Viking mythology and all that goes with it
- Thread starter Celtik Militia
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Knarfi
Yaba-daba-doo!
TheLastWithPaganBlood
Nordman
This is a really interesting article about the Latvian Midsummer-festivities, which really makes me envy their huge pagan cultural heirloom. My midsummers eve was spent in north-east Skåne with the farmers there and their Latvian thralls, which wasn't quite as sofisticated as the Latvians. But it was still fun 
http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/resor/did_15896619.asp
http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/resor/did_15896619.asp
Bates
Swamp Yankee
Go Latvia! 
Yeah, I've heard Jani is a great party, my brother got to catch a bit of it last year, lucky bastard. We were supposed to go this year, but shit happens. 
As for the Norwegian ships, I've yet to get there myself, but I do have a bunch of various junk and pictures from the Gokstadskibet, it's pretty impressive.
Yeah, I've heard Jani is a great party, my brother got to catch a bit of it last year, lucky bastard. We were supposed to go this year, but shit happens. As for the Norwegian ships, I've yet to get there myself, but I do have a bunch of various junk and pictures from the Gokstadskibet, it's pretty impressive.
Krigloch the Furious
Pants full of poo
thanks for the shield infos
linkThis is a really interesting article about the Latvian Midsummer-festivities, which really makes me envy their huge pagan cultural heirloom. My midsummers eve was spent in north-east Skåne with the farmers there and their Latvian thralls, which wasn't quite as sofisticated as the Latvians. But it was still fun
Blodørn
Member
Ever seen Osebergskipet? It's on display at Bygdøy in Vikingskiphuset(a museum),it's awsome
Tyra
Member
Yeah, I think she out-does Gokstad and the rest. Spectacular. Have you heard about the big (!!!) fight over moving one of the ships, Blodörn?
Blodørn
Member
No, when was that? I have allways been interested in history and all that comes with it, but when I was younger I was'nt that mutch into reading newspapers ^^ btw: I was listning to swedish radio while working in the garden yesterday 
Tyra
Member
It's going on right now. The government wants to move one of the ships - I think Gokstad, but don't quote me - but the archaeologists are saying that it'll disintigrate if they do. So you've got touris board people against archaeologists, and then you've got different museums picking sides. It's pretty sad, considering the stakes, that they cannot come to a positive agreement (like working together to make it possible to move without wrecking it further, let's say).
Blodørn
Member
What about attaching jet motors to it, and make it hover in orbit around the earth, then place a huge telescope in the museum for all to see!
Erzebeth.Rouge
Member
hum.. a few weeks ago, i made that test out of fun, about which god or goddess represented you the most. norse gods of course. As i read the questions i could recognize to which god the answer would be leading to, and i came up with having similitudes with Sif. I made some researches to know exactly what she is about, but i would still be curious about what you might know of her.
you might have noticed on the pictures of myself that i have long blond hair.. i must admit my hair are my personal pride and loosing them would have me mad. so i guess i do share some similitudes with this particular goddess.
what can you tell me?
you might have noticed on the pictures of myself that i have long blond hair.. i must admit my hair are my personal pride and loosing them would have me mad. so i guess i do share some similitudes with this particular goddess.
what can you tell me?
Tyra
Member
There is not too much about her in the Edda, other then the story in Gylfaginning, where Loki cuts off her hair out of spite. Thor catches up with Loki and about crushes every bone in Loki's body, who then vows to replace Siv's hair. She ends up with hair of gold (that grows like regular hair) made by the svart-alf Brokk for a replacement, of course, which is why "Siv's hair" is a kenning for gold. She is mentioned in the lore moreso than in the Edda proper, in other words. It is Siv that finds Trym's ring after he steals Tor's hammer. Her children were the sons Mode, Magne (who survive Ragnarök) and the daughter Trud, and as you probably know, she was married to Tor. In Skaldskaparmal it is said that she is the mother of UllR, and that Thor is UllR's stepdad (no, I don't know who the biological dad is, but then Oden - in the Elder Edda, Harbard's song - claims that Siv had been unfaithful). In Scandinavia she is considered a shield maiden.
Erzebeth.Rouge
Member
why a shield maiden, what is that? isnt she considered as a fetility goddess at some point? with her golden hair like crops ?
ive read there was a possibility of a love triangle between Siv, Thor and Loki, (but that only Siv knew the truth about it of course)..
Whos is Trym? what about his ring?
ive read there was a possibility of a love triangle between Siv, Thor and Loki, (but that only Siv knew the truth about it of course)..
Whos is Trym? what about his ring?
