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We were finally allowed to gather >25 in Denmark, so we held a great spring equinox blót. Sacrifice was made to Frej, Freja, Njord and Odin to entice the days to get longer, and to gain a good harvest. Many beseechments were made to Ejr and Odin and the spirits to end Covid-19 and bring all life together. Then a lot of mead was downed and we sang weird swedish murder ballads by the fire. 10/10 would frolic again!Chaosfeather posted:Thanks to this thread I was able to recognize some douchebag for what they probably are on the freeway. Their red sports car had a huge eagle decal on the front window and a giant decal of The Vegvisr on the back. I was able to glare at this probable rear end in a top hat as he sped by and imagine myself keying that fancy car. I could be wrong and it was a well-meaning practicing Heathen, but this was an extremely white dudebro looking person in the driver's seat, so I doubt it. Lol, sounds like a brodin
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# ? Mar 21, 2021 19:34 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 17:44 |
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I'm sorry if you mentioned this and I missed it. How do you/others in your faith feel about people that follow reconstructed versions of other old polytheistic religions (Greek, Egyptian, etc)? Do people feel like all of the old religions still have valid power and influence today, or some, or just the one?
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# ? Mar 25, 2021 01:49 |
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My view and the one I've seen others have is that if my reconstructed practice is valid, than any other is equally valid. The only time I'd say somebody's practice isn't valid would be based on the quality and soundness of their reconstruction. If they're claiming something is reconstructed but don't have the evidence to support it, then I'd argue that isn't valid, just on academic grounds. However, there are also a lot of people who lean into the neo- part of neo-paganism and don't try to say their practice is a reconstruction. That's fine as well. I'd never say there's a problem with that as long as they acknowledge the neo. Rant about unsound reconstruction and how it's effected Wicca that you can feel free to ignore: This is also my main complaint with Wicca in its original form. Gardner and his compatriots claimed that Wicca was the inheritor of a long tradition of secret witchcraft cults in Europe going back centuries or possibly even millenia. They got this from the work of a particular anthropologist, even. The problem is that that work is fundamentally unsound and his little foundation in actual material evidence. I've seen many Wiccans have made an effort to embrace the neo label and to move away from this claim of either reconstruction or being an actual unbroken line of practice. I fully support that.
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# ? Mar 25, 2021 03:13 |
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I don't know man. What I do is as much neo-heathenry as recon, considering how little we actually have to reconstruct from. If you look at the first or second page, I believe I posted a statistic of how many heathens feel they are carrying on an original tradition. Phoneposting on the go rn, but I can dig it up later. E: top of this post: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3914359&userid=136835#post502500539 Witching Hour posted:I'm sorry if you mentioned this and I missed it. How do you/others in your faith feel about people that follow reconstructed versions of other old polytheistic religions (Greek, Egyptian, etc)? Do people feel like all of the old religions still have valid power and influence today, or some, or just the one? Imo the power of other gods are uncomfirmed, but likely. I don't necessarily discount the power of the judeo-christian god either, considering its influence. Tias fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Mar 25, 2021 |
# ? Mar 25, 2021 10:35 |
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Tias posted:Imo the power of other gods are uncomfirmed, but likely. I don't necessarily discount the power of the judeo-christian god either, considering its influence. Does this ever lead to a form of syncreticism? That is, the Norse, and the Greek, and the Christian god (and presumably others) are all considered valid?
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# ? Mar 29, 2021 17:25 |
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Yeah I’ve met a lot of syncretic neo-pagans
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# ? Mar 29, 2021 18:07 |
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Tias posted:We were finally allowed to gather >25 in Denmark, so we held a great spring equinox blót. Sacrifice was made to Frej, Freja, Njord and Odin to entice the days to get longer, and to gain a good harvest. Many beseechments were made to Ejr and Odin and the spirits to end Covid-19 and bring all life together. Then a lot of mead was downed and we sang weird swedish murder ballads by the fire. 10/10 would frolic again! Probably should've focused your beseechments on Snotra, given that the greatest obstacle to ending Covid is still the ósnotr leaders of men and not the disease itself.
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# ? Mar 29, 2021 21:52 |
Cessna posted:Does this ever lead to a form of syncreticism? When Rollo died he gave 100 pounds of gold to the church and 100 prisoners of war to Odin.
