Passed February 28, 2015 Reviewed By Amber Cannon
Laura Fuller (Snow)
IE Myth 1
- List
and discuss the major primary sources for the mythology of three
Indo-European cultures, including their dates of origin and authorship (if
known). Discuss any important factors that may cause problems in
interpreting these sources, such as the existence of multiple revisions,
or the presence of Christian or other outside influences in surviving
texts. (minimum 300 words)
Norse: The major source for Norse myth is the Codex Regius, or the
Royal Book. It is thought to have been
written in approximately 1270. Written
on 45 vellum leaves, it contains what we today call the Poetic Edda and
contains 32 poems for which it is the only written source. Originally there were eight additional
leaves, which are now missing. It was
discovered by Brynjólfur Sveinsson, then
Bishop of Skálholt, who sent it as a present to King Frederick III of Denmark
in 1662, which is when it was given the name Royal Book (Codex Regius no. 2365) . Though
it was lost for approximately four centuries, clearly the work it contained was
familiar to at least the educated among the Icelanders as many of the stories
in it are woven into the Prose (sometimes called Younger or Snorri’s)
Edda. Written by Snorri Sturluson in
about 1220 CE, the Prose Edda, along with the Poetic Edda, compromise the bulk
of surviving Scandinavian mythology (Sturluson) . While Heathens recognize the debt we owe
Snorri in his weaving of the tales and his work in preserving the kennings and
other forms of skaldic poetry, one of the major critiques of the Edda is that
it was clearly Christianized, leaving some ambiguity as to what was actually
believed in some cases, and how much was given a Christian gloss. For example, in his Prose Edda and
Heimskringla, Snorri uses euphemism to suggest that the gods were in fact
Trojan heroes who traveled north and settled and started dynasties in
Scandinavia in order to make the mythology mesh with an acceptable political
and religious view at the time (Puhvel).
Greek: The primary sources comes from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey,
written around the 8th century BCE, and Hesiod’s Theogony written between the
8th – 7th century BCE though the stories themselves seem to date from around
1200 BCE (Stewart) . During the four or so centuries between when
the stories entered into the Greek consciousness to when they were written
down, there were obviously numerous revisions and adaptations. These adaptations came in three forms. Some were the normal changes to Indo-European
myth that one would expect as a culture matures. Puhvel calls these superstratal
(Indo-European Greek). Additionally in
the case of Greece, though, we see a significant amount of substratal influence
from the Aegean, Pelasgian, and Minoan cultures already in the area before the
Greeks settled there. This is most
evident in the relationship to the myth of Zeus’s birth and subsequent rearing
in order to free his siblings from their residence in Kronos’s belly. In addition to these two sets of influence,
Greece was also both on the seacoast and at a cross roads of civilization and
so we see a significant amount of adstratal influence in the constant contact
and cultural seepage from Asia Minor and parts further east (Puhvel 127) .
Slavic/Baltic: In Comparative Mythology, Puhvel lumps
Baltic and Slavic into the same category for mythological comparison and with
my relative lack of familiarity with the differences between them, it is hard
for me to pick apart the differences in his presentation. His reasoning for this seems to be historical
migration pattern where the Slavs migrated through the Balts territory all the
way to Greece and became “Europeanized” in the sixth century while still having
roots in what later became Bohemia (Puhvel 229). Regardless, there is no primary source
material because neither group were literate before the coming of Christianity
(eighth century for the Slavs and not until the early fifteenth century in
Lithuania), instead embracing an oral tradition much like the Gaulish
Celts. It was through Orthodox
Christianity that writing came to the area, and then what writing was done
about local religious tradition was done from the perspective of horror at the
practices being done by the pagan peasantry, the opposite of an attempt to
preserve the traditions. What this means
is that we have no clean copies of the myths or even the pantheons of the Balts
or Slavs, but instead stories of demon-worship, snake handling, and goat
sacrifice that we are left trying to untangle.
