly beginnings and the ousting of the nerthus cult in Scandinavia, to its eventual decline and disappearance under the influence of christianity
 * A part where all the sagas of the gods are collected for those that want to read up (some major work there!)
 * A section covering the actual worship of the gods themselves, as it appeared in the various regions and how it changed over time.

Not knowledgable enough myself to do it, but i sure can wish, hehe.

Piece of cake :-) -- Anders Torlind

Anyone have an English or Icelandic versions of the eddas at hand for scanning and OCR-ing? The English translations might be copyrighted (not sure...depends on publishing date i suppose), but the original texts are most certainly in the public domain. I could do the OCR if someone were to send the scanned pages (to a mail address disclosed later, see spam :-). Hmmm? --Anders Törlind

Most of my stuff is rare, either out of print or Victorian translations which I'd be very reluctant to damage, and use typefaces which I don't think will scan very easily. I will have a look around the second hand bookshops and see if I can find anything we could use for this. I guess we could also approach Project Gutenberg on this front as well. sjc Later: If you're interested Anders, there is a terrific bunch of texts online already at http://www.angelfire.com/on/Wodensharrow/texts.html - I'm not sure about the copyright issues, however, with some of their texts... sjc

Im off to check them out now... --Anders Törlind Later: There is a transcript of the islandic version of havamál we should be able to swipe. Who could reasonably have copyright on that one? --Anders Törlind The person doing the transcription? I don't know, really; but I would counsel caution. sjc

I'm no lawyer, but I don't think you can copyright transcription. certainly the translation of a transcription is the property of the translator and not subject to anything the transcriber might say or want. hrm... -trimalchio

Yesterday I merged the existing material with some old lecture notes of mine. There is a little duplication in there now, but at least some of the wishlist above should be satisfied. There is AFAIK no clear, generally recognised timeline between the cults described by Tacitus and the gods of the Eddas-clasqm.

Yes, nice work clasqm; I was wondering how we were going to address a number of these issues and you have clearly given us a good steer on a number of fronts. Many thanks. sjc

-- I just edited the Tacitus portion - his opinion of the Romans is not very important for his (extremely limited) information on Germanic deities - it's more important for avoiding uncritical acceptance of his characterization of Germanic warrior-society. I also removed the "Frankish French" successors of Charlemagne. Charlemagne and all his successors for at least 50 years were Franks, so it is irrelevant. The fate of Charlemagne's library is somewhat problematic - the pagan material wasn't burned because it was pagan, or otherwise LOTS of the Roman pagan material that only survives b/c of Charlemagne wouldn't survive. --MichaelTinkler

It is fine with me the way it is written now. It was however the French side of the Frankish descendends, who destroyed the German pre-christian collection of Charlemagne. You probably only need one hand to count what is left, like the Merseburger Zaubersprueche etc from ca 800, exept for the earlier Germanic Atta Unsar. Your guess is as good as mine, why the French destroyed the German writings, but kept the Roman writings. user:H.J. - The survival of ANY manuscript from before the invention of printing is both a matter of accident and a testimony to actual interest. If readers cared, there would be more copies. So part of the mystery is why the so called German Franks didn't make a copy. They were not systematically destroyed. They were also not systematically preserved. Anything that was not systematically preserved (by interested parties who copied and recopied manuscripts) survived only by accident. Another useful question is why didn't later literate germanic-language speakers write down more of them. The survival, accidental and otherwise, of medieval texts is a field about which I know a lot, so don't get started on this. Please, H.J., let me suggest ''Before France and Germany' by P. Geary. The East Frankish royal family was just as Christian as the West Frankish royal family. --MichaelTinkler

Helga -- as a Carolingianist, I'd really like to know what sources you are using. I'm not denying them, just interested, because I'm not familiar with them. JHK

A note for user:H.J.. Norse Mythology is not a page for conspiracy theory regarding missing Germanic texts which have little bearing since they no longer exist, and one cannot possibly speculate what they may or may not have contained. The page has subsequently been edited to reflect facts rather than your ideologically motivated agenda of surmise. sjc

