The Asas had a people as their neighbours called the Vans. Odin made war on the Vans, but they defended themselves bravely. When both parties had been victorious and suffered defeat, they grew weary of warring, made peace, and exchanged hostages. The Vans sent their best son Njord and his son Frey, and also Kvasir, as hostages to the Asas; and the latter gave in exchange Honer and Mimer. Odin gave Njord and Frey the dignity of priests. Frey’s sister, too, Freyja, was made a priestess. The Vans treated the hostages they had received with similar consideration, and created Honer a chief and judge. But they soon seemed to discover that Honer was a stupid fellow. They considered themselves cheated in the exchange, and, being angry on this account, they cut off the head, not of Honer, but of his wise brother Mimer, and sent it to Odin. He embalmed the head,

 

By the 7th century, the Svear and Goth populations dominated the areas of what is now Sweden, Denmark and Norway.  However, the term Norway came later.  Latin text from around 840 AD called the area Noruagia, and Old English text from around 880 AD used Norweg.  The oldest Nordic spelling was Nuruiak, written in runes on a Danish stone from around 980 AD.  The Old Norse (Old Scandinavian) spelling became Nordvegr, meaning "the country in the north" or "the way to the north", and the people were called Nordes.  All of the names were given by people south of Norway to signify a place far to the north.  The people of Norway now call themselves Nynorsk, a name decided by linguists in the 1880s.  The name Denmark originated from the people called the Vanir (or Vaner) who settled the region with the Aesir in the first century BC.  The Vanir were later called Danir (or Daner), and eventually Danes.  By the 9th century AD, the name Danmark (Dan-mörk, "border district of the Danes") was used for the first time.  In Old Norse, mörk meant a "forest," and forests commonly formed the boundaries of tribes.  In Modern Danish, mark means a "field," "plain," or "open country."   Hence, Denmark once meant  literally "forest of the Danes."  During this period, their language Dönsk tunga (Danish tongue) was spoken throughout northern Europe, and would later be called Old Norse or Old Scandinavian during the Viking period.  Old Norse was spoken by the people in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and parts of Germany.

Vanir

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Vanir is the name of one of the two groups of gods in Norse mythology, the other and more well known being the Æsir. The name is perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European root *wen-, "to strive, win", cognate to Venus (compare Vanadis) [citation needed], Wynn (Proto-Germanic *Wanizaz), archaic Greek Wanax. The name could also be from an alternate meaning of the same PIE root *wenos, "lust". [citation needed]

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Members

The three clearly identified Vanir include

  • Njord the father of the gods of Vanir and god of the sea
  • Freyr the god of fertility
  • Freyja a goddess of fertility, love, beauty, and war

These are identified only as the Vanir who lived among the Æsir, because of a hostage exchange described in the Poetic Edda; there may have been others.

Since Freyr is elsewhere listed as having residence Álfheimr (Elf-home), it is possible that the Elves were also considered Vanir.


 

[edit] Giantess Gerðr

The poem Skírnismál, from the Poetic Edda, tells the story of Freyr finding love. Freyr, sitting on Hliðskjálf spied the Jotun-giantess Gerðr, with whom he fell in love. He asked Skirnir, his companion, if he would go to Gerðr and express Freyr's love for her. Skirnir did so and after threatening Gerðr with curses, she agreed to marry Freyr. One of the objects traded in the bargain was Freyr's enchanted sword and because of this incident, Freyr will have no sword at Ragnarok.

[edit] Other possible Vanir

The identification as Vanir of Skaði, Lýtir, Gerðr and Óðr is debated. Óðr is mentioned in the Eddas very briefly as a husband of Freyja, but nothing more is actually known about him, although Óðr is often listed as one of Odin's alternate names.

There is a possible connection between Heimdall and the Vanir, noted by H.R. Ellis Davidson. [1]

The gods Njörd and Freyr appear in Snorri's Ynglinga saga as human Kings of Sweden. Their human descendants on the Swedish throne may be called Vanir, such as:

Since other charaters in the Ynglinga saga have the same names and traits as Norse gods, it possible that these also were the names of gods in other stories.

[edit] Characteristics

The Vanir are gods of fertility, the sea, and prosperity. While the Æsir were war gods, the Vanir were understood to be rich, the givers of riches, the patrons of fecundity, pleasure, and peace. Once the Vanir joined with the Æsir, the Vanir also are seen as the bringers of unity. [citation needed]

The Vanir have a deep knowledge of magical arts, so that they also know the future. It is said that it was Freyja who taught magic to the Æsir.

The Vanir practiced endogamy and even incest, which were both forbidden among the Æsir. As an example: brother and sister Freyr and Freyja were both children of Njörðr and his sister (possibly Nerthus) [citation needed]. Freyr and Freyja are also described as having been married [citation needed] when they arrived as hostages among the Æsir, although their children (if any) are not listed [citation needed], and as having been required to find other spouses among the Æsir and the giants [citation needed].

Early pagan Norse either chose between cults of the Vanir, Æsir, or both. Areas where fishing and boating were prominent tended to have greater Vanir cults. Later conflicts with Christians attempting to convert the pagan Norse were especially contentious due to cults favoring the Vanir. [citation needed]

[edit] Location

The Vanir live in Vanaheimr, also called Vanaland; Snorri Sturluson calls their land Tanakvísl or Vanakvísl (Tanakvísl eða Vanakvísl) etymologizing Vanir as the "Don-people". Vanaheimr, along with Asgard, is the home of the gods in the tree of life Yggdrasil.

[edit] Vanir and Elves

The Eddas possibly identify the Vanir with the elves (Álfar), frequently interchanging "Æsir and Vanir" and "Æsir and Álfar" to mean "all the gods". As both the Vanir and the Álfar appear to be fertility powers, the interchangeability suggest that the Vanir may have been synonymous with the elves.

It may also be that the two names reflected a difference in status where the elves were minor fertility gods whereas the Vanir were major fertility gods. Freyr would thus be a natural Vanir ruler of the elves in Álfheim.

Contemporary reconstruction of Norse religion focusing on the Vanir is sometimes called Vanatrú.

[edit] Cult of the Vanir

The Vanir are associated with bringing an understanding of celestial bodies to the Norse. Njord, god of the sea, brought understanding of the stars, sun, and moon which is evident in carvings, cave paintings, and runes throughout Scandinavia. Although debatable, this understanding of celestial bodies was what allowed boaters, and later Vikings, the ability to cross vast stretches of ocean, though it was not the primary source of navigation. It is also understood that the Vanir were responsible for sexual practices and healing [citation needed].

[edit] Links with other Pantheons

The war between the Vanir and the Æsir, together with their status as gods of agiculture and fertility, have led some scholars to identify them as an earlier pantheon supplanted by the Æsir. This mirrors theories about the Titans and the Greek and Roman gods, similarly primal gods replaced by newcomers who resided in the sky (or in the latter case Mount Olympus); earth-gods and fertility worship being replaced by sky-gods and martial worship.

Another comparison may be made between the Irish — and other Indo-Europeans — invading, and subsequently conquering Milesians, and their fertility goddesses, and gods, the Tuatha De Danaan ("People of the Goddess Danu/Dana; the Tuatha had already done the same to the even older Fir Bolg.

For a possible third connection, see e. g. under Hausos.

[edit] Vanir, their spouses, and their guests

[edit] References

  1. ^ Davidson, H.R. Ellis [1964] (1990). "The Enigmatic Gods", Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. Penguin, p. 175. ISBN 0-14-013627-4. “It is true that this connexion with the Vanir is implied rather than clearly obvious, but it is implied at several different points.” 

[edit] External links

  • Viktor Rydberg's "Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland" e-book
  • W. Wagner's "Asgard and the Home of the Gods" e-book
  • "Myths of Northern Lands" e-book by H.A. Guerber
  • Peter Andreas Munch's "Norse Mythology: Legends of Gods and Heroes" e-book
  • Vanaheimr

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

     
    For the imprint see Aardvark-Vanaheim. For the Norwegian metal band see Vanaheim (band).

    The name comes from the home of the Vanir, one of the two clans of gods besides the Æsir. The name appears in the Ynglinga saga by Snorri Sturluson. In that work, the gods appear as euhemerized heroes of the past, and the name of their realm is linked to the earthly river Don. It is therefore disputable to count Vanaheimr as one of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology.

    Snorri introduces Vanaheimr thus:

    Thus it is known that a great sea goes in at Nörvasund [ Straits of Gibraltar ], and up to the land of Jerusalem. From the same sea a long sea-bight stretches towards the north-east, and is called the Black Sea, and divides the three parts of the earth; of which the eastern part is called Asia, and the western is called by some Europa, by some Enea. Northward of the Black Sea lies Svíþjóð the Great, or the Cold. [...] On the south side of the mountains which lie outside of all inhabited lands runs a river through Svíþjóð, which is properly called by the name of Tanais [ Don River, Russia ], but was formerly called Tanakvísl, or Vanakvísl, and which falls into the Black Sea. The country of the people on the Vanakvísl was called Vanaland, or Vanaheimr; and the river separates the three parts of the world, of which the eastermost part is called Asia, and the westermost Europe. [1] [2]

    See also: Scythia

    http://www.vaidilute.com/books/norroena/rydberg-02.html

     

    The Aryans knew the art of brewing mead from honey. That they also understood the art of drinking it even to excess may be taken for granted. This drink was dear to the hearts of the ancient Aryans, and its name has been faithfully preserved both by the tribes that settled near the Ganges, and by those who emigrated to Great Britain. The Brahmin by the Ganges still knows this beverage as madhu, the Welchman has known it as medu, the Lithuanian as medus; and when the Greek Aryans came to Southern Europe and became acquainted with wine, they gave it the name of mead (methu).

    It is not probable that the European Aryans knew bronze or iron, or, if they did know any of the metals, had any large quantity or made any daily use of them, so long as they linguistically formed one homogeneous body, and lived in that part of Europe which we here call the Aryan domain. The only common name for metal is that which we find in the Latin aes (copper), in the Gothic aiz, and in the Sanskrit áyas. As is known, the Latin aes, like the Gothic aiz, means both copper and bronze. That the word originally meant copper, and afterwards came to signify bronze, which is an alloy of copper and

     

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    tin, seems to be a matter of course, and that it was applied only to copper and not to bronze among the ancient Aryans seems clear not only because a common name for tin is wanting, but also for the far better and remarkable reason particularly pointed out by Schrader, that all the Aryan European languages, even those which are nearest akin to each other and are each other’s neighbours, lack a common word for the tools of a smith and the inventory of a forge, and also for the various kinds of weapons of defence and attack. Most of all does it astonish us, that in respect to weapons the dissimilarity of names is so complete in the Greek and Roman tongues. Despite this fact, the ancient Aryans have certainly used various kinds of weapons — the club, the hammer, the axe, the knife, the spear, and the crossbow. All these weapons are of such a character that they could be made of stone, wood, and horn. Things more easily change names when the older materials of which they were made give place to new, hitherto unknown materials. It is, therefore, probable that the European Aryans were in the stone age, and at best were acquainted with copper before and during the period when their language was divided into several dialects.

     

     

    The more accessible sources of the traditions in regard to Odin’s immigration to Scandinavia are found in the Icelandic works, Heimskringla and the Prose Edda. Both sources are from the same time, that is, the thirteenth century, and are separated by more than two hundred years from the heathen age in Iceland.

    We will first consider Heimskringla’s story. A river, by name Tanakvisl, or Vanakvisl, empties into the Black Sea. This river separates Asia from Europe. East of Tanakvisl, that is to say, then in Asia, is a country formerly called Asaland or Asaheim, and the chief citadel or town in that country was called Asgard. It was a great

     

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    city of sacrifices, and there dwelt a chief who was known by the name Odin. Under him ruled twelve men who were high-priests and judges. Odin was a great chieftain and conqueror, and so victorious was he, that his men believed that victory was wholly inseparable from him. If he laid his blessing hand on anybody’s head, success was sure to attend him. Even if he was absent, if called upon in distress or danger, his very name seemed to give comfort. He frequently went far away, and often remained absent half-a-year at a time. His kingdom was then ruled by his brothers Vile and Ve. Once he was absent so long that the Asas believed that he would never return. Then his brothers married his wife Frigg. Finally he returned, however, and took Frigg back again.

    The Asas had a people as their neighbours called the Vans. Odin made war on the Vans, but they defended themselves bravely. When both parties had been victorious and suffered defeat, they grew weary of warring, made peace, and exchanged hostages. The Vans sent their best son Njord and his son Frey, and also Kvasir, as hostages to the Asas; and the latter gave in exchange Honer and Mimer. Odin gave Njord and Frey the dignity of priests. Frey’s sister, too, Freyja, was made a priestess. The Vans treated the hostages they had received with similar consideration, and created Honer a chief and judge. But they soon seemed to discover that Honer was a stupid fellow. They considered themselves cheated in the exchange, and, being angry on this account, they cut off the head, not of Honer, but of his wise brother Mimer, and sent it to Odin. He embalmed the head,

     

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    sang magic songs over it, so that it could talk to him and tell him many strange things.