Tyra
Member
Thrym was a giant that stole Mjöllner from Tor and demanded to marry Freja as ransom. Freja flat out refused, whereupon Loke had the great idea of dressing Tor up as a bride and pretend he was Freja under the veil, until such a time that he could get his mighty hands on Mjöllner again. The story is long and very funny - Thrym, for example, being a bit concerned when his bride eats eight salmon and an ox and drained three barrels of mead in one sitting - but in the end, Tor got Mjöllner back and killed Thrym and his family. The ring comes in when Tor wakes up in the morning and discovers Mjöllner gone in the beginning of the story. Siv figures out that it is Thrym who has stolen the hammer when she finds his ring that he left behind at the scene of the crime.
Classically speaking, a shiled maiden was a woman who fought as a warrior. In some cultures, she would have to be a maiden who had chosen to forgo married life for the life of a warrior, but in Siv's case, this does not apply. I think that applies more to Celtic shield maidens. They are mentioned with some frequency in the Scandinavian lore and sagas, and not necesserily as maidens who remain chaste and unmarried.
It is entirely possible that she could have been considered a fertility goddess in some areas. Different areas and different families allied themselves with different gods. The Svear, for example, were devoted to Oden and are said to be his descendants, whereas other families were allied with Frey or Ull. Frej and Freja are the main fertility god and goddess, though, and Siv does not have as strong a standing as Freja in terms of fertility in general, in the Scandinavian area as a whole.
Classically speaking, a shiled maiden was a woman who fought as a warrior. In some cultures, she would have to be a maiden who had chosen to forgo married life for the life of a warrior, but in Siv's case, this does not apply. I think that applies more to Celtic shield maidens. They are mentioned with some frequency in the Scandinavian lore and sagas, and not necesserily as maidens who remain chaste and unmarried.
It is entirely possible that she could have been considered a fertility goddess in some areas. Different areas and different families allied themselves with different gods. The Svear, for example, were devoted to Oden and are said to be his descendants, whereas other families were allied with Frey or Ull. Frej and Freja are the main fertility god and goddess, though, and Siv does not have as strong a standing as Freja in terms of fertility in general, in the Scandinavian area as a whole.
Bates
Swamp Yankee
I've always thought the intertwining of the Aesir and Vanir families is very interesting. There's no lack of step-parents, step-siblings and so forth. Reminds me of my family 
Don't mind the lack of intelligent conversation on my part, I'm still sommat brainfried from flying to New England, spending a few 16-20 hour days helping my folks move into my future farmp I already warned them that I would fight my brother from the inheritance), and then flying back, getting home at 2AM and going to work the next day. I've got the pics in the bottom link of my sig, if a bit lacking on description.
Don't mind the lack of intelligent conversation on my part, I'm still sommat brainfried from flying to New England, spending a few 16-20 hour days helping my folks move into my future farm
p I already warned them that I would fight my brother from the inheritance), and then flying back, getting home at 2AM and going to work the next day. I've got the pics in the bottom link of my sig, if a bit lacking on description.
TheLastWithPaganBlood
Nordman
I thought the Frej was more the god of the Svear?
BTW Thats a really beautiful farm you have there Bates, I envy you. It looks so American (L) - in a good sense, that is. Soon enough I will be going home to Sweden for the Summer - oh how I miss country life.
BTW Thats a really beautiful farm you have there Bates, I envy you. It looks so American (L) - in a good sense, that is. Soon enough I will be going home to Sweden for the Summer - oh how I miss country life.
Bates
Swamp Yankee
Ya, that's kind of my feeling too, Overland Park isn't exactly country... admittedly it's not far, but it's not New England.
As for Frej/Frey/Ing, it seems that he was pretty universally popular with the common folk. You know, the ones who mostly stayed home, kept the farm going, and pretty much only fought when attacked. That's kinda his area, but those aren't generally the people who had stories told about them. At least not ones anyone thought to write down way back when. Or I've missed something, which is entirely possible.
I wish I could go raiding in the summer, it's when I always seem to be broke and bored anyway.
As for Frej/Frey/Ing, it seems that he was pretty universally popular with the common folk. You know, the ones who mostly stayed home, kept the farm going, and pretty much only fought when attacked. That's kinda his area, but those aren't generally the people who had stories told about them. At least not ones anyone thought to write down way back when. Or I've missed something, which is entirely possible.
I wish I could go raiding in the summer, it's when I always seem to be broke and bored anyway.
Tyra
Member
Hey! Nice farm!! Whose dogs and whose truck? (Sorry for being nosy, but when it comes to farming, my world revolves around dogs and trucks... One has to have a good dog and a good truck to run a good farm in thos area of the world.)