We currently have Fenris listed under Gods. I know he's Loki's li'l un and all, but isn't that pushing the point a little? Maybe move to Miscellaneous Beings further down? - clasqm
 * yep, I think so - given the other beasts in that part of the list it makes sense. --MichaelTinkler

Agreed, no problem from my point of view. I would have put him there myself, but Anders was doing such a sterling job... sjc

Anders, The Uppsala spelling seems to be in every permutation in English: I am not sure what we should do here, maybe just put the redirects in to cover all the bases? sjc

Heh, leave it to the anglosaxons to never get a non-english word right ;-) Lets have the current spelling and see what happens (since I get a lot of hits for "Uppsala" in English on Google, it can't be that wrong). It'll sort itself, it always does ^_^ --Anders

Yeah, well as a Celt, I couldn't agree with you more. sjc

The description of Yggdrasil in that page conflicts somewhat with the description on the main page. Does Yggdrasil contain Asgard, Midgard, etc., or is Yggdrasil in Midgard? Or is contradiction actually a part of the mythology?

At any rate, kudos to all the contributors. Great work! -- ansible

Yggdrasil, the world ash contains everything. I'll go and have a look see. Later: OK, I can see where the confusion arises. I'll clarify the Yggdrasil page. sjc - To MichaelTinkler etc, guess what I just found. I purchased a book at a library book sales, titled : "Music in History,The Evolution Of An Art,Howard D. McKinney and W.R. Anderson, American Book Company 1940, USA. I inserted the direct quote from this book in the Norse Mythology text. user:H.J.

Alright, Helga. I've just looked up the book on the Cornell University Library web page. They wrote books of general music appreciation - neither was a historian, or even a specialist in medieval music. I'll look up the fate of Charlemagne's library. --MichaelTinkler. -- To MichaelTinkler. I knew it previously from other sources. This book is just one sample of other writers also familiar with this event.

Besides history of music or history of arts or whatever is at least as important as historian writings, and probably more NPOV so, because after all "historians" are often political writers and are hired by parties with political agendas.


 * Yes, they often are political; historians come in a variety of types.  So do music historians.  There are music historians who specialize in medieval music.  These two men did not;  they wrote general books.  The book you quote from is a general book.  It is exactly the same as quoting something from a history book designed to be used in a first year college class - not very scholarly.  That doesn't mean it's wrong, just not very dependable.  There are many 'commonly held' beliefs which are incorrect.  Let me recommend my favorite one:  MANY intelligent people in the modern world seem to believe that ancient and medieval people thought the world was flat.  That is not true.  However, the Flat-Earth idea still shows up in history text books written for the high school and college student.  An important popular historian, Daniel Boorstin, in his The Discoverers : A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself (ISBN 0394726251) repeated this myth as recently as 1985;  another importan historian, Jeffrey Burton Russell, in his Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians (ISBN: 027595904X), proves that this is not so.  Among other things, Russell teaches me that I have to examine 'familiar stories' that I learned from history class.  They are not always true.  --MichaelTinkler

--- For MichaelTinkler That goes for everything. My mother-in-law always said :"The only thing you can believe printed in the newspaper is the white part". user:H.J.

First, what exactly does the sentence about enlightened Christians mean? It's really pretty nonsensical in the context of the times. Maybe they were just interested -- the way it's written now reads as a value judgment of Early mediaeval Christianity, i.e., most Christians in the Early Middle Ages were ignorant, superstitious barbarians, except for the enlightened few who believed in cultural relativity and therefore the value of pagan religion/mythology. I take exception to this. So there.