    Asaland, where Odin ruled, is separated by a great mountain range from Tyrkland, by which Heimskringla means Asia Minor, of which the celebrated Troy was supposed to have been the capital. In Tyrkland, Odin also had great possessions. But at that time the Romans invaded and subjugated all lands, and many rulers fled on that account from their kingdoms. And Odin, being wise and versed in the magic art, and knowing, therefore, that his descendants were to people the northern part of the world, he left his kingdom to his brothers Vile and Ve, and migrated with many followers to Gardariki, Russia. Njord, Frey, and Freyja, and the other priests who had ruled under him in Asgard, accompanied him, and sons of his were also with him. From Gardariki he proceeded to Saxland, conquered vast countries, and made his sons rulers over them. From Saxland he went to Funen, and settled there. Seeland did not then exist. Odin sent the maid Gefjun north across the water to investigate what country was situated there. At that time ruled in Svithiod a chief by name Gylfe. He gave Gefjun a ploughland,* and, by the help of four giants changed into oxen, Gefjun cut out with the plough, and dragged into the sea near Funen that island which is now called Seeland. Where the land was ploughed away there is now a lake called Logrin. Skjold, Odin’s son, got this land, and married Gefjun. And when Gefjun informed Odin that Gylfe possessed a good land, Odin went thither,


     

    * As much land as can be ploughed in a day.

     

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    and Gylfe, being unable to make resistance, though he too was a wise man skilled in witchcraft and sorcery, a peaceful compact was made, according to which Odin acquired a vast territory around Logrin; and in Sigtuna he established a great temple, where sacrifices henceforth were offered according to the custom of the Asas. To his priests he gave dwellings — Noatun to Njord, Upsala to Frey, Himminbjorg to Heimdal, Thrudvang to Thor, Breidablik to Balder, &c. Many new sports came to the North with Odin, and he and the Asas taught them to the people. Among other things, he taught them poetry and runes. Odin himself always talked in measured rhymes. Besides, he was a most excellent sorcerer. He could change shape, make his foes in a conflict blind and deaf; he was a wizard, and could wake the dead. He owned the ship Skidbladner, which could be folded as a napkin. He had two ravens, which he had taught to speak, and they brought him tidings from all lands. He knew where all treasures were hid in the earth, and could call them forth with the aid of magic songs. Among the customs he introduced in the North were cremation of the dead, the raising of mounds in memory of great men, the erection of bauta-stones in commemoration of others; and he introduced the three great sacrificial feasts — for a good year, for good crops, and for victory. Odin died in Svithiod. When he perceived the approach of death, he suffered himself to be marked with the point of a spear, and declared that he was going to Godheim to visit his friends and receive all fallen in battle. This the Swedes believed. They have since worshipped him in the belief

     

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    that he had an eternal life in the ancient Asgard, and they thought he revealed himself to them before great battles took place. On Svea’s throne he was followed by Njord, the progenitor of the race of Ynglings. Thus Heimskringla.

    We now pass to the Younger Edda,* which in its Foreword gives us in the style of that time a general survey of history and religion.

    First, it gives from the Bible the story of creation and the deluge. Then a long story is told of the building of the tower of Babel. The descendants of Noah’s son, Ham, warred against and conquered the sons of Sem, and tried in their arrogance to build a tower which should aspire to heaven itself. The chief manager in this enterprise was Zoroaster, and seventy-two master-masons and joiners served under him. But God confounded the tongues of these arrogant people so that each one of the seventy-two masters with those under him got their own language, which the others could not understand, and then each went his own way, and in this manner arose the seventy-two different languages in the world. Before that time only one language was spoken, and that was Hebrew. Where they tried to build the tower a city was founded and called Babylon. There Zoroaster became a king and ruled over many Assyrian nations, among which he introduced idolatry, and which worshiped him as Baal. The tribes that departed with his master-workmen also fell into idolatry, excepting the


     

    * A translation of the Younger or Prose Edda was edited by R. B. Anderson and published by S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago, in 1881.

     

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    one tribe which kept the Hebrew language. It preserved also the original and pure faith. Thus, while Babylon became one of the chief altars of heathen worship, the island Crete became another. There was born a man, by name Saturnus, who became for the Cretans and Macedonians what Zoroaster was for the Assyrians. Saturnus’ knowledge and skill in magic, and his art of producing gold from red-hot iron, secured him the power of a prince on Crete; and as he, moreover, had control over all invisible forces, the Cretans and Macedonians believed that he was a god, and he encouraged them in this faith. He had three sons — Jupiter, Neptunus, and Plutus. Of these, Jupiter resembled his father in skill and magic, and he was a great warrior who conquered many peoples. When Saturnus divided his kingdom among his sons, a feud arose. Plutus got as his share hell, and as this was the least desirable part he also received the dog named Cerberus. Jupiter, who received heaven, was not satisfied with this, but wanted the earth too. He made war against his father, who had to seek refuge in Italy, where he, out of fear of Jupiter, changed his name and called himself Njord, and where he became a useful king, teaching the inhabitants, who lived on nuts and roots, to plough and plant vineyards.

    Jupiter had many sons. From one of them, Dardanus, descended in the fifth generation Priamus of Troy. Priamus’ son was Hektor, who in stature and strength was the foremost man in the world. From the Trojans the Romans are descended; and when Rome had grown to be a great power it adopted many laws and customs which

     

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    had prevailed among the Trojans before them. Troy was situated in Tyrkland, near the centre of the earth. Under Priamus, the chief ruler, there were twelve tributary kings, and they spoke twelve languages. These twelve tributary kings were exceedingly wise men; they received the honour of gods, and from them all European chiefs are descended. One of these twelve was called Munon or Mennon. He was married to a daughter of Priamus, and had with her the son Tror, “whom we call Thor.” He was a very handsome man, his hair shone fairer than gold, and at the age of twelve he was full-grown, and so strong that he could lift twelve bear-skins at the same time. He slew his foster-father and foster-mother, took possession of his foster-father’s kingdom Thracia, “which we call Thrudheim,” and thenceforward he roamed about the world, conquering berserks, giants, the greatest dragon, and other prodigies. In the North he met a prophetess by name Sibil (Sibylla), “whom we call Sif,” and her he married. In the twentieth generation from this Thor, Vodin descended, “whom we call Odin,” a very wise and well-informed man, who married Frigida, “whom we call Frigg.”

    At that time the Roman general Pompey was making wars in the East, and also threatened the empire of Odin. Meanwhile Odin and his wife had learned through prophetic inspiration that a glorious future awaited them in the northern part of the world. He therefore emigrated from Tyrkland, and took with him many people, old and young, men and women, and costly treasures. Wherever they came they appeared to the inhabitants

     

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    more like gods than men. And they did not stop before they came as far north as Saxland. There Odin remained a long time. One of his sons, Veggdegg, he appointed king of Saxland. Another son, Beldegg, “whom we call Balder,” he made king in Westphalia. A third son, Sigge, became king in Frankland. Then Odin proceeded farther to the north and came to Reidgothaland, which is now called Jutland, and there took possession of as much as he wanted. There he appointed his son Skjold as king; then he came to Svithiod.

    Here ruled king Gylfe. When he heard of the expedition of Odin and his Asiatics he went to meet them, and offered Odin as much land and as much power in his kingdom as he might desire. One reason why people everywhere gave Odin so hearty a welcome and offered him land and power was that wherever Odin and his men tarried on their journey the people got good harvests and abundant crops, and therefore they believed that Odin and his men controlled the weather amid the growing grain. Odin went with Gylfe up to the lake “Logrin” and saw that the land was good; and there he chose as his citadel the place which is called Sigtuna, founding there the same institutions as had existed in Troy, and to which the Turks were accustomed. Then he organised a council of twelve men, who were to make laws and settle disputes. From Svithiod Odin went to Norway, and there made his son Sæming king. But the ruling of Svithiod he had left to his son Yngve, from whom the race of Ynglings are descended. The Asas and their sons married the women of the land of which they had taken

     

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    possession, and their descendants, who preserved the language spoken in Troy, multiplied so fast that the Trojan language displaced the old tongue and became the speech of Svithiod, Norway, Denmark, and Saxland, and thereafter also of England.

    The Prose Edda’s first part, Gylfaginning, consists of a collection of mythological tales told to the reader in the form of a conversation between the above-named king of Sweden, Gylfe, and the Asas. Before the Asas had started on their journey to the North, it is here said, Gylfe had learned that they were a wise and knowing people who had success in all their undertakings. And believing that this was a result either of the nature of these people, or of their peculiar kind of worship, he resolved to investigate the matter secretly, and therefore betook himself in the guise of an old man to Asgard. But the foreknowing Asas knew in advance that he was coming, and resolved to receive him with all sorts of sorcery, which might give him a high opinion of them. He finally came to a citadel, the roof of which was thatched with golden shields, and the hall of which was so large that he scarcely could see the whole of it. At the entrance stood a man playing with sharp tools, which he threw up in the air and caught again with his hands, and seven axes were in the air at the same time. This man asked the traveller his name. The latter answered that he was named Gangleri, that he had made a long journey over rough roads, and asked for lodgings for the night. He also asked whose the citadel was. The juggler answered that it belonged to their king, and conducted Gylfe into the hall,

     

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    where many people were assembled. Some sat drinking, others amused themselves at games, and still others were practising with weapons. There were three high-seats in the hall, one above the other, and in each high-seat sat a man. In the lowest sat the king; and the juggler informed Gylfe that the king’s name was Har; that the one who sat next above him was named Jafnhar; and that the one who sat on the highest throne was named Thride (thridi). Har asked the stranger what his errand was, and invited him to eat and drink. Gylfe answered that he first wished to know whether there was any wise man in the hall. Har replied that the stranger should not leave the hall whole unless he was victorious in a contest in wisdom. Gylfe now begins his questions, which all concern the worship of the Asas, and the three men in the high-seats give him answers. Already in the first answer it appears that the Asgard to which Gylfe thinks he has come is, in the opinion of the author, a younger Asgard, and presumably the same as the author of Heimskringla places beyond the river Tanakvisl, but there had existed an older Asgard identical with Troy in Tyrkland, where, according to Heimskringla, Odin had extensive possessions at the time when the Romans began their invasions in the East. When Gylfe with his questions had learned the most important facts in regard to the religion of Asgard, and had at length been instructed concerning the destruction and regeneration of the world, he perceived a mighty rumbling and quaking, and when he looked about him the citadel and hall had disappeared, and he stood beneath the open sky. He returned to Svithiod

     

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    and related all that he had seen and heard among the Asas; but when he had gone they counselled together, and they agreed to call themselves by those names which they used in relating their stories to Gylfe. These sagas, remarks Gylfaginning, were in reality none but historical events transformed into traditions about divinities. They described events which had occurred in the older Asgard — that is to say, Troy. The basis of the stories told to Gylfe about Thor were the achievements of Hektor in Troy, and the Loke of whom Gylfe had heard was, in fact, none other than Ulixes (Ulysses), who was the foe of the Trojans, and consequently was represented as the foe of the gods.

    Gylfaginning is followed by another part of the Prose Edda called Bragaroedur (Brage’s Talk), which is presented in a similar form. On Lessö, so it is said, dwelt formerly a man by name Ægir. He, like Gylfe, had heard reports concerning the wisdom of the Asas, and resolved to visit them. He, like Gylfe, comes to a place where the Asas receive him with all sorts of magic arts, and conduct him into a hall which is lighted up in the evening with shining swords. There he is invited to take his seat by the side of Brage, and there were twelve high-seats in which sat men who were called Thor, Njord, Frey, &c., and women who were called Frigg, Freyja, Nanna, &c. The hall was splendidly decorated with shields. The mead passed round was exquisite, and the talkative Brage instructed the guest in the traditions concerning the Asas’ art of poetry. A postscript to the treatise warns young skalds not to place confidence in the stories told to Gylfe

     

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    and Ægir. The author of the postscript says they have value only as a key to the many metaphors which occur in the poems of the great skalds, but upon the whole they are deceptions invented by the Asas or Asiamen to make people believe that they were gods. Still, the author thinks these falsifications have an historical kernel. They are, he thinks, based on what happened in the ancient Asgard, that is, Troy. Thus, for instance, Ragnarok is originally nothing else than the siege of Troy; Thor is, as stated, Hektor; the Midgard-serpent is one of the heroes slain by Hektor; the Fenris-wolf is Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who slew Priam (Odin); and Vidar, who survives Ragnarok, is Æneas.

    8.

    THE TROY SAGA IN HEIMSKRINGLA AND THE PROSE EDDA (continued).