What we do have are folktales in the form of songs, many Christianized,
that give us glimpses of the rich pagan practice we know lived on in the region
(Puhvel 228).
2)
Summarize, then compare and contrast the
myths of at least two Indo-European cultures with respect to the following
topics (you need not use the same two cultures as a basis of comparison for
each topic): (minimum 300 words for each)
tales of creation
Norse
creation myth has two parts, as told in the Eddic poem Voluspa. First, there is a
pre-scientific version of the Big Bang Theory, where the fires of Muspelheim
flow into the empty void of Ginnungagap, where they meet with the rime from
Niflheim leading to an explosion and the formation of ice. Next Audumla licked the salty ice and freed
Ymir from its depths. Ymir was a
hermaphrodite and his body spawned progeny, who gave birth to Odin and his
brothers Vili and Ve. Eventually, the
three brothers killed Ymir and dismembered his body, using the various parts to
create the world (Sturluson).
Greek
myth also begins with nothing, although they call it Chaos. Out of Chaos appeared Erebus and Nyx. Next emerged Eros, who brought about the
beginnings of order in the form of Light.
Gaea followed Light and gave birth to the Uranus, the sky, who became
her husband and with him she began to give birth to various parts of the world (Hesiod) .
Both of
these cultural myths describe the beginning of the world coming out of
nothingness and chaos and show the role of the gods (at least one god in each
case) in ordering the chaos. Erebus,
like Ymir, were born from the things happening in the chaos and had a role in
producing the gods that would eventually bring order to the chaos.
There
are many differences, though. Where the
Norse dismember the first being to create the various parts of the world, the
Greeks have divine procreation to create them.
The Greeks personify the earth in Gaea directly in their myth; but while
there is a Norse concept of earth goddesses, such as Jord and Hertha, none of
the surviving Norse myths directly equate them or any other goddess to the
entire planet Earth even though the name Hertha is a cognate for Earth.
The
Greeks have two other creation myths as well.
The first comes from Homer. He
refers to Okeanos as ‘the origin of the gods’.
Okeanos was a river-god whose river flowed around the perimeter of the
world, and according to Homer, everything flowed out from his river. His river was circular, and flowed back into
itself. When Zeus defeated Kronos, he
allowed Okeanos to remain in place.
Associated with Okeanos is Tethys, his lover. In The Gods of the Greeks, Kerenyi points out
that a male stream alone is infertile, and so Tethys was the original mother
who gave birth, and her children with Okeanos were what was carried out in his
river. Homer gave the couple’s quarrels
as the reason creation stopped, but that this is a good thing because if they
had not stopped, the world would have no stability. Kerenyi also believes that this tale predates
the Greeks in the area. Even if that is
that case, and this myth is part of the substrata of the Greek lands, the idea
of the boundary waters supports the idea of the Waters of Life and the circular
notion of giving and getting that we embrace in ADF.
Kerenyi
also discusses the last of the Greek creation myths as passed down by the
disciples of Orpheus. According to this
story, in the beginning was Night who had the form of a bird with black
wings. Night conceived with the Wind and
laid a silver egg in the lap of Darkness.
From the egg emerged Eros, the god of love with golden wings. With his light he revealed everything else
which had been hidden in the silver egg, which was the entire world. Above was the Sky, below was the Rest. In another version, the earth laid in the
bottom of the egg and she married the sky, which was the work of Eros who
brought them together in love. The two
produced two children, Okeanos and Tethys (Kerenyi) . Neither of these last two myths have much
resonance with the myths of the Norse beyond the concept of the boundary
waters.
tales of divine war
Norse myth has two
Divine Wars. The first, which comes
early in the myth cycle, was fought between two ‘tribes’ of Gods, the Aesir and
the Vanir. The second, which is the
close of the cycle, is fought between the Gods and the Giants who are primal
forces intent on destroying the world.