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# ? Mar 30, 2021 10:21 |
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I think at least one in this thread identifies as 'christopagan', which I assume is a syncretic construct. There's definitely syncretism nowadays, and we know it happened back when the north was christianized.
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# ? Mar 30, 2021 13:30 |
what are the odds that more direct source material might come to light?
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# ? Mar 30, 2021 22:41 |
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There’s always the chance there’s another manuscript like the Codex Regius floating around in some library, I suppose. The most likely form it would take would be a similar collection of old poetry, written after the end of the Viking Age. I don’t know how likely it will be to find any Viking Age manuscripts. There are ongoing archaeological excavations that could shed more light on the material culture. Things like more rune sticks or personal charms. There’s one excavation happening right now on one of the Danish islands that includes an old temple. I was going to try to join that one for my summer field school this year but the pandemic and all got in the way of that.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 01:04 |
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This place? https://www.tv2east.dk/guldborgsund...zLl_MhtEI6-YnZc It rankles when you or, well, anyone, uses the term 'temple'. It is a -possibility- that this was a cultic place, but it extremely hard to be certain of anything at this point. Anyway, you should definitely come to Denmark and chill, possibilities permitting. Southern Falster has a lot of great nature and is close to Germany. Bilirubin posted:what are the odds that more direct source material might come to light? Slim to none, particularly for the age period as Internet Wizard says.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 11:30 |
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This one https://ifrglobal.org/program/denmark-sorte-muld/ (sorry if this is the same location, Danish isn’t one of my languages) Sorry if I misspoke, I only called it a temple because that’s what this page described it as. I’ll be doing a shorter stateside field school this year and then possibly applying for one of the Danish locations for next summer. Though I’m also planning on visiting Iceland next spring as a graduation present to myself before I start my graduate program.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 14:39 |
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The archaeology chat got me wondering if you know anything interesting about earlier North Germanic beliefs and their influence on the Norse ones (which I understand to be originating roughly during the first millenium CE). I have a Danish archaeologist friend who is interested in Bronze Age bog bodies, and there is speculation that items found on some of those bodies have religious or magical significance. I guess there are not really contemporary written attestations from earlier periods so it's pretty tough to reconstruct their beliefs. They also told me that Denmark is an unusually good place to be an archaeologist, with plenty of paying work available, because almost any construction is required to have a preliminary archaeological survey just in case there is anything good hidden in the ground. That seems pretty cool if it's correct!
big scary monsters fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Apr 1, 2021 |
# ? Apr 1, 2021 00:53 |
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There are some Roman writings that talk about the Germanic practices and gods, but I’m not very familiar with them. They’re also written from an outsider’s perspective so they’re not ideal. There are inscriptions from that period, everything written in Elder Futhark is from around then, but no manuscripts or books as far as I know.
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# ? Apr 1, 2021 01:00 |
Internet Wizard posted:There are some Roman writings that talk about the Germanic practices and gods, but I’m not very familiar with them. They’re also written from an outsider’s perspective so they’re not ideal. Probably the most reliable source is Ahmad ibn Fadlan's eyewitness account. But considering it only describes one society (the rus) it's not ideal either.
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# ? Apr 1, 2021 11:16 |
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Alhazred posted:Probably the most reliable source is Ahmad ibn Fadlan's eyewitness account. But considering it only describes one society (the rus) it's not ideal either. ibn Fadlan’s account of the “Rus” (considered by most to be misnamed Scandinavians last time I checked) is Viking age and a few centuries later than big scary monsters was interested in. It is a great description of Viking age practices and inspired a couple of scenes in season 1 of the History channel show, including the nose blowing.
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# ? Apr 1, 2021 14:13 |
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Internet Wizard posted:ibn Fadlan’s account of the “Rus” (considered by most to be misnamed Scandinavians last time I checked) is Viking age and a few centuries later than big scary monsters was interested in. It is a great description of Viking age practices and inspired a couple of scenes in season 1 of the History channel show, including the nose blowing. True, but remember, its also an outsider account, and one where ibn Fadlan is specifically contrasting the "barbarity" of the Vikings to the enlightenment of Islam. So he stresses their filthiness and their use of alcohol and practice of having sex in public and general immodesty and human sacrifice and such.