     

    The sources of the traditions concerning the Asiatic immigration to the North belong to the Icelandic literature, and to it alone. Saxo’s Historia Danica, the first books of which were written toward the close of the twelfth century, presents on this topic its own peculiar view, which will be discussed later. The Icelandic accounts disagree only in unimportant details; the fundamental view is the same, and they have flown from the same fountain vein. Their contents may be summed up thus:

    Among the tribes who after the Babylonian confusion of tongues emigrated to various countries, there was a

     

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    body of people who settled and introduced their language in Asia Minor, which in the sagas is called Tyrkland; in Greece, which in the sagas is called Macedonia; and in Crete. In Tyrkland they founded the great city which was called Troy. This city was attacked by the Greeks during the reign of the Trojan king Priam. Priam descended from Jupiter and the latter’s father Saturnus, and accordingly belonged to a race which the idolaters looked upon as divine. Troy was a very large city; twelve languages were spoken there, and Priam had twelve tributary kings under him. But however powerful the Trojans were, and however bravely they defended themselves under the leadership of the son of Priam’s daughter, that valiant hero Thor, still they were defeated. Troy was captured and burned by the Greeks, and Priam himself was slain. Of the surviving Trojans two parties emigrated in different directions. They seem in advance to have been well informed in regard to the quality of foreign lands; for Thor, the son of Priam’s daughter, had made extensive expeditions in which he had fought giants and monsters. On his journeys he had even visited the North, and there he had met Sibil, the celebrated prophetess, and married her. One of the parties of Trojan emigrants embarked under the leadership of Æneas for Italy, and founded Rome. The other party, accompanied by Thor’s son, Loridi, went to Asialand, which is separated from Tyrkland by a mountain ridge, and from Europe by the river Tanais or Tanakvisl. There they founded a new city called Asgard, and there preserved the old customs and usages brought from Troy. Accordingly,

     

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    there was organised in Asgard, as in Troy, a council of twelve men, who were high priests and judges. Many centuries passed without any political contact between the new Trojan settlements in Rome and Asgard, though both well remembered their Trojan origin, and the Romans formed many of their institutions after the model of the old fatherland. Meanwhile, Rome had grown to be one of the mightiest empires in the world, and began at length to send armies into Tyrkland. At that time there ruled in Asgard an exceedingly wise, prophetic king, Odin, who was skilled in the magic arts, and who was descended in the twentieth generation from the above-mentioned Thor. Odin had waged many successful wars. The severest of these wars was the one with a neighbouring people, the Vans; but this had been ended with compromise and peace. In Tyrkland, the old mother country, Odin had great possessions, which fell into the hands of the Romans. This circumstance strengthened him in his resolution to emigrate to the north of Europe. The prophetic vision with which he was endowed had told him that his descendants would long flourish there. So he set out with his many sons, and was accompanied by the twelve priests and by many people, but not by all the inhabitants of the Asia country and of Asgard. A part of the people remained at home; and among them Odin’s brothers Vile and Ve. The expedition proceeded through Gardariki to Saxland; then across the Danish islands to Svithiod and Norway. Everywhere this great multitude of migrators was well received by the inhabitants. Odin’s superior wisdom and his marvellous skill in sorcery,

     

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    together with the fact that his progress was everywhere attended by abundant harvests, caused the peoples to look upon him as a god, and to place their thrones at his disposal. He accordingly appointed his sons as kings in Saxland, Denmark, Svithiod, and Norway. Gylfe, the king of Svithiod, submitted to his superiority and gave him a splendid country around Lake Mäler to rule over. There Odin built Sigtuna, the institutions of which were an imitation of those in Asgard and Troy. Poetry and many other arts came with Odin to the Teutonic lands, and so, too, the Trojan tongue. Like his ancestors, Saturnus and Jupiter, he was able to secure divine worship, which was extended even to his twelve priests. The religious traditions which he scattered among the people, and which were believed until the introduction of Christianity, were misrepresentations spun around the memories of Troy’s historical fate and its destruction, and around the events of Asgard.

    9.

    SAXO’S RELATION OF THE STORY OF TROY.

     

    Such is, in the main, the story which was current in Iceland in the thirteenth century, and which found its way to Scandinavia through the Prose Edda and Heimskringla, concerning the immigration of Odin and the Asas. Somewhat older than these works is Historia Danica, by the Danish chronicler Saxo. Sturluson, the author of Heimskringla, was a lad of eight years when Saxo began to write his history, and he (Sturluson) had

     

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    certainly not begun to write history when Saxo had completed the first nine books of his work, which are based on the still-existing songs and traditions found in Denmark, and of heathen origin. Saxo writes as if he were unacquainted with Icelandic theories concerning an Asiatic immigration to the North, and he has not a word to say about Odin’s reigning as king or chief anywhere in Scandinavia. This is the more remarkable, since he holds the same view as the Icelanders and the chroniclers of the Middle Ages in general in regard to the belief that the heathen myths were records of historical events, and that the heathen gods were historical persons, men changed into divinities; and our astonishment increases when we consider that he, in the heathen songs and traditions on which he based the first part of his work, frequently finds Odin’s name, and consequently could not avoid presenting him in Danish history as an important character. In Saxo, as in the Icelandic works, Odin is a human being, and at the same time a sorcerer of the greatest power. Saxo and the Icelanders also agree that Odin came from the East. The only difference is that while the Icelandic hypothesis makes him rule in Asgard, Saxo locates his residence in Byzantium, on the Bosphorus; but this is not far from the ancient Troy, where the Prose Edda locates his ancestors. From Byzantium, according to Saxo, the fame of his magic arts and of the miracles he performed reached even to the north of Europe. On account of these miracles he was worshipped as a god by the peoples, and to pay him honour the kings of the North once sent to Byzantium a golden image, to which

     

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    Odin by magic arts imparted the power of speech. It is the myth about Mimer’s head which Saxo here relates. But the kings of the North knew him not only by report; they were also personally acquainted with him. He visited Upsala, a place which “pleased him much.” Saxo, like the Heimskringla, relates that Odin was absent from his capital for a long time; and when we examine his statements on this point, we find that Saxo is here telling in his way the myth concerning the war which the Vans carried on successfully against the Asas, and concerning Odin’s expulsion from the mythic Asgard, situated in heaven (Hist. Dan., pp. 42-44; vid. No. 36). Saxo also tells that Odin’s son, Balder, was chosen king by the Danes “on account of his personal merits and his respect-commanding qualities.” But Odin himself has never, according to Saxo, had land or authority in the North, though he was there worshipped as a god, and, as already stated, Saxo is entirely silent in regard to immigration of an Asiatic people to Scandinavia under the leadership of Odin.

    A comparison between him and the Icelanders will show at once that, although both parties are Euhemerists, and make Odin a man changed into a god, Saxo confines himself more faithfully to the popular myths, and seeks as far as possible to turn them into history; while the Icelanders, on the other hand, begin with the learned theory in regard to the original kinship of the northern races with the Trojans and Romans, and around this theory as a nucleus they weave about the same myths told as history as Saxo tells.

     

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    10.

    THE OLDER PERIODS OF THE TROY SAGA.

    How did the belief that Troy was the original home of the Teutons arise? Does it rest on native traditions? Has it been inspired by sagas and traditions current among the Teutons themselves, and containing as kernel “a faint reminiscence of an immigration from Asia” or is it a thought entirely foreign to the heathen Teutonic world, introduced in Christian times by Latin scholars? These questions shall now be considered.

    Already in the seventh century — that is to say, more than five hundred years before Heimskringla and the Prose Edda were written — a Teutonic people were told by a chronicler that they were of the same blood as the Romans, that they had like the Romans emigrated from Troy, and that they had the same share as the Romans in the glorious deeds of the Trojan heroes. This people were the Franks. Their oldest chronicler, Gregorius, bishop of Tours, who, about one hundred years before that time — that is to say, in the sixth century — wrote their history in ten books, does not say a word about it. He, too, desires to give an account of the original home of the Franks (Hist. Franc., ii. 9), and locates it quite a distance from the regions around the lower Rhine, where they first appear in the light of history; but still not farther away than to Pannonia. Of the coming of the Franks from Troy neither Gregorius knows anything nor the older authors, Sulpicius Alexander and others, whose works he studied to find information in regard to the early

     

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    history of the Franks. But in the middle of the following century, about 650, an unknown author, who for reasons unknown is called Fredegar, wrote a chronicle, which is in part a reproduction of Gregorius’ historical work, but also contains various other things in regard to the early history of the Franks, and among these the statement that they emigrated from Troy. He even gives us the sources from which he got this information. His sources are, according to his own statement, not Frankish, not popular songs or traditions, but two Latin authors — the Church father Hieronymus and the poet Virgil. If we, then, go to these sources in order to compare Fredegar’s statement with his authority, we find that Hieronymus once names the Franks in passing, but never refers to their origin from Troy, and that Virgil does not even mention Franks. Nevertheless, the reference to Virgil is the key to the riddle, as we shall show below. What Fredegar tells about the emigration of the Franks is this: A Frankish king, by name Priam, ruled in Troy at the time when this city was conquered by the cunning of Ulysses. Then the Franks emigrated, and were afterwards ruled by a king named Friga. Under his reign a dispute arose between them, and they divided themselves into two parties, one of which settled in Macedonia, while the other, called after Friga’s name Frigians (Phrygians), migrated through Asia and settled there. There they were again divided, and one part of them migrated under king Francio into Europe, travelled across this continent, and settled, with their women and children, near the Rhine, where they began building a city which they called Troy,

     

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    and intended to organise in the manner of the old Troy, but the city was not completed. The other group chose a king by name Turchot, and were called after him Turks. But those who settled on the Rhine called themselves Franks after their king Francio, and later chose a king named Theudemer, who was descended from Priam, Friga, and Francio. Thus Fredegar’s chronicle.

    About seventy years later another Frankish chronicle saw the light of day — the Gesta regum Francorum. In it we learn more of the emigration of the Franks from Troy. Gesta regum Francorum (i) tells the following story: In Asia lies the city of the Trojans called Ilium, where king Æneas formerly ruled. The Trojans were a strong and brave people, who waged war against all their neighbours. But then the kings of the Greeks united and brought a large army against Æneas, king of the Trojans. There were great battles and much bloodshed, and the greater part of the Trojans fell. Æneas fled with those surviving into the city of Ilium, which the Greeks besieged and conquered after ten years. The Trojans who escaped divided themselves into two parties. The one under king Æneas went to Italy, where he hoped to receive auxiliary troops. Other distinguished Trojans became the leaders of the other party, which numbered 12,000 men. They embarked in ships and came to the banks of the river Tanais. They sailed farther and came within the borders of Pannonia, near the Mœotian marshes (navigantes pervenerunt intra terminos Pannoniarum juxta Mœotidas paludes), where they founded a city, which they called Sicambria, and here they remained

     

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    many years and became a mighty people. Then came a time when the Roman emperor Valentinianus got into war with that wicked people called Alamanni (also Alani). He led a great army against them. The Alamanni were defeated, and fled to the Mœotian marshes. Then said the emperor, “If anyone dares to enter those marshes and drive away this wicked people, I shall for ten years make him free from all burdens.” When the Trojans heard this they went, accompanied by a Roman army, into the marshes, attacked the Alamanni, and hewed them down with their swords. Then the Trojans received from the emperor Valentinianus the name Franks, which, the chronicle adds, in the Attic tongue means the savage (feri), “for the Trojans had a defiant and indomitable character.”

    For ten years afterwards the Trojans or Franks lived undisturbed by Roman tax-collectors; but after that the Roman emperor demanded that they should pay tribute. This they refused, and slew the tax-collectors sent to them. Then the emperor collected a large army under the command of Aristarcus, and strengthened it with auxiliary forces from many lands, and attacked the Franks, who were defeated by the superior force, lost their leader Priam, and had to take flight. They now proceeded under their leaders Markomir, Priam’s son, and Sunno, son of Antenor, away from Sicambria through Germany to the Rhine, and located there. Thus this chronicle.

    About fifty years after its appearance — that is, in the time of Charlemagne, and, to be more accurate, about the

     

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    year 787 — the well-known Longobardian historian Paulus Diaconus wrote a history of the bishops of Metz. Among these bishops was the Frank Arnulf, from whom Charlemagne was descended in the fifth generation. Arnulf had two sons, one of whom was named Ansgisel, in a contracted form Ansgis. When Paulus speaks of this he remarks that it is thought that the name Ansgis comes from the father of Æneas, Anchises, who went from Troy to Italy; and he adds that according to evidence of older date the Franks were believed to be descendants of the Trojans. These evidences of older date we have considered above — Fredegar’s Chronicle and Gesta regum Francorum. Meanwhile this shows that the belief that the Franks were of Trojan descent kept spreading with the lapse of time. It hardly needs to be added that there is no good foundation for the derivation of Ansgisel or Ansgis from Anchises. Ansgisel is a genuine Teutonic name. (See No. 123 concerning Ansgisel, the emigration chief of the Teutonic myth.)

    We now pass to the second half of the tenth century, and there we find the Saxon chronicler Widukind. When he is to tell the story of the origin of the Saxon people, he presents two conflicting accounts. The one is from a Saxon source, from old native traditions, which we shall discuss later; the other is from a scholastic source, and claims that the Saxons are of Macedonian descent. According to this latter account they were a remnant of the Macedonian army of Alexander the Great, which, as Widukind had learned, after Alexander’s early death, had spread over the whole earth. The Macedonians were

     

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    at that time regarded as Hellenicised Trojans. In this connection I call the reader’s attention to Fredegar’s Chronicle referred to above, which tells that the Trojans, in the time of king Friga, disagreed among themselves, and that a part of them emigrated and settled in Macedonia. In this manner the Saxons, like the Franks, could claim a Trojan descent; and as England to a great extent was peopled by Saxon conquerors, the same honour was of course claimed by her people. In evidence of this, and to show that it was believed in England during the centuries immediately following Widukind’s time, that the Saxons and Angles were of Trojan blood, I will simply refer here to a pseudo-Sibylline manuscript found in Oxford and written in very poor Latin. It was examined by the French scholar Alexandre (Excursus ad Sibyllina, p. 298), and in it Britain is said to be an island inhabited by the survivors of the Trojans (insulam reliquiis Trojanorum inhabitatam). In another British pseudo-Sibylline document it is stated that the Sibylla was a daughter of king Priam of Troy; and an effort has been made to add weight and dignity to this document by incorporating it with the works of the well-known Church historian Beda, and thus date it at the beginning of the eighth century, but the manuscript itself is a compilation from the time of Frederick Barbarossa (Excurs ad Sib., p. 289). Other pseudo-Sibylline documents in Latin give accounts of a Sibylla who lived and prophesied in Troy. I make special mention of this fact, for the reason that in the Foreword of the Prose Edda it is similarly stated that Thor, the son of Priam’s daughter, was married to Sibil (Sibylla).

