Yeah, Bates, I know, it hurts! I get the thoughts and make the connections, but then when I try to put it into papers, I am told by the proffs that we cannot believe anything historic written about the Norse. Everything has to be supported with archaeological finds, and when you do that, they say the finds are circumstantial and can support any give theory. It's irritating as hell when you can clearly see patterns, can support them with five or six or more unrelated text sources, and can show that the archaeological finds are present, but they still don't see the connection. Or deny it.
Well, most of the lawbooks are post-Christianization, yes, but IMO that is only a reflection of the fact that up until then, there was no ABC's and also no need to copy the texts down. The retelling of geneaologies, laws, mythology, poetry and histories was a respected job that one got paid for and/or got room and board for. This is a common practise in cultures where there is no written language. The Norse did have runes, and we know from som texts and such that some used the runes to write poetry etc with them. The issue here is that they had no paper, pergament or papyrus to write on, and apparently symbols on ash tablets do not count as written language. So, in other words, the laws were, to the best of our knowledge, not copied down until the arival of the new faith.
However, the oldest originals of Norwegian law texts (as an example, since I am most familiar with them), such as the Gulating and Frostating laws describe laws that were practised before Christianization. They were subsequently changed as time went on, but still, the very first copies relate to pre-Christian practise. Even later texts still depict many of the pre-Christian thinking, in terms of explicitlly outlawing those things that were not Christian (such as praying to the old gods, building places for the worship of old gods and demi-gods, vé, harg and hof), and in terms of using certain types of terminiolgy (such as speaking of Valkyries). These texts have been extremely useful for me in my thesis, since it can be used to connect pre-Christian practice with Christian, so that you can see a clear continuum. (As you know, many scholars and laypeople claim there is no continuum between the pre-Christian society and the Christian one - in my opinion, that's a nice Christian PR type dream that's still being carried on, and thet needs to be deflated. Hence my thesis, since it is the first step in proving a political continuum.)
Shealladh, I wasn't giving you crap about the thread. I think it'd be a really good idea to have a thread with everybody's art work, because there are so many of us that do art based on this music in this forum. Questions and comments keep coming up relating to it, so I thought we'd started one, but then I really don't know if we all just suggested that we start one but never did, or if we actually did. Anyhow, it's gone now, so I think we should start a new one. If you resurrect old threads, people just get their asses in a real twist anyhow (myself being one of them...)
EzR. yeah, it is Bonnie and Erics' art. They're both amazing artists, but they're also amazing people in general. Bonnie is one of those people that, to me, personifies a true Valkyrie. In our SCA houeshold, her and I have honorary titles of Household Valkyries. I guess there's a reason for it...