Surprisingly,
given the cultural interest in the epic battles of heroes, there is no epic
retelling of the battles of the war between the Aesir and Vanir itself. In fact, we aren’t entirely sure what caused
the war, although most commonly it is believed to have started with the burning
of Gullveig by the Aesir (Lindow) . Regardless of how it started, the telling of
the war story is contained in one stanza of Voluspa where the dead seeress tells
how the Vanir were ‘trampling the plain’ and ‘breaking the wall of the Aesir’s
stronghold’ until Odin hurled a spear over the field, which broke their advance
(Orchard) . This first war ended with an exchange of
hostages. The Aesir sent Mimir and
Hoenir to the Vanir in exchange for Njord and Kvasir. Additionally, Njord brings his son and
daughter, who are called Frey and Freya, with him. One possibility for this story is that it
tells of the gods of the Indo-European people besting the gods of those already
in the area when they settled (Lindow) .
Norse lore has a
second divine war called Ragnarok, or the Doom of the Gods. Also prophesied in Voluspa, although most of
the details are recorded in Snorri’s Younger Edda, Ragnarok is the epic battle
between the gods and the forces of Chaos.
In it, many of the gods die along with the enemies of Order, but once
the world is destroyed, Baldr returns from the dead to begin the next cycle of
life in a world now purified of these forces of Chaos (Sturluson) .
The Greeks also
have divine war between two ‘tribes’ of gods: the Olympians and the
Titans. The story, again from in
Theogony, speaks of how the Titans were children of Gaea and Ouranos and came
first. They were ruled by Kronos who was
married to Rhea, who gave birth to the Olympians. Kronos ate his children because he was afraid
of them becoming powerful enough to over throw him. Zeus was saved from this fate by his mother,
who substituted a rock and had him raised in secret. When he was old enough, he poisoned his
father into vomiting up his siblings who joined him in war to overthrow the
Titans and rule the cosmos themselves.
Though the lines
were not clearly defined between the Titans and the Olympians, as several
Titans sided with Zeus, this story is about regime change, not unlike the story
of the war between the Aesir and Vanir, with the more primal gods (the Vanir
and the Titans) being replaced by the newer tribe.
tales which describe the fate of the dead
Both
Norse and Greek lore have stories about the fate of the dead. Both cultures believed that the dead went to
a separate realm that existed beneath the world of men, although heroes in both
cultures seemed to be able to win an exception to that fate.
The
Norse believed that the dead went to Helheim, or the home of the Goddess
Hel. Helheim is listed in Grimnismal (a
saga of the Poetic Edda) as existing under one of the roots of the world tree (Orchard) , which is fitting
when we consider the relationship Germanic peoples had with their
ancestors. If the world tree connects
the realms and acts as a gateway, then understanding that the dead are on
another connected plain but still close to us makes sense. In addition to Hel’s hall, there was another
part of the realm, Niflhel or Misty Hel, where outcasts were sent. It was said to be cold and misty, a place of
never ending winter. Snorri’s depiction
of the afterlife seems to be one of the places he was most influenced by
Christian teachings. His rendering the
realm of the dead as a land of horror is unique to the other surviving pieces
of lore, and seems to be an attempt on his part to reconcile the lore with
Christian teachings (Ellis-Davidson) .
This idea that Hel is a place of torment is at odds with the fact that
Baldr went to Helheim after he was killed by Loki’s trickery. Baldr, who was considered the most handsome
and best of the gods, universally loved, has the kenning Hel’s Companion. In chapter five of Skaldskaparmal, Baldr’s
brother Hermodr travels to Hel to ask the goddess to release Baldr, and he
finds his brother seated at her table enjoying a feast. This gives rise to the view most Germanic
Pagans today have of Hel as the abode of our ancestors rather than a dreary
place of suffering.
There
is a second possible ending for the dead in Norse lore. According to Grimnismal, Freya receives half
of the warriors slain in battle and Odin gets the other half. Odin’s half become the Einherjar, who fight
every day to the death, then rise again to feast and drink and do it all over. They are his forces that fight with him at
Ragnarok. It is unclear what Freya does
with her half of the battle dead.