     

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    Thus when Franks and Saxons had been made into Trojans — the former into full-blooded Trojans and the latter into Hellenicised Trojans — it could not take long before their northern kinsmen received the same descent as a heritage. In the very nature of things the beginning must be made by those Northmen who became the conquerors and settlers of Normandy in the midst of “Trojan” Franks. About a hundred years after their settlement there they produced a chronicler, Dudo, deacon of St. Quentin. I have already shown that the Macedonians were regarded as Hellenicised Trojans. Together with the Hellenicising they had obtained the name Danai, a term applied to all Greeks. In his Norman Chronicle, which goes down to the year 996, Dudo relates (De moribus et gestis, &c., lib. i.) that the Norman men regarded themselves as Danai, for Danes (the Scandinavians in general) and Danai was regarded as the same race name. Together with the Normans the Scandinavians also, from whom they were descended, accordingly had to be made into Trojans. And thus the matter was understood by Dudo’s readers; and when Robert Wace wrote his rhymed chronicle, Roman de Rou, about the northern conquerors of Normandy, and wanted to give an account of their origin, he could say, on the basis of a common tradition:

    “When the walls of Troy in ashes were laid,
    And the Greeks exceedingly glad were made,
    Then fled from flames on the Trojan strand
    The race that settled old Denmark’s land
    And in honour of the old Trojan reigns,
    The People called themselves the Danes.”

     

     

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    I have now traced the scholastic tradition about the descent of the Teutonic races from Troy all the way from the chronicle where we first find this tradition recorded, down to the time when Ari, Iceland’s first historian, lived, and when the Icelander Sæmund is said to have studied in Paris, the same century in which Sturluson, Heimskringla’s author, developed into manhood. Saxo rejected the theory current among the scholars of his time, that the northern races were Danai-Trojans. He knew that Dudo in St. Quentin was the authority upon which this belief was chiefly based, and he gives his Danes an entirely different origin, quanquam Dudo, rerum Aquitanicarum scriptor, Danos a Danais ortos nuncupatosque recenseat. The Icelanders, on the other hand, accepted and continued to develop the belief, resting on the authority of five hundred years, concerning Troy as the starting-point for the Teutonic race; and in Iceland the theory is worked out and systematised as we have already seen, and is made to fit in a frame of the history of the world. The accounts given in Heimskringla and the Prose Edda in regard to the emigration from Asgard form the natural denouement of an era which had existed for centuries, and in which the events of antiquity were able to group themselves around a common centre. All peoples and families of chiefs were located around the Mediterranean Sea, and every event and every hero was connected in some way or other with Troy.

    In fact, a great part of the lands subject to the Roman sceptre were in ancient literature in some way connected with the Trojan war and its consequences: Macedonia

     

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    and Epirus through the Trojan emigrant Helenus; Illyria and Venetia through the Trojan emigrant Antenor; Rhetia and Vindelicia through the Amazons, allies of the Trojans, from whom the inhabitants of these provinces were said to be descended (Servius ad Virg., i. 248); Etruria through Dardanus, who was said to have emigrated from there to Troy; Latium and Campania through the Æneids; Sicily, the very home of the Ænean traditions, through the relation between the royal families of Troy and Sicily; Sardinia (see Sallust); Gaul (see Lucanus arid Ammianus Marcellinus); Carthage through the visit of Æneas to Dido; and of course all of Asia Minor. This was not all. According to the lost Argive History by Anaxikrates, Scamandrius, son of Hektor and Andromache, came with emigrants to Scythia and settled on the banks of the Tanais; and scarcely had Germany become known to the Romans, before it, too, became drawn into the cycle of Trojan stories, at least so far as to make this country visited by Ulysses on his many journeys and adventures (Tac., Germ.). Every educated Greek and Roman person’s fancy was filled from his earliest school-days with Troy, and traces of Dardanians and Danaians were found everywhere, just as the English in our time think they have found traces of the ten lost tribes of Israel both in the old and in the new world.

    In the same degree as Christianity, Church learning, and Latin manuscripts were spread among the Teutonic tribes, there were disseminated among them knowledge of and an interest in the great Trojan stories. The native stories telling of Teutonic gods and heroes received

     

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    terrible shocks from Christianity, but were rescued in another form on the lips of the people, and continued in their new guise to command their attention and devotion. In the class of Latin scholars which developed among the Christianised Teutons, the new stories learned from Latin literature, telling of Ilium, of the conflicts between Trojans and Greeks, of migrations, of the founding of colonies on foreign shores and the creating of new empires, were the things which especially stimulated their curiosity and captivated their fancy. The Latin literature which was to a greater or less extent accessible to the Teutonic priests, or to priests labouring among the Teutons, furnished abundant materials in regard to Troy both in classical and pseudo-classical authors. We need only call attention to Virgil and his commentator Servius, which became a mine of learning for the whole middle age, and among pseudo-classical works to Dares Phrygius’ Historia de Excidio Trojæ (which was believed to have been written by a Trojan and translated by Cornelius Nepos!), to Dictys Cretensis’ Ephemeris belli Trojani (the original of which was said to have been Phoenician, and found in Dictys’ alleged grave after an earthquake in the time of Nero!), and to “Pindari Thebani,” Epitome Iliados Homeri.

    Before the story of the Trojan descent of the Franks had been created, the Teuton Jordanes, active as a writer in the middle of the sixth century, had already found a place for his Gothic fellow-countrymen in the events of the great Trojan epic. Not that he made the Goths the descendants either of the Greeks or Trojans. On the

     

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    contrary, he maintained the Goths’ own traditions in regard to their descent and their original home, a matter which I shall discuss later. But according to Orosius, who is Jordanes’ authority, the Goths were the same as the Getæ, and when the identity of these was accepted, it was easy for Jordanes to connect the history of the Goths with the Homeric stories. A Gothic chief marries Priam’s sister and fights with Achilles and Ulysses (Jord., c. 9), and Ilium, having scarcely recovered from the war with Agamemnon, is destroyed a second time by Goths (c. 20).

    11.

    THE ORIGIN OF THE STORY IN REGARD TO THE TROJAN DESCENT OF THE FRANKS.

    We must now return to the Frankish chronicles, to Fredegar’s and Gesta regum Francorum, where the theory of the descent from Troy of a Teutonic tribe is presented for the first time, and thus renews the agitation handed down from antiquity, which attempted to make all ancient history a system of events radiating from Troy as their centre. I believe I am able to point out the sources of all the statements made in these chronicles in reference to this subject, and also to find the very kernel out of which the illusion regarding the Trojan birth of the Franks grew.

    As above stated, Fredegar admits that Virgil is the earliest authority for the claim that the Franks are descended from Troy. Fredegar’s predecessor, Gregorius

     

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    of Tours, was ignorant of it, and, as already shown, the word Franks does not occur anywhere in Virgil. The discovery that he nevertheless gave information about the Franks and their origin must therefore have been made or known in the time intervening between Gregorius’ chronicle and Fredegar’s. Which, then, can be the passage in Virgil’s poems in which the discoverer succeeded in finding the proof that the Franks were Trojans? A careful examination of all the circumstances connected with the subject leads to the conclusion that the passage is in Æneis, lib. i., 242 ff.:

    “Antenor potuit, mediis elapsus Achivis,
    Illyricos penetrare sinus atque intima tutus
    Regna Liburnorum, et fontem superare Timavi;
    Unde per ora novem vasto eum murmere montis
    It mare proruptum, et pelago premit arva sonanti.
    Hic tamen ille urbem Patavi sedesque locavit
    Teucrorum.”

    “Antenor having escaped from amidst the Greeks, could with safety penetrate the Illyrian Gulf and the inmost realms of Liburnia, and overpass the springs of Timavus, whence, through nine mouths, with loud echoing from the mountain, it bursts away, a sea impetuous, and sweeps the fields with a roaring deluge. Yet there he built the city of Padua and established a Trojan settlement.”

    The nearest proof at hand, that this is really the passage which was interpreted as referring to the ancient history of the Franks, is based on the following circumstances:

    Gregorius of Tours had found in the history of Sulpicius Alexander accounts of violent conflicts, on the west

     

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    bank of the Rhine, between the Romans and Franks, the latter led by the chiefs Markomir and Sunno (Greg., Hist., ii. 9).

    From Gregorius, Gesta regum Francorum has taken both these names. According to Gesta, the Franks, under the command of Markomir and Sunno, emigrate from Pannonia, near the Moeotian marshes, and settle on the Rhine. The supposition that they had lived in Pannonia before their coming to the Rhine, the author of Gesta had learned from Gregorius. In Gesta, Markomir is made a son of the Trojan Priam, and Sunno a son of the Trojan Antenor.

    From this point of view, Virgil’s account of Antenor’s and his Trojans’ journey to Europe from fallen Troy refers to the emigration of the father of the Frankish chief Sunno at the head of a tribe of Franks. And as Gesta’s predecessor, the so-called Fredegar, appeals to Virgil as his authority for this Frankish emigration, and as the wanderings of Antenor are nowhere else mentioned by the Roman poet, there can be no doubt that the lines above quoted were the very ones which were regarded as the Virgilian evidence in regard to a Frankish emigration from Troy.

    But how did it come to be regarded as an evidence?

    Virgil says that Antenor, when he had escaped the Achivians, succeeded in penetrating Illyricos sinus, the very heart of Illyria. The name Illyricum served to designate all the regions inhabited by kindred tribes extending from the Alps to the mouth of the Danube and from the Danube to the Adriatic Sea and Hæmus (cp.

     

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    Marquardt Röm. Staatsverwalt, 295). To Illyricum belonged the Roman provinces Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia, and the Pannonians were an Illyrian tribe. In Pannonia Gregorius of Tours had located the Franks in early times. Thus Antenor, with his Trojans, on their westward journey, traverses the same regions from which, according to Gregorius, the Franks had set out for the Rhine.

    Virgil also says that Antenor extended his journeys to the Liburnian kingdoms (regna Liburnorum). From Servius’ commentary on this passage, the middle age knew that the Liburnian kingdoms were Rhetia and Vindelicia (Rhetia Vindelici ipsi sunt Liburni). Rhetia and Vindelicia separate Pannonia from the Rhine. Antenor, accordingly, takes the same route toward the West as the Franks must have taken if they came from Pannonia to the Rhine.

    Virgil then brings Antenor to a river, which, it is true, is called Timavus, but which is described as a mighty stream, coming thundering out of a mountainous region, where it has its source, carrying with it a mass of water which the poet compares with a sea, forming before it reaches the sea a delta, the plains of which are deluged by the billows, and finally emptying itself by many outlets into the ocean. Virgil says nine; but Servius interprets this as meaning many: “finitus est numerus pro infinito.”

    We must pardon the Frankish scribes for taking this river to be the Rhine; for if a water-course is to be looked for in Europe west of the land of the Liburnians, which answers to the Virgilian description, then this must be

     

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    the Rhine, on whose banks the ancestors of the Franks for the first time appear in history.

    Again, Virgil tells us that Antenor settled near this river and founded a colony — Patavium — on the low plains of the delta. The Salian Franks acquired possession of the low and flat regions around the outlets of the Rhine (Insula Batavorum) about the year 287, and also of the land to the south as far as to the Scheldt; and after protracted wars the Romans had to leave them the control of this region. By the very occupation of this low country, its conquerors might properly be called Batavian Franks. It is only necessary to call attention to the similarity of the words Patavi and Batavi, in order to show at the same time that the conclusion could scarcely be avoided that Virgil had reference to the immigration of the Franks when he spoke of the wanderings of Antenor, the more so, since from time out of date the pronunciation of the initials B and P have been interchanged by the Germans. In the conquered territory the Franks founded a city (Ammian. Marc., xvii. 2, 5).

    Thus it appears that the Franks were supposed to have migrated to the Rhine under the leadership of Antenor. The first Frankish chiefs recorded, after their appearance there, are Markomir and Sunno. From this the conclusion was drawn that Sunno was Antenor’s son; and as Markomir ought to be the son of some celebrated Trojan chief, he was made the son of Priam. Thus we have explained Fredegar’s statement that Virgil is his authority for the Trojan descent of these Franks. This seemed to be established for all time.

     

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    The wars fought around the Moeotian marshes between the emperor Valentinianus, the Alamanni, and the Franks, of which Gesta speaks, are not wholly inventions of the fancy. The historical kernel in this confused semi-mythical narrative is that Valentinianus really did fight with the Alamanni, and that the Franks for some time were allies of the Romans, and came into conflict with those same Alamanni (Ammian. Marc., libs. xxx., xxxi.). But the scene of these battles was not the Moeotian marshes and Pannonia, as Gesta supposes, but the regions on the Rhine.

    The unhistorical statement of Gregorius that the Franks came from Pannonia is based only on the fact that Frankish warriors for some time formed a Sicambra cohors, which about the year 26 was incorporated with the Roman troops stationed in Pannonia and Thracia. The cohort is believed to have remained in Hungary and formed a colony, where Buda now is situated. Gesta makes Pannonia extend from the Moeotian marshes to Tanais, since, according to Gregorius and earlier chroniclers, these waters were the boundary between Europe and Asia, and since Asia was regarded as a synonym of the Trojan empire. Virgil had called the Trojan kingdom Asia: Postquam res Asiæ Priamique evertere gentem, &c., (Æneid, iii. 1).

