Viking mythology and all that goes with it

Thyrfing are great! IMHO anyhow...but then again, I'm almost as old as Odin himself, so maybe my opinion doesn't count so much due to the nerd factor.
 
I know I've just been busy with life in general, so my random bullshit has been kept to a minimum, and no one has asked any good questions in a while. I do miss the good conversations we've had in this thread, though.
 
Bates said:
I know I've just been busy with life in general, so my random bullshit has been kept to a minimum, and no one has asked any good questions in a while. I do miss the good conversations we've had in this thread, though.
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Things are quiet in the whole board in general. I blame winter blues... and the fact that many of you will still be digesting turkey and wondering what to do with the leftovers.
 
Grrr, my brain is too tired to think...flying the whole family around the world later today...stress...
(Krigley Bigley! Hi!) I really am too stressed to think atm, can't think of a single one that belongs to a god or goddess. In the sagas there are weapons, though, ones that have names, like in Hervors saga, there is the sword Tyrfing. Some of the kings had swords that were named, too. Högni had Dainsleif, and Hromund had Mistilteinn. I have to sleep on the question...sorry!

Edit: Oh, wait! Frey has a magic sword (Laevateinn or something like that), and Sigurd (who is not a god, but anyhow) has Gram, while Völund makes a sword called Mimung.
 
Naming weapons seemed to be pretty common, I've been rereading the Icelandic sagas, and it seems pretty much anyone who considered a warrior had at least one named sword or spear. I'll try and remember to throw some of them up here later, 12 hour work days are brain-draining :|
 
Bates said:
Naming weapons seemed to be pretty common, I've been rereading the Icelandic sagas, and it seems pretty much anyone who considered a warrior had at least one named sword or spear. :|
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Not only in Viking and Norse mithology mind you. Celts were extremely name-happy: The Gae Bolga spear and the Caladbolg and Fragarach swords in the Ulster Cycle stories, plus the Welsh tradition (Maginogion and Arthurian tales) names the weapons of Arthur as a sword called Caledfwlch (later anglified as Excalibur) a dagger named Carnwennan and a spear named Rhongomyniad.

Tradition goes further South, all Spanish kids may not have a clue of who the historical Cid was but know his swords were called Colada and Tizona and his horse was called Babieca.
 
Tyra said:
!

Edit: Oh, wait! Frey has a magic sword (Laevateinn or something like that), and Sigurd (who is not a god, but anyhow) has Gram.
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Revising the correct Welsh spelling of Excalibur found this bit:

The story of the Sword in the Stone has an analogue in some versions of the story of Sigurd (the Norse proto-Siegfried), whose father, Sigmund, draws the sword Gram out of the tree Barnstokkr where it is embedded by the Norse god Odin.

My comparative lit professor may have been right... you can find paralellisms on anything if you set your mind to it.
 
Oh yeah, I have a book on Arthur that has a freaking laundry list of his possessions and their names. Pendragon: The Definitive Origins of Arthur by Blake and Card. Pretty good one, if you don't mind academic reading without much embellishment.
 
Bates said:
Oh yeah, I have a book on Arthur that has a freaking laundry list of his possessions and their names. Pendragon: The Definitive Origins of Arthur by Blake and Card. Pretty good one, if you don't mind academic reading without much embellishment.
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Love the kind, read that kind of book in a cafe and scares people away.

Yeah, laundry list indeed! I honestly don't know how it is relevant in an epic for all heros to have a charioteer mentioned by name... :erk::erk: but they did not have a problem with women driving, that's conforting. :)
 
Here's a random question... do any of the eddas describe what the Brisingamen (Freja's necklace) looked like? I think I read somewhere it was gold but that's about it :)


I am sorry if this has been answered already. Search very helpfully directed me to this thread- but it did not say in which of the fifty pages I should look :erk:
 
No, the eddas only tell you it's made of gold, but in Beowulf it says it is gem-figured filigree. There are other sources, such as Heimskringla, but none of them really tell you what it looks like. I suppose it's implicit, familiar to those who lived in the culture of the day. Archaeology gives a hint at what it may have looked like, but in terms of writing, only Beowulf, as far as I know, has a description.
 
Tyra said:
No, the eddas only tell you it's made of gold, but in Beowulf it says it is gem-figured filigree. There are other sources, such as Heimskringla, but none of them really tell you what it looks like. I suppose it's implicit, familiar to those who lived in the culture of the day. Archaeology gives a hint at what it may have looked like, but in terms of writing, only Beowulf, as far as I know, has a description.
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Thanks! I only found this... and tons of reproduction of period pieces, suppose some would be accurate and some not.

freya2.jpg


Edit: on a completely different topic...I know this is not strictly mithology-related, but anyone knows if torc style necklaces and bracelets were popular among vikings too?
 
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