Pagan, I was thinking more in terms of the upper class (since, as Bates pointed out, we have some information about the upper class in the litterature as well as archaeology, but there is not much written about the common man, and because it was the upper class that actually bothered claiming descent from this deity or that for political reasons) and in terms of descent.
For clarification, I was also thinking of the Svear in terms of family (släkt) and not in terms of geography, as in Svealand vs Götaland, if you get what I mean (which, for those of you who are not Scandinavian, is something us Scandihoovians get confused sometimes, since we still use those terms when we name the three parts of the country, Götaland, Svealand and Norrland).
According to Heimskringla, when Oden first came to Scandinavia, he first settled outside Sigtuna. There, he was the chieftain and had twelve priests. The Svear consider themselves Oden's direct descendants, whereas the Ynglingar were Frej's direct descendants (Yngve being another name for Frej). Once Oden settled in Sigtuna, Frej settled outside Uppsala, where he was the chieftain and eventually built a great temple. Odin is an Aesir (As), whereas Frej is a Vanir (Van), so they are not of the same descent, but sometimes, two groups of people claim descent from the same god. For example, Heimskringla says that Njord married Skade, but since she would not live with Njord, she gave herself to Oden. They had many childen, one of whom was Saemig, from whom Jarl Haakon the Mighty reckoned his people: "This Sweden they called Manheims, but Sweden the Great they called Godheims.." So, here is an example of the father starting one line in one country, and the son starting one in another country (Håkan Jarl was Norwegian), but when you look closer, the son is a descendant of the father, so the bloodline is still the same. Since family is the #1 ally in any dispute, this is of great importance in political affairs. Even if most people today don't believe in the Aesir and the Vanir, the Old People did, and so this was important to them, so here, sacral and profane mixes in a very real way. It also goes to answer the origin of your question in the other thread - Why does everybody hate the Danes? The origin of the answer is: Wrong family decent. The Norwegians and the Swedes claimed descent from the same god, the Danes did not, which is why they were not allies. This is incredibly ingrained in our culture by now.
Pagan, I was thinking more in terms of the upper class (since, as Bates pointed out, we have some information about the upper class in the litterature as well as archaeology, but there is not much written about the common man, and because it was the upper class that actually bothered claiming descent from this deity or that for political reasons) and in terms of descent.
For clarification, I was also thinking of the Svear in terms of family (släkt) and not in terms of geography, as in Svealand vs Götaland, if you get what I mean (which, for those of you who are not Scandinavian, is something us Scandihoovians get confused sometimes, since we still use those terms when we name the three parts of the country, Götaland, Svealand and Norrland).
According to Heimskringla, when Oden first came to Scandinavia, he first settled outside Sigtuna. There, he was the chieftain and had twelve priests. The Svear consider themselves Oden's direct descendants, whereas the Ynglingar were Frej's direct descendants (Yngve being another name for Frej). Once Oden settled in Sigtuna, Frej settled outside Uppsala, where he was the chieftain and eventually built a great temple. Odin is an Aesir (As), whereas Frej is a Vanir (Van), so they are not of the same descent, but sometimes, two groups of people claim descent from the same god. For example, Heimskringla says that Njord married Skade, but since she would not live with Njord, she gave herself to Oden. They had many childen, one of whom was Saemig, from whom Jarl Haakon the Mighty reckoned his people: "This Sweden they called Manheims, but Sweden the Great they called Godheims.." So, here is an example of the father starting one line in one country, and the son starting one in another country (Håkan Jarl was Norwegian), but when you look closer, the son is a descendant of the father, so the bloodline is still the same. Since family is the #1 ally in any dispute, this is of great importance in political affairs. Even if most people today don't believe in the Aesir and the Vanir, the Old People did, and so this was important to them, so here, sacral and profane mixes in a very real way. It also goes to answer the origin of your question in the other thread - Why does everybody hate the Danes? The origin of the answer is: Wrong family decent. The Norwegians and the Swedes claimed descent from the same god, the Danes did not, which is why they were not allies. This is incredibly ingrained in our culture by now.
Bates
Swamp Yankee
The chocolate Lab is my little brother's, the Shephard/Rottweiler is mine, but she's getting old , and the little Jack Russell is my dad's. The truck you can see is my dad's, my mom's is hooked to the horse trailer but out of the picture. I'm hoping to move back out that way the next year or so, homesickness has finally gotten to me, and a couple days of good New England air wasn't enough.
Back onto something more akin to the topic... Do you know of anywhere in particular with good reading on the landvaettir? All I have found relates mostly to a specific Icelandic tale, but I'm nearly positive there's more then that. Spirits of the land is a pretty damn universal belief, outside of the Abrahamic religions.