    Thus we have exhibited the seed out of which the fable about the Trojan descent of the Franks grew into a tree spreading its branches over all Teutonic Europe, in the same manner as the earlier fable, which was at least developed if not born in Sicily, in regard to the Trojan

     

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    descent of the Romans had grown into a tree overshadowing all the lands around the Mediterranean, and extending one of its branches across Gaul to Britain and Ireland. (The first son of the Britons, “Brutus,” was, according to Galfred, great-grandson of Æneas, and migrated from Alba Longa to Ireland!)

    So far as the Gauls are concerned, the incorporation of Cis-Alpine Gaul with the Roman Empire, and the Romanising of the Gauls dwelling there, had at an early day made way for the belief that they had the same origin and were of the same blood as the Romans. Consequently they too were Trojans. This view, encouraged by Roman politics, gradually found its way to the Gauls on the other side of the Rhine; and even before Cæsar’s time the Roman senate had in its letters to the Æduans, often called them the “brothers and kinsmen” of the Romans (fratres consanguineique — Cæsar, De Bell. Gall., i. 33, 2). Of the Avernians Lucanus sings (i. 427): Averni . . . ausi Latio se fingere fratres, sanguine ab Iliaco populi.

    Thus we see that when the Franks, having made themselves masters of the Romanised Gaul, claimed a Trojan descent, then this was the repetition of a history of which Gaul for many centuries previously had been the scene. After the Frankish conquest the population of Gaul consisted for the second time of two nationalities unlike in language and customs, and now as before it was a political measure of no slight importance to bring these two nationalities as closely together as possible by the belief in a common descent. The Roman Gauls and the Franks

     

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    were represented as having been one people in the time of the Trojan war. After the fall of the common fatherland they were divided into two separate tribes, with separate destinies, until they refound each other in the west of Europe, to dwell together again in Gaul. This explains how it came to pass that, when they thought they had found evidence of this view in Virgil, this was at once accepted, and was so eagerly adopted that the older traditions in regard to the origin and migrations of the Franks were thrust aside and consigned to oblivion. History repeats itself a third time when the Normans conquered and became masters of that part of Gaul which after them is called Normandy. Dudo, their chronicler, says that they regarded themselves as being ex Antenore progenitos, descendants of Antenor. This is sufficient proof that they had borrowed from the Franks the tradition in regard to their Trojan descent.

    12.

    WHY ODIN WAS GIVEN ANTENOR’S PLACE AS LEADER OF THE TROJAN EMIGRATION.

    So long as the Franks were the only ones of the Teutons who claimed Trojan descent, it was sufficient that the Teutonic-Trojan immigration had the father of a Frankish chief as its leader. But in the same degree as the belief in a Trojan descent spread among the other Teutonic tribes and assumed the character of a statement equally important to all the Teutonic tribes, the idea would naturally present itself that the leader of the great

     

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    immigration was a person of general Teutonic importance. There was no lack of names to choose from. Most conspicuous was the mythical Teutonic patriarch, whom Tacitus speaks of and calls Mannus (Germania, 2), the grandson of the goddess Jord (Earth). There can be no doubt that he still was remembered by this (Mann) or some other name (for nearly all Teutonic mythic persons have several names), since he reappears in the beginning of the fourteenth century in Heinrich Frauenlob as Mennor, the patriarch of the German people and German tongue.* But Mannus had to yield to another universal Teutonic mythic character, Odin, and for reasons which we shall now present.

    As Christianity was gradually introduced among the Teutonic peoples, the question confronted them, what manner of beings those gods had been in whom they and their ancestors so long had believed. Their Christian teachers had two answers, and both were easily reconcilable. The common answer, and that usually given to the converted masses, was that the gods of their ancestors were demons, evil spirits, who ensnared men in superstition in order to become worshipped as divine beings. The other answer, which was better calculated to please the noble-born Teutonic families, who thought themselves descended from the gods, was that these divinities were originally human persons — kings, chiefs, legislators, who, endowed with higher wisdom and secret knowledge, made


     

    * “Mennor der erste was genant,
    Dem diutische rede got tet bekant.”
    Later on in this work we shall discuss the traditions of the Mannussaga found in Scandinavia and Germany.

     

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    use of these to make people believe that they were gods, and worship them as such. Both answers could, as stated, easily be reconciled with each other, for it was evident that when these proud and deceitful rulers died, their unhappy spirits joined the ranks of evil demons, and as demons they continued to deceive the people, in order to maintain through all ages a worship hostile to the true religion. Both sides of this view we find current among the Teutonic races through the whole middle age. The one which particularly presents the old gods as evil demons is found in popular traditions from this epoch. The other, which presents the old gods as mortals, as chiefs and lawmakers with magic power, is more commonly reflected in the Teutonic chronicles, and was regarded among the scholars as the scientific view.

    Thus it followed of necessity that Odin, the chief of the Teutonic gods, and from whom their royal houses were fond of tracing their descent, also must have been a wise king of antiquity and skilled in the magic arts, and information was of course sought with the greatest interest in regard to the place where he had reigned, and in regard to his origin. There were two sources of investigation in reference to this matter. One source was the treasure of mythic songs and traditions of their own race. But what might be history in these seemed to the students so involved in superstition and fancy, that not much information seemed obtainable from them. But there was also another source, which in regard to historical trustworthiness seemed incomparably better, and that was the Latin literature to be found in the libraries of the convents.

     

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    During centuries when the Teutons had employed no other art than poetry for preserving the memory of the life and deeds of their ancestors, the Romans, as we know, had had parchment and papyrus to write on, and had kept systematic annals extending centuries back. Consequently this source must be more reliable. But what had this source — what had the Roman annals or the Roman literature in general to tell about Odin? Absolutely nothing, it would seem, inasmuch as the name Odin, or Wodan, does not occur in any of the authors of the ancient literature. But this was only an apparent obstacle. The ancient king of our race, Odin, they said, has had many names — one name among one people, and another among another, and there can be no doubt that he is the same person as the Romans called Mercury and the Greeks Hermes.

    The evidence of the correctness of identifying Odin with Mercury and Hermes the scholars might have found in Tacitus’ work on Germany, where it is stated in the ninth chapter that the chief god of the Germans is the same as Mercury among the Romans. But Tacitus was almost unknown in the convents and schools of this period of the middle age. They could not use this proof, but they had another and completely compensating evidence of the assertion.

    Originally the Romans did not divide time into weeks of seven days. Instead, they had weeks of eight days, and the farmer worked the seven days and went on the eighth to the market. But the week of seven days had been in existence for a very long time among certain

     

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    Semitic peoples, and already in the time of the Roman republic many Jews lived in Rome and in Italy. Through them the week of seven days became generally known. The Jewish custom of observing the sacredness of the Sabbath, the first day of the week, by abstaining from all labour, could not fail to be noticed by the strangers among whom they dwelt. The Jews had, however, no special name for each day of the week. But the Oriental, Egyptian, and Greek astrologers and astronomers, who in large numbers sought their fortunes in Rome, did more than the Jews to introduce the week of seven days among all classes of the metropolis, and the astrologers had special names for each of the seven days of the week. Saturday was the planet’s and the planet-god Saturnus’ day; Sunday, the sun’s; Monday, the moon’s; Tuesday, Mars’; Wednesday, Mercury’s; Thursday, Jupiter’s; Friday, Venus’ day. Already in the beginning of the empire these names of the days were quite common in Italy. The astrological almanacs, which were circulated in the name of the Egyptian Petosiris among all families who had the means to buy them, contributed much to bring this about. From Italy both the taste for astrology and the adoption of the week of seven days, with the above-mentioned names, spread not only into Spain and Gaul, but also into those parts of Germany that were incorporated with the Roman Empire, Germania superior and inferior, where the Romanising of the people, with Cologne (Civitas Ubiorum) as the centre, made great progress. Teutons who had served as officers and soldiers in the Roman armies, and were familiar with the everyday customs of the

     

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    Romans, were to be found in various parts of the independent Teutonic territory, and it is therefore not strange if the week of seven days, with a separate name given to each day, was known and in use more or less extensively throughout Teutondom even before Christianity had taken root east of the Rhine, and long before Rome itself was converted to Christianity. But from this introduction of the seven-day week did not follow the adoption of the Roman names of the days. The Teutons translated the names into their own language, and in so doing chose among their own divinities those which most nearly corresponded to the Roman. The translation of the names is made with a discrimination which seems to show that it was made in the Teutonic border country, governed by the Romans, by people who were as familiar with the Roman gods as with their own. ln that border land there must have been persons of Teutonic birth who officiated as priests before Roman altars. The days of the sun and moon were permitted to retain their names. They were called Sunday and Monday. The day of the war-god Mars became the day of the war-god Tyr, Tuesday. The day of Mercury became Odin’s day, Wednesday. The day of the lightning-armed Jupiter became the day of the thundering Thor, Thursday. The day of the goddess of love Venus became that of the goddess of love Freyja, Friday. Saturnus, who in astrology is a watery star, and has his house in the sign of the waterman, was among the Romans, and before them among the Greeks and Chaldæans, the lord of the seventh day. Among the North Teutons, or, at least, among a part of them, his

     

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    day got its name from laug,* which means a bath, and it is worthy of notice in this connection that the author of the Prose Edda’s Foreword identifies Saturnus with the sea-god Njord.

    Here the Latin scholars had what seemed to them a complete proof that the Odin of which their stories of the past had so much to tell was — and was so recognised by their heathen ancestors — the same historical person as the Romans worshipped by the name Mercury.

    At first sight it may seem strange that Mercury and Odin were regarded as identical. We are wont to conceive Hermes (Mercury) as the Greek sculptors represented him, the ideal of beauty and elastic youth, while we imagine Odin as having a contemplative, mysterious look. And while Odin in the Teutonic mythology is the father and ruler of the gods, Mercury in the Roman has, of course, as the son of Zeus, a high rank, but his dignity does not exempt him from being the very busy messenger of the gods of Olympus. But neither Greeks nor Romans nor Teutons attached much importance to such circumstances in the specimens we have of their comparative mythology. The Romans knew that the same god among the same people might be represented differently, and that the local traditions also sometimes differed in regard to the kinship and rank of a divinity. They therefore paid more attention to what Tacitus calls vis numinis — that is, the significance of the divinity as a symbol of nature, or its relation to the affairs of the community and to human culture. Mercury was the symbol of wisdom


     

    * Saturday is in the North called Löverdag, Lördag — that is, Laugardag = bathday. —TR.

     

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    and intelligence; so was Odin. Mercury was the god of eloquence; Odin likewise. Mercury had introduced poetry and song among men; Odin also. Mercury had taught men the art of writing; Odin had given them the runes. Mercury did not hesitate to apply cunning when it was needed to secure him possession of something that he desired; nor was Odin particularly scrupulous in regard to the means. Mercury, with wings on his hat and on his heels, flew over the world, and often appeared as a traveller among men; Odin, the ruler of the wind, did the same. Mercury was the god of martial games, and still he was not really the war-god; Odin also was the chief of martial games and combats, but the war-god’s occupation he had left to Tyr. In all important respects Mercury and Odin, therefore resembled each other.

    To the scholars this must have been an additional proof that this, in their eyes, historical chief, whom the Romans called Mercury and the Teutons Odin, had been one and the same human person, who had lived in a distant past, and had alike induced Greeks, Romans, and Goths to worship him as a god. To get additional and more reliable information in regard to this Odin-Mercury than what the Teutonic heathen traditions could impart, it was only necessary to study and interpret correctly what Roman history had to say about Mercury.

    As is known, some mysterious documents called the Sibylline books were preserved in Jupiter’s temple, on the Capitoline Hill, in Rome. The Roman State was the possessor, and kept the strictest watch over them,

     

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    so that their contents remained a secret to all excepting those whose position entitled them to read them. A college of priests, men in high standing, were appointed to guard them and to consult them when circumstances demanded it. The common opinion that the Roman State consulted them for information in regard to the future is incorrect. They were consulted only to find out by what ceremonies of penance and propitiation the wrath of the higher powers might be averted at times when Rome was in trouble, or when prodigies of one kind or another had excited the people and caused fears of impending misfortune. Then the Sibylline books were produced by the properly-appointed persons, and in some line or passage they found which divinity was angry and ought to be propitiated. This done, they published their interpretation of the passage, but did not make known the words or phrases of the passage, for the text of the Sibylline books must not be known to the public. The books were written in the Greek tongue.

    The story telling how these books came into the possession of the Roman State through a woman who sold them to Tarquin — according to one version Tarquin the Elder, according to another Tarquin the Younger — is found in Roman authors who were well known and read throughout the whole middle age. The woman was a Sibylla, according to Varro the Erythreian, so called from a Greek city in Asia Minor; according to Virgil the Cumæan, a prophetess from Cumæ in southern Italy. Both versions could easily be harmonised, for Cumæ was a Greek colony from Asia Minor; and we read in Servius’

     

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    commentaries on Virgil’s poems that the Erythreian Sibylla was by many regarded as identical with the Cumæan. From Asia Minor she was supposed to have come to Cumæ.