Secondly, I have removed the two Carolingian sentences because no one seems to be able to substantiate them. I would love to do so myself, but don't have the time on my one day off a week to go to the UW library and read through the MGH. If anyone else has time, I am willing to bet that the necessary references are in Thegan, Astronomus, or the Annales Regni Francorum. As for the Charlemagne reference (Einhard 3.28), as written it was misleading. Einhard states that Charlemagne had the narrative poems of his ancestors written down, but these poems are specifically said to be about the deeds of heroic former kings. They could contain mythological elements, but could also be more oral history -- at any rate, I doubt these Frankish poems are Norse mythology, and find it difficult to believe that they were destroyed in some Louis-inspired religious book-burning. (Note: I had to look this up in translation, because I don't keep the MGH at home...). JHK -- Charlemagne and others in ca 800 wrote down pre-christian (pagan, heathen) Germanic stories, poems, songs from the continent. The North Mythology was written by Snorri Sturluson (1179 -1241). The places described and for many centuries though to be wild phantasy, are actual places in Iceland. user:H.J.


 * Sorry -- I don't think I was clear enough -- I have JUST READ the original source for the reports of Charlemagne ordering the poems to be written down. It is in Einhard's Vita Caroli Magni.  Unfortunately, I had to read this in translation, but there is nothing that implies that his purpose was to capture pre-christian myth.  Indeed, the implication is that he wanted to show that his family and the Franks in general had long been conquering heroes.  Everything you are quoting about Charlemagne is based on what Einhard said.  I have read the original.  I have given the reference so that someone with time can check the Latin.  I don't understand why you cannot accept that what I have told you is true, and based on better evidence. JHK
 * I checked the Annales Regni Francorum and Nithard's History (both in translation, in the volume Carolingian Chronicles) yesterday to see if there was any mention of burning books that were 'pagan'. There wasn't.  I also checked through 2 books by McKitterick that I have at home.  Louis the Pious more or less dispersed Charlemagne's library in accordance with Charlemagne's will (which had ordered all his books sold and the proceeds given to the poor).  The evidence is that though he did sell some, he kept others.  There is no mention of burning.  I don't have an MGH set either (wah!  Liberal Arts libraries!).  I have Astronomus on order through Interlibrary Loan for another reason, and I'll check there when it comes in;  there's no time THIS week to get to Ithaca!  I think this is an academic folktale. --MichaelTinkler.

To JHK and MichaelTinkler on Charlemagne's collection again. The book :"Karl der Grosse, Richard Winston, Bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Dr. Heinrich Pleticha, Ensslin & Laiblin Verlag Reutlingen, (English language edition 1968 by American Heritage Publ. Co,Inc" It states: "Dabei kuemmerte sich Karl aber nicht nur um die lateinische Sprache, sondern suchte auch das heimische Volkstum und die deutsche Sprache zu foerdern. So gab er den Monaten deutsche Namen, befahl die Abfassung einer deutschen Grammatik und liess germanische Heldenlieder sammeln und aufzeichnen. Leider wurde gerade diese Sammlung, die fuer uns heute so bedeutsam waere, wegen ihrer 'heidnischen' Einfluesse schon unter Ludwig dem Frommen wieder vernichtet."

Transl. " Charlemagne did not only show an interest in the Latin language, he also saw to it, that the local customs and German language were furthered. He gave the months German names, ordered a German grammar and had Germanic Heroic songs collected and recorded. Regrettably, it was this particular collection, which would be for us today of great importance, that was already destroyed under Louis the Pious, because of its "heathen" influence. " user:H.J.


 * HJ, we *know* you can find references to this in modern secondary sources. Plese find one that gives a FOOTNOTE to a ninth century primary or secondary source giving the same story.  I can't find any ninth century reference.  I would be happy to use a later ninth or early tenth century reference, if it is made clear that the 10th century reference is not contemporary with the event.  We are not concerned with what modern historians say about this circumstance, but on what they base their statement.  Without a footnote to a text I can check, it sounds like 19th century blame-assignment for a 'lost text'.  There are many, many 'lost texts' in the history of scholarship that we regret not having (Aristotle's lost book on Comedy (we have Tragedy) provided the plot for Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose).  However, simply asserting that Louis the Pious destroyed them because they were 'too pagan' without a reference is not enough. --MichaelTinkler