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# ? Apr 1, 2021 16:00 |
Epicurius posted:True, but remember, its also an outsider account, and one where ibn Fadlan is specifically contrasting the "barbarity" of the Vikings to the enlightenment of Islam. So he stresses their filthiness and their use of alcohol and practice of having sex in public and general immodesty and human sacrifice and such. It is also a description of the rus society, it's far from certain that every viking society had the same customs and beliefs. For example, Ibn Fadlan writes that they burn the body and make fun of Fadlan because his custom is to bury bodies in the ground. But in Scandinavia there's a lot of graves found with buried bodies.
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# ? Apr 1, 2021 16:19 |
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Internet Wizard posted:ibn Fadlan’s account of the “Rus” (considered by most to be misnamed Scandinavians last time I checked) is Viking age and a few centuries later than big scary monsters was interested in. It is a great description of Viking age practices and inspired a couple of scenes in season 1 of the History channel show, including the nose blowing. I thought Rus was an endonym? Also I'm pretty sure the majority of the inhabitants of the Rus society weren't ethnic Scandinavians just the upper stratas.
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# ? Apr 2, 2021 07:27 |
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The Rus was ruled by Rurik( a geat) and his descendants, but I doubt most of them got to intermarry with scandinavians.Internet Wizard posted:This one https://ifrglobal.org/program/denmark-sorte-muld/ (sorry if this is the same location, Danish isn’t one of my languages) Hardly your fault, the Danish leader claims it to be as well, but the only piece of evidence seem to be a number of golden statuettes. To be fair, this could mean we're dealing with a god-place, but it may as well not. Well, let me know! I'll take you to see Copenhagen if you swing by on your way to the island. big scary monsters posted:The archaeology chat got me wondering if you know anything interesting about earlier North Germanic beliefs and their influence on the Norse ones (which I understand to be originating roughly during the first millenium CE). I have a Danish archaeologist friend who is interested in Bronze Age bog bodies, and there is speculation that items found on some of those bodies have religious or magical significance. I guess there are not really contemporary written attestations from earlier periods so it's pretty tough to reconstruct their beliefs. They also told me that Denmark is an unusually good place to be an archaeologist, with plenty of paying work available, because almost any construction is required to have a preliminary archaeological survey just in case there is anything good hidden in the ground. That seems pretty cool if it's correct! Can they opine on which bog bodies and why? I think they should buy an account, I'd love to talk to them here! Egtved girl has a beautiful bracteate belt buckle with swirling patterns that could be of religious significance, but is more likely some regular bling. I believe we have a really old one found with burnished copper dye over their body, indicating ritual of some sort. That is correct. Doing a stint as a junior archeologist is more common than other places, for the same reason.
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# ? Apr 2, 2021 09:32 |
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The pattern on that belt seems very reminiscent of some minoan designs. I wonder if it's a coincidence or if the art style came with the bronze technology. 1390-1370 (well atleast the burial) 1600-1500 bc
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 04:02 |
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It's very popular on all kinds of bronze age stuff from Denmark. Last time I checked consensus was it came from modern day France, but that was many years ago.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 09:53 |
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Weka posted:I thought Rus was an endonym? Also I'm pretty sure the majority of the inhabitants of the Rus society weren't ethnic Scandinavians just the upper stratas. From what I’ve read, most scholars of Fadlan’s work believe the people he called the Rus were actually Varangians. It’s tricky trying to match up groups like this, especially when they’re so foreign to the writer that they’re probably getting details wrong. It’s possible I’m completely off base here, I’ve actually spent more time reading Fadlan and other Arab travel accounts than the other side of things until very recently. Tias posted:Well, let me know! I'll take you to see Copenhagen if you swing by on your way to the island. Whether or not I end up doing any work over there, I’m definitely planning on spending some time visiting Copenhagen and the surrounding area. A little off topic for the thread but related, is there a Scandinavian language you feel is more useful than any of the others for general travel/getting around? I’d study Danish but one of my professors (Matthias Nordvig, who is also Danish) said to never study Danish because it’s a nonsense language.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 14:32 |
On the archaeology tangent (which I love) my clickbaity FB feed suggestion brought up discussion of this: https://www.ancient-origins.net/art...XyBdYoE31DTVFiM Looking at the designs this seems very likely a shamanistic treatise written in silver. It also appears a bit syncretic between Germanic and Roman belief systems. What might your thoughts be?