    In western Europe the people of the middle age claimed that there were twelve Sibyllas: the Persian, the Libyan, the Delphian, the Cimmerinean, the Erythreian, the Samian, the Cumæan, the Hellespontian or Trojan, the Phrygian and Tiburtinian, and also the Sibylla Europa and the Sibylla Agrippa. Authorities for the first ten of these were the Church father Lactantius and the West Gothic historian Isodorus of Sevilla. The last two, Europa and Agrippa, were simply added in order to make the number of Sibyllas equal to that of the prophets and the apostles.

    But the scholars of the middle ages also knew from Servius that the Cumæan Sibylla was, in fact, the same as the Erythreian; and from the Church father Lactantius, who was extensively read in the middle ages, they also learned that the Erythreian was identical with the Trojan. Thanks to Lactantius, they also thought they could determine precisely where the Trojan Sibylla was born. Her birthplace was the town Marpessus, near the Trojan Mount Ida. From the same Church father they learned that the real contents of the Sibylline books had consisted of narrations concerning Trojan events, of lives of the Trojan kings, &c., and also of prophecies concerning the fall of Troy and other coming events, and that the poet Homer in his works was a mere plagiator, who had found a copy of the books of the Sibylla, had recast

     

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    and falsified it, and published it in his own name in the form of heroic poems concerning Troy.

    This seemed to establish the fact that those books, which the woman from Cumæ had sold to the Roman king Tarquin, were written by a Sibylla who was born in the Trojan country, and that the books which Tarquin bought of her contained accounts and prophecies — accounts especially in regard to the Trojan chiefs and heroes afterwards glorified in Homer’s poems. As the Romans came from Troy, these chiefs and heroes were their ancestors, and in this capacity they were entitled to the worship which the Romans considered due to the souls of their forefathers. From a Christian standpoint this was of course idolatry; and as the Sibyllas were believed to have made predictions even in regard to Christ, it might seem improper for them to promote in this manner the cause of idolatry. But Lactantius gave a satisfactory explanation of this matter. The Sibylla, he said, had certainly prophesied truthfully in regard to Christ; but this she did by divine compulsion and in moments of divine inspiration. By birth and in her sympathies she was a heathen, and when under the spell of her genuine inspirations, she proclaimed heathen and idolatrous doctrines.

    In our critical century all this may seem like mere fancies. But careful examinations have shown that an historical kernel is not wanting in these representations. And the historical fact which lies back of all this is that the Sibylline books which were preserved in Rome actually were written in Asia Minor in the ancient Trojan

     

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    territory; or, in other words, that the oldest known collection of so-called Sibylline oracles was made in Marpessus, near the Trojan mountain Ida, in the time of Solon. From Marpessus the collection came to the neighbouring city Gergis, and was preserved in the Apollo temple there; from Gergis it came to Cumæ, and from Cumæ to Rome in the time of the kings. How it came there is not known. The story about the Cumæan woman and Tarquin is an invention, and occurs in various forms. It is also demonstrably an invention that the Sibylline books in Rome contained accounts of the heroes in the Trojan war. On the other hand, it is absolutely certain that they referred to gods and to a worship which in the main were unknown to the Romans before the Sibylline books were introduced there, and that to these books must chiefly be attributed the remarkable change which took place in Roman mythology during the republican centuries. The Roman mythology, which from the beginning had but few gods of clear identity with the Greek, was especially during this epoch enlarged, and received gods and goddesses who were worshipped in Greece and in the Greek and Hellenised part of Asia Minor where the Sibylline books originated. The way this happened was that whenever the Romans in trouble or distress consulted the Sibylline books they received the answer that this or that Greek-Asiatic god or goddess was angry and must be propitiated. In connection with the propitiation ceremonies the god or goddess was received in the Roman pantheon, and sooner or later a temple was built to him; and thus it did not

     

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    take long before the Romans appropriated the myths that were current in Greece concerning these borrowed divinities. This explains why the Roman mythology, which in its oldest sources is so original and so unlike the Greek, in the golden period of Roman literature comes to us in an almost wholly Greek attire; this explains why Roman and Greek mythology at that time might be regarded as almost identical. Nevertheless the Romans were able even in the later period of antiquity to discriminate between their native gods and those introduced by the Sibylline books. The former were worshipped according to a Roman ritual, the latter according to a Greek. To the latter belonged Apollo, Artemis, Latona, Ceres, Hermes-Mercury, Proserpina, Cybile, Venus, and Esculapius; and that the Sibylline books were a Greek-Trojan work, whose original home was Asia Minor and the Trojan territory, was well known to the Romans. When the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter was burned down eighty-four years before Christ, the Sibylline books were lost. But the State could not spare them. A new collection had to be made, and this was mainly done by gathering the oracles which could be found one by one in those places which the Trojan or Erythreian Sibylla had visited, that is to say, in Asia Minor, especially in Erythræ, and in Ilium, the ancient Troy.

    So far as Hermes-Mercury is concerned, the Roman annals inform us that he got his first lectisternium in the year 399 before Christ by order from the Sibylline books. Lectisternium was a sacrifice: the image of the god was laid on a bed with a pillow under the left arm, and beside

     

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    the image was placed a table and a meal, which as a sacrifice was offered to the god. About one hundred years before that time, Hermes-Mercury had received his first temple in Rome.

    Hermes-Mercury seemed, therefore, like Apollo, Venus, Esculapius, and others, to have been a god originally unknown to the Romans, the worship of whom the Trojan Sibylla had recommended to the Romans.

    This was known to the scholars of the middle age. Now, we must bear in mind that it was as certain to them as an undoubted scientific fact that the gods were originally men, chiefs, and heroes, and that the deified chief whom the Romans worshipped as Mercury, and the Greeks as Hermes, was the same as the Teutons called Odin, and from whom distinguished Teutonic families traced their descent. We must also remember that the Sibylla who was supposed to have recommended the Romans to worship the old king Odin-Mercurius was believed to have been a Trojan woman, and that her books were thought to have contained stories about Troy’s heroes, in addition to various prophecies, and so this manner of reasoning led to the conclusion that the gods who were introduced in Rome through the Sibylline books were celebrated Trojans who had lived and fought at a time preceding the fall of Troy. Another inevitable and logical conclusion was that Odin had been a Trojan chief, and when he appears in Teutonic mythology as the chief of gods, it seemed most probable that he was identical with the Trojan king Priam, and that Priam was identical with Hermes-Mercury.

     

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    Now, as the ancestors of the Romans were supposed to have emigrated from Troy to Italy under the leadership of Æneas, it was necessary to assume that the Romans were not the only Trojan emigrants, for, since the Teutons worshipped Odin-Priamus-Hermes as their chief god, and since a number of Teutonic families traced their descent from this Odin, the Teutons, too, must have emigrated from Troy. But, inasmuch as the Teutonic dialects differed greatly from the Roman language, the Trojan Romans and the Trojan Teutons must have been separated a very long time.

    They must have parted company immediately after the fall of Troy and gone in different directions, and as the Romans had taken a southern course on their way to Europe, the Teutons must have taken a northern. It was also apparent to the scholars that the Romans had landed in Europe many centuries earlier than the Teutons, for Rome had been founded already in 754 or 753 before Christ, but of the Teutons not a word is to be found in the annals before the period immediately preceding the birth of Christ. Consequently, the Teutons must have made a halt somewhere on their journey to the North. This halt must have been of several centuries’ duration, and, of course, like the Romans, they must have founded a city, and from it ruled a territory in commemoration of their fallen city Troy. In that age very little was known of Asia, where this Teutonic-Trojan colony was supposed to have been situated, but, both from Orosius and, later, from Gregorius of Tours, it was known that our world is divided into three large divisions

     

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    — Asia, Europe, and Africa — and that Asia and Europe are divided by a river called Tanais. And having learned from Gregorius of Tours that the Teutonic Franks were said to have lived in Pannonia in ancient times, and having likewise learned that the Moeotian marshes lie east of Pannonia, and that the Tanais empties into these marshes, they had the course marked out by which the Teutons had come to Europe — that is, by way of Tanais and the Moeotian marshes. Not knowing anything at all of importance in regard to Asia beyond Tanais, it was natural that they should locate the colony of the Teutonic Trojans on the banks of this river.

    I think I have now pointed out the chief threads of the web of that scholastic romance woven out of Latin convent learning concerning a Teutonic emigration from Troy and Asia, a web which extends from Fredegar’s Frankish chronicle, through the following chronicles of the middle age, down into Heimskringla and the Foreword of the Younger Edda. According to the Frankish chronicle, Gesta regum Francorum, the emigration of the Franks from the Trojan colony near the Tanais was thought to have occurred very late; that is, in the time of Valentinianus I, or, in other words, between 364 and 375 after Christ. The Icelandic authors very well knew that Teutonic tribes had been far into Europe long before that time, and the reigns they had constructed in regard to the North indicated that they must have emigrated from the Tanais colony long before the Franks. As the Roman attack was the cause of the Frankish emigration, it seemed probable that these world-conquerors

     

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    had also caused the earlier emigration from Tanais; and as Pompey’s expedition to Asia was the most celebrated of all the expeditions made by the Romans in the East — Pompey even entered Jerusalem and visited its Temple — it was found most convenient to let the Asas emigrate in the time of Pompey, but they left a remnant of Teutons near the Tanais, under the rule of Odin’s younger brothers Vile and Ve, in order that this colony might continue to exist until the emigration of the Franks took place.

    Finally, it should be mentioned that the Trojan migration saga, as born and developed in antiquity, does not indicate by a single word that Europe was peopled later than Asia, or that it received its population from Asia. The immigration of the Trojans to Europe was looked upon as a return to their original homes. Dardanus, the founder of Troy, was regarded as the leader of an emigration from Etruria to Asia (Æneid, iii. 165 ff., Serv. Comm.). As a rule the European peoples regarded themselves in antiquity as autochthones, if they did not look upon themselves as immigrants from regions within Europe to the territories they inhabited in historic times.

    13.

    Odin

    Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre.

     
    Odin chevauchant Sleipnir
    Odin chevauchant Sleipnir

    Odin (ou Óðinn Odhin, Wotan, Woden, Wodan, Jolnir, Istwô) est le dieu des guerriers dans la mythologie nordique (ou panthéon nordique).

    Sommaire

    [masquer]

    Rôles [modifier]

    Odin (ou Óðinn, ou encore Odhinn en vieux norrois, ou Jolnir, ou Wotan ou Wodan en langue germanique) était regardé comme le roi des dieux.

    Il accueille les âmes de la moitié des guerriers morts au combat, Freyja accueillant la seconde moitié. Ceux-ci combattent entre eux le jour pour se préparer au Ragnarök. La nuit ils sont conviés au Banquet d'Odin.
    Il est aussi dieu de la sagesse et de l'inspiration poétique. Il est aussi un guerrier. Il est dieu de la rage, dieu de la ruse, dieu de la victoire.
    C'est un dieu sage, courageux et généreux, mais aussi sombre, fourbe, sévère et craint.
     

    Odin possède de nombreuses hypostases dont certaines n'ont peut-être pas encore été identifiées.

    Il était réputé avoir mille surnoms. Citons notamment :

    • Alfadir (le père de tout),
    • Bolverk (fauteur de malheur),
    • Har (très haut),
    • Harbard (barbe grise),
    • Jafnhar (également haut),
    • Thidi (le troisième),
    • Vegtam (familier des chemins).

    Symboles et attributs [modifier]

    Odin est représenté comme un homme âgé, barbu et borgne. Il se déplace sur un cheval à huit jambes, Sleipnir, armé de sa lance Gungnir.
    Lorsqu'il est dans son palais, la Valhöll, les deux corbeaux Hugin (la pensée) et Munin (la mémoire) lui racontent à l'oreille ce qu'ils ont vu des neuf mondes. Deux loups restent à ses pieds : Geri le glouton et Freki le vorace.

    Son trône, Hlidskjalf, lui permet de voir tout ce qui existe dans les neuf mondes.

    Il possédait l'anneau Draupnir, un anneau qui se multipliait par neuf tous les neuf jours ; mais il le posa sur le bûcher funéraire de son fils Baldr.

    Fêtes et rites [modifier]

    Odin partage la fête de Jul (21 décembre) avec le dieu Ull.

    Mythes et légendes se rapportant à cette divinité [modifier]

    Odin et ses frères ( et Vili ) tuèrent Ymir, le géant primordial. Avec ses restes, ils fabriquèrent Midgard, le monde des hommes. Avec les vers qui rongeaient la carcasse du monstre, ils créèrent les nains. Puis ils donnèrent vie à deux branches de frêne et d'orme pour créer les premiers hommes.

    Par la suite, Odin est resté pendu à Yggdrasil pendant neuf nuits sans boire ni manger, avec une lance (Gungnir) plantée dans le corps, afin d'obtenir le secret des runes.

    Il laissa son œil à la fontaine de Mimir en échange de la sagesse et vola la poésie aux nains et l'offrit aux dieux et aux hommes.

    La Voluspa affirme qu'il sera mangé par le loup Fenris, fils de Loki, le jour du Ragnarök.

    Parenté et filiation [modifier]

    Odin est le fils des géants Bor et Bestla. Il est le père de Thor (dieu du tonnerre), de Baldr (dieu de la lumière), de Hermód (messager des dieux), de Ali/Vali, de Vidar, de Saga (déesse de la poésie).

    Il est le mari de Frigg (la terre cultivée) et fut aussi celui de Jord (la terre inhabitée), de Grid et de Rind (la terre hivernale et gelée).