, and the little Jack Russell is my dad's. The truck you can see is my dad's, my mom's is hooked to the horse trailer but out of the picture. I'm hoping to move back out that way the next year or so, homesickness has finally gotten to me, and a couple days of good New England air wasn't enough.Back onto something more akin to the topic... Do you know of anywhere in particular with good reading on the landvaettir? All I have found relates mostly to a specific Icelandic tale, but I'm nearly positive there's more then that. Spirits of the land is a pretty damn universal belief, outside of the Abrahamic religions.
Tyra
Member
Short answer: No.
Long answer: I know of a lot stories in Swedish, but not where to get them in print and not in English. I learned them from my dad who learned them from his and so on. I think this is part of why the focus of North American asatru is so different from Scandinavian Old Tradition - an awful lot of the lore is missing from the printed record, and what's not missing is not translated. I feel very strongly that we do not have to "recreate" or "revise" anything, because I don't see this as an incomplete faith, whereas many of my American counterparts feel that there are many questions that are unanswered and fill in the blanks with new stuff. Obviously this is so, if you do not have "the full deck of cards", which really is the result when such a large amount of the knowledge is completely oral and completely un-translated. This leads to a huge rift in the community, unfortunately. Luckily, there are people doing some outstanding work putting pen to paper, copying down the oral tradition, and at some point, it will be translated into English.
This website: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/nordic-faq/part2_NORDEN/section-3.html gives you a brief summary of the types and personalities of some of the types of alfar, wights and such that are supposed to be present along with the deities. The site does not re-tell any of the stories, but it'll give you an idea of who is supposed to be there and what their jobs are. Unfortunately there are only a few words in English to blanket all the different kinds of "vettir", and then, sometimes, English words have been borrowed and applied to Scandinavian beings. Then it gets completely confusing: The word "Tomten" is synonymous with, among other things, Santa, but there is a very famous Swedish litterary collection of folk-stories that is issued every year since 1907, called "Bland tomtar och troll". When that title has been translated, it for some reason becomes "Among pixies and trolls": I would never in a zillion years translate vettir with pixie, but some do...so, it's a bit confusing.
Let me do some digging, cuz I have a vague recollection of reading a thesis that involved landvättar, but I can't remember what language it was in. Now, if you'd have asked me about trolls, it would have been much easier...
Saint Birgitta, one of the Swedish saints, warned her contemporaries to beware and not honour "tomte-gods" (tomte is the word for Santa Claus today, but it is also the word for wight and some types of "vettir" and alfar, and the Scandinavian Santa is traditionally depicted wearing the clothing that the farm-vettir would have worn...pretty much, Norse garb with Rus pants for you Scadians).
Long answer: I know of a lot stories in Swedish, but not where to get them in print and not in English. I learned them from my dad who learned them from his and so on. I think this is part of why the focus of North American asatru is so different from Scandinavian Old Tradition - an awful lot of the lore is missing from the printed record, and what's not missing is not translated. I feel very strongly that we do not have to "recreate" or "revise" anything, because I don't see this as an incomplete faith, whereas many of my American counterparts feel that there are many questions that are unanswered and fill in the blanks with new stuff. Obviously this is so, if you do not have "the full deck of cards", which really is the result when such a large amount of the knowledge is completely oral and completely un-translated. This leads to a huge rift in the community, unfortunately. Luckily, there are people doing some outstanding work putting pen to paper, copying down the oral tradition, and at some point, it will be translated into English.
This website: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/nordic-faq/part2_NORDEN/section-3.html gives you a brief summary of the types and personalities of some of the types of alfar, wights and such that are supposed to be present along with the deities. The site does not re-tell any of the stories, but it'll give you an idea of who is supposed to be there and what their jobs are. Unfortunately there are only a few words in English to blanket all the different kinds of "vettir", and then, sometimes, English words have been borrowed and applied to Scandinavian beings. Then it gets completely confusing: The word "Tomten" is synonymous with, among other things, Santa, but there is a very famous Swedish litterary collection of folk-stories that is issued every year since 1907, called "Bland tomtar och troll". When that title has been translated, it for some reason becomes "Among pixies and trolls": I would never in a zillion years translate vettir with pixie, but some do...so, it's a bit confusing.
Let me do some digging, cuz I have a vague recollection of reading a thesis that involved landvättar, but I can't remember what language it was in. Now, if you'd have asked me about trolls, it would have been much easier...
Saint Birgitta, one of the Swedish saints, warned her contemporaries to beware and not honour "tomte-gods" (tomte is the word for Santa Claus today, but it is also the word for wight and some types of "vettir" and alfar, and the Scandinavian Santa is traditionally depicted wearing the clothing that the farm-vettir would have worn...pretty much, Norse garb with Rus pants for you Scadians).