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 17:46 |
Bilirubin posted:It also appears a bit syncretic between Germanic and Roman belief systems. What might your thoughts be? From what I read the nordic nisse descends from the roman Lar Familiares.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 17:55 |
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Internet Wizard posted:A little off topic for the thread but related, is there a Scandinavian language you feel is more useful than any of the others for general travel/getting around? I’d study Danish but one of my professors (Matthias Nordvig, who is also Danish) said to never study Danish because it’s a nonsense language. Dane here. Honestly I think a Scandinavian language is more nice-to-have than need-to-have, unless you'd like to settle in Scandinavia. There should be more than enough english speakers to get by, though some with rather strong accents. If you do want to learn, I'm not sure what to reccomend, but hese are some of the factors to consider: Swedish has the most total speakers, both as a first language for Swedes and Fenno-Swedes, and IIRC also as a second language for the rest of the Finns. Norwegian has the fewest speakers, however if you can speak Oslo-Norwegian (Bokmål), you'll find Danes and Swedes have an easier time understanding you, compared to if you try to talk to a Dane in Swedish or vice versa. Danish has the second-most speakers, and is also spoken as a second language in Greenland and the Faroes. IIRC you can also take it as a second/third language in Iceland, but I doubt people practice it as much, since Iceland is independent and the other two aren't. Danish is a nonsense language in the sense that it has a ton of irregular verbs and declensions and silent letters and so on, but then so does (especially British) English. I've been told that our sounds are also harder to learn than Swedish/Norwegian, but that is 100% anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 18:38 |
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Internet Wizard posted:From what I’ve read, most scholars of Fadlan’s work believe the people he called the Rus were actually Varangians. It’s tricky trying to match up groups like this, especially when they’re so foreign to the writer that they’re probably getting details wrong. It’s possible I’m completely off base here, I’ve actually spent more time reading Fadlan and other Arab travel accounts than the other side of things until very recently. Varangian is just the name given by the Greeks and Kievan Rus' to the non-Rus scandinavians ruling the Kievan Rus. quote:Whether or not I end up doing any work over there, I’m definitely planning on spending some time visiting Copenhagen and the surrounding area. I'll still be posting whenever that happens, so shoot me a message! quote:A little off topic for the thread but related, is there a Scandinavian language you feel is more useful than any of the others for general travel/getting around? I’d study Danish but one of my professors (Matthias Nordvig, who is also Danish) said to never study Danish because it’s a nonsense language. Well, Nordvig is great guy and an interesting writer, but in this case probably a little flavored by living, working and thinking in English most of the time. I'd recommend learning Norwegian - more speakers, and much easier to learn Danish and Swedish from. Learning Danish first is a fool's errand, and I say this as someone who balls out loves the Danish language. Bilirubin posted:On the archaeology tangent (which I love) my clickbaity FB feed suggestion brought up discussion of this: https://www.ancient-origins.net/art...XyBdYoE31DTVFiM I doubt it's necessarily shamanistic, we have too little info to go on. I don't know who the Sweatman guy the cite is, but he seems to be making stuff up. Even the stuff about Cernunnos seems more likely.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 19:16 |
Caustic Soda posted:Dane here. Honestly I think a Scandinavian language is more nice-to-have than need-to-have, unless you'd like to settle in Scandinavia. There should be more than enough english speakers to get by, though some with rather strong accents. Sj would like a word with you As a native Anglophone I've been working on Swedish on and off for the past few months. Most of my family come from there (although we have one family from Norway) and I have active research collaborations with folks in Uppsala so I'm there on occasion. As a child I remember my elders (including some of the original immigrants because we tend to live so goddamned long) speaking Swedish and was taught some by my grandmother. The language was lost with my parents generation sadly. loving boomers. That said I never felt out of place when visiting Sweden even without my rudimentary conversational Svenska as most seem quite conversant in English. I have French as a second language and a smattering of German and Swedish seems a nice compromise between my other language competencies and it is going reasonably easily. Now to blatantly rip off a post from the scandi thread on Danish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk&t=120s Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Apr 3, 2021 |
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 19:28 |
Tias posted:
Yeah I was just going by the iconography, the scholarly merit of AncientOrigins is not really existent
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 19:35 |
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Tias posted:Can they opine on which bog bodies and why? I think they should buy an account, I'd love to talk to them here! On language chat, I've found Norwegian not too bad to pick up as an Anglophone, but I already spoke German and conversational Dutch, which helped a lot. After a few years in Norway reading Danish is pretty easy but the spoken pronunciation is extremely tough. Spoken Swedish is easier to understand but looks weird to me written down. But then there are a million dialects even just in Norwegian so sometimes I meet Norwegians I just flat can't understand as well.