    De nos jours [modifier]

    Contrairement aux langues latines qui reprennent les noms des dieux romains pour les jours de la semaine ("mardi" = "jour de Mars", "mercredi" = jour de Mercure etc.), les langues anglo-saxones reprennent les noms des dieux nordiques.

    Ainsi, le nom d'Odin se retrouve en anglais Wednesday (par assimilation avec le dieu germanique Woden en "Woden's day"). À l'origine, les jours de la semaine étaient directement liés aux divinités :

    • Vieux norrois : Sunnadagr, Mánadagr, Týsdagr, Óðinsdagr, Þórsdagr, Frjádagr, Laugardagr.
    • Norrois : Søndag, Mandag, Tirsdag/Tysdag, Onsdag, Torsdag, Fredag Lørdag/Laurdag.
    • Traductions : Le jour du Soleil, le jour de la Lune, le jour de Týr, le jour d'Odin, le jour de Thor, le jour de Freyr/Freyja (de l'amour) et le jour de la purification, du nettoyage.

    Comme Odin était assimilé à Mercure par les Romains, on peut dire que le "mercredi" français (ou le "miercoles" espagnol etc) lui est pareillement consacré.

    C'est un personnage central, sous la graphie « Wotan », de la tétralogie L'Anneau du Nibelung de Richard Wagner : il apparaît dans L'Or du Rhin, La Walkyrie et – sous le nom « Le Voyageur » – dans Siegfried.

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    Æsir

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

     
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    In Old Norse, the Æsir (singular Ás, feminine Ásynja, feminine plural Ásynjur, Anglo-Saxon Ós, from Proto-Germanic *Ansuz) are the principal gods of the pantheon of Norse mythology. They include many of the major figures, such as Odin, Frigg, Thor, Baldr and Tyr. A second clan of gods, the Vanir, is also mentioned in the Norse mythos: the god Njord and his children, Freyr and Freyja, are the most prominent Vanir gods who join the Æsir as hostages after a war between Æsir and Vanir. The Vanir appear to have mainly been connected with cultivation and fertility and the Æsir were connected with power and war.

    In the Eddas, however, the word Æsir is used to call gods in general, while Asynjur is used to call the goddesses in general. For example, in the poem Skírnismál, Freyr was called "Prince of the Æsir". In the Prose Edda, Njord was introduced as "the third among the Æsir", and among the Asynjur, Freyja is always listed second only to Frigg.

    For more information about the worship of the Æsir see the article on Norse paganism.

    Contents

    [hide]

    [edit] Etymology

    The word áss, Proto-Germanic *ansuz is believed to be derived from Proto-Indo-European *ansu- 'breath, god' related to Sanskrit asura and Avestan ahura with the same meaning; though in Sanskrit asura came to mean 'demon'. The cognate Old English form to áss is os 'god, deity', as in the still-current surname Osgood, or the first names Oswin, Osbert, Oswald, Osborn, Osmund, and Oscar (Anglo-Saxon form of Ásgeir). As occurs in many Scandinavian names: Asbjørn, Asgeir (Asger, Asker), Asmund, Astrid, Åse etc. [citations needed]

    Ása is the genitive form of Áss. The, form appears as a prefix to indicate membership in the Æsir in "Ása-Þórr", and also in the compound Ásatrú, a sect of Germanic Neopaganism. [citations needed]

    [edit] Norse mythology

    The interaction between the Æsir and the Vanir is an interesting aspect of Norse mythology. While other cultures have had "elder" and "younger" families of gods, as with the Titans versus the Olympians of ancient Greece, the Æsir and Vanir were portrayed as contemporary. The two clans of gods fought battles, concluded treaties, and exchanged hostages (Freyr and Freyja are mentioned as such hostages). It is tempting to speculate that the interactions described as occurring between Æsir and Vanir reflect those common to various Norse clans at the time. [citations needed] According to another theory, the cult of the Vanir (who are mainly connected with fertility and are relatively peaceful) may be of an older date, and that of the more warlike Æsir of later origin, so the mythical war may perhaps mirror a religious conflict. On the other hand, this may be a parallel to the historicized conflict between the Romans and the Sabines. The noted comparative religion scholar Mircea Eliade speculated that both conflicts are actually different versions of an older Indo-European myth of conflict and integration between deities of sky and rulership versus deities of earth and fertility, with no strict historical antecedents.

    The chronology of the cults would in that case not be pictured in the myths. However, only Odin and Thor were important in both myth and cult; an áss like Ullr is almost unknown in the myths, but his name is seen in a lot of geographical names, especially in Sweden, so his cult was probably quite widespread. [citations needed]

    The Æsir stayed forever young by eating the apples of Iðunn, although they could be slain, as it was predicted that nearly all will die at Ragnarök.

    [edit] The a-rune

    Main article: Ansuz rune

    The a-rune , Younger Futhark was probably named after the Æsir. The name in this sense survives only in the Icelandic rune poem as Óss, referring to Odin in particular, identified with Jupiter. [citations needed]

    The name of a in the Gothic alphabet is ahsa. The common Germanic name of the rune may thus have either been ansuz "God, one of the Æsir", or ahsam "ear (of corn)".

    [edit] List of Æsir and Vanir

    All names in Old Norse form. Anglicized form in Parentheses.

    • Baldr — (Balder) god of radiance and rebirth
    • Bragi — (Brage) the bard (skald)
    • Forseti — god of justice
    • Freyja (a Vanir hostage) — (Freya) goddess of fertility, love, beauty, magic, and death
    • Freyr (a Vanir hostage) — (Frey) god of fertility and prosperity
    • Frigg — chief goddess
    • Heimdallr — (Heimdall) the watchman and guardian
    • Höðr — blind god of darkness
    • Hœnir — the indecisive god
    • Iðunn —(Idun) goddess of youth
    • Loki (a jotun) — the trickster, foster-brother of Odin
    • Meili — the mile-stepper
    • Nanna — wife of Baldr
    • Njörðr (a Vanir hostage) — (Njord) god of seamanship and sailing
    • Skaði (a giantess) - second wife of Njord, goddess of snow and winter
    • Óðinn — (Odin) chief god, of wisdom and war
    • Sif — golden-haired wife of Thor
    • Þórr — (Thor) god of thunder and battle
    • Týr — (Tyr) one-handed, self sacrificing god of law and justice.
    • Ullr — god of hunting, a tracker and archer
    • Váli — the avenger
    • — brother of Odin, who gave men speech
    • Viðarr — (Vidar) god of silence, stealth, and revenge
    • Vili — brother of Odin, who gave men feeling and thought

    [edit] Invasionist hypothesis

    As the Edda portrays the conflict between Æsir and Vanir as resulting in the creation of the Germanic pantheon or people, some ethnologists and religious scholars such as Marija Gimbutas have likened it to the Roman myth of The Rape of the Sabine Women and have speculized that the Æsir-Vanir conflict is in fact a mythologized portrayal of the Indo-Europeanization of ancient Europe with the Æsir taking the part of the conquering Indo-Europeans as according to the ethnological Kurgan hypothesis. According to this theory also backed up by linguistics on Indo-Germanic and Germanic languages as well as pertaining religious vocabulary relating to the Æsir as opposed to the Vanir, the Æsir were the Indo-European invaders that introduced Indo-Germanic languages to Europe, of which one cultural and linguistic branch later evolved into the Germanic languages and culture. See Indo-European religion for more aspects of the Æsir's relationship to this group. [citations needed]

    [edit] Modern Belief

    Starting around 1960, a growing group of people have said they worship the Æsir as living gods. Most of these people use the term Ásatrú, meaning faithful to the Æsir, to describe themselves. As of 2007, Ásatrú is a religion officially recognized by the governments of Iceland, Norway, Denmark[1] , and Sweden. [citations needed]

    [edit] See also

     

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    Vanir

    by Micha F. Lindemans
    In Norse myth, the Vanir are originally a group of wild nature and fertility gods and goddesses, the sworn enemies of the warrior gods of the Aesir. They were considered to be the bringers of health, youth, fertility, luck and wealth, and masters of magic. The Vanir live in Vanaheim.

    The Aesir and the Vanir had been at war for a long time when they decided to make peace. To ensure this peace they traded hostages: the Vanir sent their most renowned gods, the wealthy Njord and his children Freya and Freyr. In exchange the Aesir sent Honir, a big, handsome man who they claimed was suited to rule. He was accompanied by Mimir, the wisest man of the Aesir and in return the Vanir sent their wisest man Kvasir.

    Honir however, was not as smart as the Aesir claimed he was and it Mimir who gave him advice. The Vanir grew suspicious of the answers Honir gave when Mimir was not around. Eventually they figured out that they had been cheated and they cut Mimir's head off and sent it back to the Aesir. Fortunately, this betrayal did not lead to another war and all the gods of the Vanir were subsequently integrated with the Aesir. There is not much known about the Vanir of the time before the assimilation.

    The name "Vanir" might be derived from the old-Norse word vinr which means "friend".

    Nórdico antigo

    Origem: Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre.

    (Redirecionado de Língua norueguesa antiga)
    Nórdico antigo
    uma língua originária do Norte da Europa
    Outros nomes islandês antigo, norreno, dansk tunga, dǫnsk tunga
    Falada em Escandinávia, Islândia, Groenlândia, Ilhas Feroé, Ilhas Britânicas, Vinland, Volga e áreas próximas.
    Estatuto Língua extinta no século XIV, evoluiu para línguas escandínavas continentais, e sobreviveu consideravelmente no islandês e no feroês.
    Total de falantes  
    Escrita Alfabeto latino, Runas
    Taxonomia  
    ISO 639-1:2:3 nenhum : non : non
    Veja também:
    Esta é a extensão aproximada do nórdico antigo e línguas relacionadas no começo do século X: ██  Dialeto nórdico antigo ocidental  ██  Dialeto nórdico antigo oriental  ██  Dialeto Gútnico antigo  ██  Gótico da Criméia  ██  Outras línguas germânicas com as quais o nórdico antigo tinha mútua inteligibilidade
    Esta é a extensão aproximada do nórdico antigo e línguas relacionadas no começo do século X:

    ██  Dialeto nórdico antigo ocidental

    ██  Dialeto nórdico antigo oriental

    ██  Dialeto Gútnico antigo

    ██  Gótico da Criméia

    ██  Outras línguas germânicas com as quais o nórdico antigo tinha mútua inteligibilidade

    O nórdico antigo era a língua germânica falada pelos habitantes da Escandinávia e de suas colônias além-mar durante a Era Viking, até cerca de 1300. Ela evoluiu do proto-nórdico no século VIII.

    Índice

    [esconder]

    [editar] Classificação

    [editar] História

    A língua denominada nórdico antigo é o ramo ocidental antigo das línguas escandinavas e era formada pelo islandês antigo e pelo norueguês antigo. De todas as antigas línguas escandinavas esta é a melhor documentada, pois o nórdico antigo clássico é a língua das sagas islandesas dos séculos XII e XIII.

    Foi a língua da Era Viking e da Alta Idade Média na Dinamarca, Noruega, Suécia e nas colônias norueguesas que se originaram da expansão viking (aprox. 800-1000 d.C.), principalmente nos assentamentos na Groenlândia, Islândia, Ilhas Feroe, Shetland, Órcades, Hébridas, áreas costeiras da Escócia, Ilha de Man, zonas costeiras da Irlanda (especialmente as cidades), noroeste da Inglaterra e no Danelaw, Normandia, regiões costeiras da Finlândia e Estônia e nas prósperas cidades russas.

    Dado que o nórdico antigo constitui um estágio dentro da evolução das línguas escandinavas, as datas que marcam o início e o fim do seu período de existência podem variar, dependendo dos critérios utilizados por diferentes estudiosos. As inscrições rúnicas constituem a fonte principal de provas diretas da mudança lingüística na Escandinávia entre aproximadamente 200 e 1150 d.C.

    Parece lógico situar o fim do nórdico antigo quando o sistema de inflexões das línguas escandinavas começava a dar mostras de simplificação (na Dinamarca no século XII, na Suécia até finais do século XIV e na Noruega aproximadamente uma geração mais tarde). Não obstante, esse critério não é válido no caso das colônias norueguesas. Na Islândia, o sistema de inflexões permaneceu praticamente inalterado. Neste caso a Reforma (1541), que levou a uma mudança de cultura, constitui uma data prática de delimitação. No resto das regiões por onde se estendia o nórdico antigo, as evidências são muito escassas para se ter noção dos diferentes estágios da evolução lingüística. Nas ilhas Feroe, Shetland e Orcadas, onde o antigo norueguês constituiu o único meio de comunicação e, portanto, as formas do escandinavo sobreviveram por muito tempo (nas ilhas Feroe até a atualidade, nas Shetland e Orcadas até mais ou menos 1800), tem-se fixado as datas de mudança de modo arbitrário.

    A ascensão no condado das Órcadas dos Sinclair, de língua escocesa, em 1379 parece ser uma data apropriada para fixar o final do período do nórdico antigo nas ilhas do norte. Provavelmente foi a partir desta data quando os escoceses começaram a alcançar uma posição firme, uma situação que provocou a decadência (sem dúvida com uma interferência lingüística associada) e definitivo desaparecimento das línguas escandinavas nas Órcadas e nas Shetland.

    A situação é mais complexa na Finlândia e na Estônia, que aparentemente receberam posteriores levas de migração procedentes da Suécia após a Era Viking, de forma que não é possível garantir uma tradição contínua da língua escandinava. Se tivermos que estabelecer uma data para indicar o desaparecimento do nórdico antigo nestas áreas, a mais adequada seria, sem dúvida, a mesma que a proposta para a Suécia, mas estas divisões são meramente especulativas. Nas demais regiões, o mais sensato é fazer coincidir o final do período do nórdico antigo com a data em que desapareceu a língua escandinava (na Normandia, provavelmente, umas poucas gerações depois; na Rússia no final do século XI e início do século XII; na Inglaterra possivelmente no final do século XII ou um pouco mais tarde; na Irlanda em princípios do século XIII; em Man, litoral da Escócia e Hébridas, provavelmente no século XV, e, na Groenlândia, coincidindo com o desaparecimento da colônia norueguesa a partir do século XVI).

    O problema da definição do nórdico antigo não é preciso devido às diversas acepções que comporta este termo. Nas definições anteriores, tem-se tentado englobar o maior espectro possível. Para alguns, não obstante, o nórdico antigo é simplesmente a língua falada e escrita da Noruega e Islândia do ano 1000 ao ano 1350, isto é, o antigo nórdico "clássico", assim como a língua dos versos das Eddas, dos naufrágios e das sagas. Outros, sem dúvida, sugerem a utilização de um termo distinto para o nórdico antigo, ao menos no que diz respeito à distinção com esta última forma da língua: necessita-se de um termo genérico para a totalidade da era viking e o escandinavo medieval, mas a divisão em "nórdico oriental" e "nórdico ocidental", realizada a partir das primeiras amostras palpáveis de uma divisão dialetal escandinava, baseia-se na suposição de que ambos são nórdico antigo.

    O nórdico antigo conta com uma ampla e sofisticada cultura literária. As primeiras inscrições (século XI) parecem ter sido fundamentalmente de natureza legal ou religiosa (leis orais escritas em pergaminhos, vidas de santos, homilias, etc.). Contudo, as mostras de uma atividade literária mais intensa (de caráter histórico, científico e diplomático) não surgem até o século XII; será no século XIII quando a literatura de sagas adquire realmente tons próprios. A escrita vernacular na Dinamarca e na Suécia seguiu basicamente o mesmo modelo, ainda que uns 100-150 anos mais tarde. Aqui, sem dúvida, existia uma maior dependência de originais e modelos estrangeiros, porque sua literatura nativa não pode se comparar com as das sagas (fundamentalmente islandesas).

    [editar] Dialetos

    O nórdico antigo, tal como aparece aqui definido, tratava-se claramente de uma língua utilizada para múltiplas facetas. Sua origem remonta ao escandinavo primitivo, a primeira forma demonstrável de germânico setentrional que, com toda segurança, não estava isenta de dialetos.

    A impressão de uniformidade que aqui se deduz não deixa de ser uma ilusão, pois os sinais de variedade lingüística estão em relação mais ou menos proporcional com a disponibilidade dos materiais a recorrer. Contudo, torna-se difícil aceitar que pessoas que viviam em regiões tão distantes entre si como Rússia, Groenlândia e Irlanda (em sua maioria sujeita a influências lingüísticas ímpares) pudessem manter durante muito tempo certo grau de uniformidade lingüística.

    À medida que o proto-nórdico evoluiu até o nórdico antigo, no século VIII, os efeitos dos umlauts variaram geograficamente. Os umlauts típicos (por exemplo, de *fullian para fylla) foram mais fortes no oeste, enquanto que aqueles que resultaram em diérese (por exemplo, de herto para hiarta) foram mais fortes no leste. As diferenças foram aumentando através do tempo, e houve uma maciça dialetação entre os séculos IX e X, resultando em três dialetos maiores: nórdico antigo ocidental, nórdico antigo oriental e gútnico antigo.

    [editar] Escrita

    Ver artigo principal: Runas.
    Pedra rúnica escrita em nórdico antigo.
    Pedra rúnica escrita em nórdico antigo.

    Ainda que as inscrições rúnicas constituam nossa principal fonte de informação para o estudo do nórdico antigo antes da introdução do alfabeto latino, utilizado para escrita das línguas vernáculas (na Islândia e Noruega em 1150 aproximadamente; na Dinamarca e Suécia por volta de 1250), estas provas se complementam com outras fontes, tais como: poesia das Eddas e dos naufrágios (composta a partir de 1150, ainda que parte da mesma seja mais antiga); topônimos e antropônimos presentes na obra de autores estrangeiros (sobretudo anglo-saxões e irlandeses) e as obras escritas em latim na Escandinávia (posteriores a 1100).

    Inclusive após da adoção do alfabeto romano para as línguas vernáculas, a população continuou usando as runas em algumas regiões tempos depois de se deixar de utilizar o nórdico antigo.

    Estas últimas inscrições contam com o valor adicional de constituir material de informação lingüística, devido à natureza relativamente ortofônica da escrita rúnica. Igualmente, os versos de Eddas e naufrágios apresenta um maior número de orações completas, mas sua linguagem é muito estilizada, o que resulta na dificuldade de determinar a antigüidade dos poemas e versos individuais.

    O alfabeto latino chegou às populações de língua escandinava com o cristianismo. Quando e até que ponto a população nórdica que se fixou nas regiões cristianizadas aprendeu a utilizar o alfabeto latino não está claro, pois quase não há provas que demonstrem que o utilizavam para escrever sua própria língua, se bem que alguns deles deixaram em sua passagem inscrições rúnicas em nórdico antigo. A Dinamarca converteu-se ao cristianismo na segunda metade do século X, e a Islândia e a Noruega, por volta do ano 1000; a Suécia, provavelmente, em algum momento do século XI. Os dinamarqueses e suecos aparentemente não se apressaram a adotar o alfabeto latino para escrever a língua vernácula, ainda que tenhamos provas de que os noruegueses e os islandeses (os primeiros, oa menos, aparentemente sob influência anglo-saxã) começaram já na segunda metade do século XI a recopiar manuscritos em nórdico antigo utilizando o alfabeto latino.

    [editar] Gramática

    Antes da chegada do cristianismo, a influência estrangeira no nórdico antigo é quase imperceptível, mas desde o momento em que a Escandinávia passa a fazer parte da cultura européia medieval as inovações na língua passam a ser numerosas, sobretudo na forma de empréstimos. Mas adiante, o baixo alemão, a língua dos comerciantes da Liga Hanseática, exercerá uma influência maior, mas que já marca o ocaso do período do nórdico antigo e o começo do processo que levaria até o escandinavo moderno. A Islândia e as ilhas Feroe não estavam tão expostas à influência do baixo alemão, e aí está a precisamente uma das principais causas da separação entre os ramos insulares e continentais que caracteriza o escandinavo no período posterior ao nórdico antigo.

    [editar] Substantivos

    O nórdico antigo possuía três gêneros: masculino, feminino e neutro; dois números, ainda que o dual seja preservado no sistema pronominal; quatro casos: nominativo, acusativo, genitivo e dativo. Os substantivos eram divididos em substantivos fracos e fortes. Assim, existiam os substantivos masculinos fortes, os substantivos masculinos fracos, os substantivos femininos fortes, os substantivos femininos fracos, os substantivos neutros fortes e os substantivos neutros fracos.

    Os substantivos com raízes em a-/ja-/wa- são geralmente masculinos ou neutros; o-/jo-/wo- são femininos; i- são masculinos ou femininos ; u- são somente masculinos.

    Declinação forte dos substantivos masculinos
      1ª declinação, gen. sing. -s, nom. pl. -ar, ac. pl. -a. 2ª declinação, gen. sing. -ar, nom. pl. -ir, ac. pl. -i. 3ª declinação, ac. pl. -u. 4ª declinação, nom. e ac. pl. -r.
    Sing. NOM heim-r himin-n lækn-ir fund-r bekk-r kött-r vetr
    ACUS heim himin lækn-i fund bekk kött vetr
    DAT heim-i himn-i lækn-i fund-i bekk ketti vetri
    GEN heim-s himin-s lækn-is fund-ar bekk-jar katt-ar vetr-ar
    Plur. NOM heim-ar himn-ar lækn-ar fund-ir bekk-ir kettir vetr
    ACUS heim-a hin-a lækn-a fund-i bekk-i kött-u vetr
    DAT heim-um himn-um lækn-um fund-um bekk-jum kött-um vetr-um
    GEN heim-a himn-a lækn-a fund-a bekk-ja katt-a vetr-a


     


     

    Declinação forte dos substantivos femininos
      1ª declinação, gen. sing. e nom. pl. -ar. 2ª declinação, gen. sing. -ar, nom. pl. -ir. 3ª declinação, nom. pl. -r.
    Sing. NOM nál fit heið-r tíð höfn sól eik bók
    ACUS nál fit heið-i tíð höfn sól eik bók
    DAT nál fit heið-i tíð höfn sól-u eik bók
    GEN nál-ar fit-jar heið-ar tíð-ar hafnar sól-ar eik-ar bók-ar
    Plur. NOM nál-ar fit-jar heið-ar tíð-ir hafn-ir sól-ir eik-r bœk-r
    ACUS nál-ar fit-jar heið-ar tíð-ir hafn-ir sól-ir eik-r bœk-r
    DAT nál-um fit-jum heið-um tíð-um höfn-um sól-um eik-um bók-um
    GEN nál-a fit-ja heið-a tíð-a hafn-a sól-a eik-a bók-a


     


     

    Declinação forte dos substantivos neutros
      1ª declinação. 2ª declinação.
    Sing. NOM skip barn nes högg klæði ríki
    ACUS skip barn nes högg klæði ríki
    DAT skip-i barn-i nes-i högg-vi klæði ríki
    GEN skip-s barn-s nes-s högg-s klæði-s ríki-s
    Plur. NOM skip börn nes högg klæði ríki
    ACUS skip börn nes högg klæði ríki
    DAT skip-um börn-um nes-jum högg-um klæð-um rík-jum
    GEN skip-a barn-a nes-ja högg-va klæð-a rík-ja


     


     

    Substantivos fracos
      Masculino Feminino Neutro
    Sing NOM tím-i steð-i tung-a ald-a ell-i aug-a hjart-a
    ACUS tím-a steð-ja tung-u öld-u ell-i aug-a hjart-a
    DAT tím-a steð-ja tung-u öld-u ell-i aug-a hjart-a
    GEN tím-a steð-ja tung-u öld-u ell-i aug-a hjart-a
    Plur. NOM tím-ar steð-jar tung-ur öld-ur sem plural aug-u hjörtu
    ACUS tím-a steð-ja tung-ur öld-ur sem plural aug-u hjört-u
    DAT tím-um steð-jum tung-um öld-um sem plural aug-um hjört-um
    GEN tím-a steð-ja tung-na ald-a/ald-na sem plural aug-na hjart-na

    [editar] O artigo definido

    O artigo definido era posposto ao substantivo ao qual se refere, e não existia um artigo indefinido. Por exemplo, um braço é traduzido como armr. Já o braço, é traduzido como armrinn, ou seja, o radical armr mais o artigo sufixado hinn - que perde o h quando é juntado à palavra: armr + hinn = armrinn, nes + hit = nesit, bók + hin = bókin etc. A declinação do artigo definido é como segue:

      Masculino Feminino Neutro
    Caso Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
    Nominativo hinn hinir hin hinar hit hin
    Acusativo hinn hina hina hinar hit hin
    Dativo hinum hinum hinni hinum hinu hinum
    Genitivo hins hanna hinnar hinna hins hinna

    Além da forma sufixada, o artigo ocasionalmente pode aparecer como uma palavra independente, como acontece na maior parte das línguas atuais. Quando o substantivo determinado vem acompanhado de um adjetivo, o artigo aparece sozinho: ao invés de sterkr armrinn*, usa-se hinn sterkr armr (o braço forte). O artigo vem sufixado apenas se o adjetivo vier depois do substantivo: armrinn er sterkr (o braço é forte). Do mesmo modo, se não houver adjetivo, usa-se o artigo sufixado: maðrinn er at fara (o homem está indo).

    O artigo sempre declina junto com o substantivo que está determinando. Assim, temos landit er stórt (a terra é grande) no nominativo, onde landit é a junção de land (nominativo singular de terra) e hit (nominativo singular do artigo neutro); mas hann er á landinu (ele está na terra), onde landinu é a junção de landi (dativo singular de land) e hinu (dativo singular do artigo neutro) e, de modo semelhante, garðr landsins (a cidade do país), onde landsins é o genitivo do substantivo, lands, mais o genitivo do artigo neutro, hins.

    [editar] Fonologia

    [editar] Vogais

    As vogais geralmente vêm em pares, longas e curtas. A ortografia marca as vogais longas com um acento agudo. O valor fonético delas é mais ou menos o seguinte:

    Vogais do nórdico antigo.
      Vogais anteriores Vogais posteriores
    Não-arredondadas Arredondadas
    Fechadas i y u
    Médias ɛ œ øː o
    Médio-abertas         ɔ ɔː
    Abertas æ æː     ɒ ɒː

    Estes sons representam-se, na ortografia do nórdico antigo, deste modo:

    Vogal Valor fonético em AFI Vogal Valor fonético em AFI
    i [i] ø [ø]
    í [iː] œ [œː]
    y [y] o [ɔ]
    ý [yː] ó [oː]
    u [u] æ [ɛː]
    ú [uː] a [a]
    e [ɛ] á [aː], [ɑː]
    é [eː] ǫ [ɒ]

    [editar] Fontes