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# ? Apr 3, 2021 21:38 |
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To this day I find Swedish infuriatingly hard to parse. It's easier written, but I still don't have the vocabulary to understand what's going on. Anyway, this language and scandinavia chat is all well and good, but may be better brought to the Skandi thread, where we also have a discord where skandi goons will help you learn our weird languages. Tias fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Apr 4, 2021 |
# ? Apr 4, 2021 08:10 |
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Tias posted:Varangian is just the name given by the Greeks and Kievan Rus' to the non-Rus scandinavians ruling the Kievan Rus. So in The Tale of Bygone Years aka the Primary Chronicle of the Kievan Rus, Rurik is described as a Varangian and as a Rus. Varangian as you say was a Greek term and Rus seems to have been a Finnic one, whether identical in meaning to or as a sub category of Varangian I'm not sure. Of course ethnic groups change and wiki tells me a couple of centuries later the Slavicized upper classes were called Rus and the identifiably Scandinavians were called some variant of Varangian. Thanks for the tip re wave patterns and France too.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 09:22 |
Weka posted:So in The Tale of Bygone Years aka the Primary Chronicle of the Kievan Rus, Rurik is described as a Varangian and as a Rus. Varangian as you say was a Greek term and Rus seems to have been a Finnic one, whether identical in meaning to or as a sub category of Varangian I'm not sure. Of course ethnic groups change and wiki tells me a couple of centuries later the Slavicized upper classes were called Rus and the identifiably Scandinavians were called some variant of Varangian. The brits on the other hand just called every vaguely norse person a "dane".
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 11:21 |
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Tias posted:Yeah, Scandinavia is, uh, polarised This was way back in the thread, but I actually grew up like 20 minutes from this place and I’ve met the oldies who still spoke that dialect. It’s pretty loving fantastic, it feels completely disconnected from Swedish. I’m from a small town nearby that also have a old timey kind of dialect called ”Orsa-mål” (Orsa is the small town and mål means a kind of dialect) that I kind of understand even tho I can’t speak it. Älvdals-mål (the dialekt from the article) is just another language!
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 13:18 |
Martin posted:This was way back in the thread, but I actually grew up like 20 minutes from this place and I’ve met the oldies who still spoke that dialect. It’s pretty loving fantastic, it feels completely disconnected from Swedish. That's amazing. Has their folklore been documented?
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 16:33 |
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Bilirubin posted:That's amazing. I’m far from knowledgeable, I just grew up close! But as far as I understand, the culture and lore wasn’t really that different from the rest of Sweden, just that their language never really evolved in the same way as the rest of the country due to isolation. Googling a bit there’s actually a wiki in English about the language which gave me some insight that I never had https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfdalian Never really understood the impact of this on historical research, especially languages until now. They were just our weird neighbors that had elders that talked funny.
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 17:33 |
Martin posted:I’m far from knowledgeable, I just grew up close! But as far as I understand, the culture and lore wasn’t really that different from the rest of Sweden, just that their language never really evolved in the same way as the rest of the country due to isolation. Cool. Actually, I would be keen to get recommendations for good books on scandi folklore. Poetic Eddas is on the list already--I have not read them in many years other than the bastardisation that Neil Gaiman shat out not too long ago. More along the lines of the unabridged Brothers Grimm
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 17:54 |
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Alhazred posted:The brits on the other hand just called every vaguely norse person a "dane". Nah. Wicing (viking) was used in old English although it disappeared in middle English (post norman conquest). https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/wicing Some British historian, a monastic iirc, referred to two curses or plagues or something on England, the red and the black, in reference to different viking raiders, which I atleast interpreted as Danish and Norwegian. I couldn't find the quote but I did find this, which suggests the vast majority of viking settlers in England where Danish. Please ignore the weird racial essentialism. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/16/dark-hair-was-common-among-vikings-genetic-study-confirms
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# ? Apr 4, 2021 20:42 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 17:44 |
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There's a paywall, but yeah, some vikings definitely claimed to be 'Danes' and to come from the 'Dania', which we now think is in southern Sweden.
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# ? Apr 5, 2021 13:27 |