The
Greeks also had the realm of their dead below the realm of mankind in their
cosmology. Their underworld was ruled by
Hades, brother of Zeus and Olympian.
Like Hel, there are different parts of the Greek underworld. Tartarus, where the Titans were imprisoned,
is seen as the destination of those needing punishment in the afterlife whereas
those who were deserving of reward went to the Elysium Fields (Hesiod) . A very special few mortals were either
brought to Olympus by the gods, such as Hercules, or immortalized in the stars,
such as Cassiopeia.
There is at least one story in both sets of
lore that tell of someone trying to win back a soul from the underworld. The Norse had the story of Baldr, where Hel
would only allow him to leave on the condition that all of creation cried for
him. The Greeks had the story of
Orpheus, who made his way into Hades and tried to bargain for the return of his
wife, Eurydice. He was given the chance
to bring her back so long as he did not look at her until they reached the
realm of men. In both stories, the
bargain was unfulfilled and the soul one who was greatly loved was kept in the
underworld.
3) Explain how
each of the following elements of ADF ritual does or does not resonate with
elements of two different Indo-European cultures (you need not use the same two
cultures as a basis of comparison for each element): (minimum
100 words for each)
Earth Mother
The
Greeks had a very clearly defined Earth Mother in the figure of Gaea. Gaea was seen as the supporting earth and
land, born out of Chaos and thus a Protogenos, or primal deity. She was understood to be one of the aspects
of creation, since she birthed the heavens, the Titans, and many of the other
gods (Theoi) .
The
Norse, on the other hand, did not have a concept of the Earth as the embodiment
of a goddess. While there were goddesses
such as Jord whose names were cognate for Earth (Simek)
none of them took on the role of the divine creator of life the way the way
Gaea did for the Greeks. Instead, the
Norse saw the Earth as the dismembered parts of Ymir. Because of this, the idea of honoring the
Earth Mother does not really resonate with a Norse Hearth. However, honoring the Earth itself does.
In
his work Germania, Tacitus makes mention of a specific fertility goddess
worshipped among some of the northern tribes named Nerthus. Nerthus is a somewhat problematic deity as
she is not mentioned in any of the surviving Lore and there is some discussion
as to whether her name is in fact a feminized version of Njord, a sea god, as
Nerthus is what the feminized, Latinized version would have most likely been. There is discussion as to whether she was
Njord’s sister, or if there were implications of Njord changing genders among
some tribe (Lindow) . However, as reported by Tacitus, Nerthus was
a fertility goddess who was honored by a procession through the lands where her
statue was covered in a cart drawn by oxen.
During the time of her feast, wars were anathema and no one was allowed
to bear arms in her presence. At the end
of the procession, her statue was washed in her sacred lake by slaves, who were
then drowned along with the oxen (Tacitus) . Tacitus in his work calls her the Earth
Mother, however many heathens believe this to be his view of her role based on
his own Latin culture and not a reflection of the views of the tribes he was
describing. Even so, many of us honor
Her on Earth Day, and in my personal practice, my compost pile is her altar
where I make offerings to enrich her future bounty.
Deities of Land
Deities
of the land are those who are in some way tied to the land and its
fertility. In that sense, there are
deities in both the Greek and Norse pantheons who would qualify.
Among
the Greek deities, Demeter who is patron of Agriculture and is most closely
tied to the wellbeing of mankind because of her role in providing
sustenance. She is seen as causing the
seasons because of her grief over the abduction of her daughter, and a good
harvest was dependent on her good will (Theoi) . However the Greeks also had deities that were
tied to the land in the wild places.
Some examples of this would be Artemis the Huntress and Pan the god of
Shepherds and Flocks.
The
Norse had similar sorts of deities to the Greeks. Skadi the Huntress dwells in wild lands,
taking game and enjoying outdoor pursuits much like Artemis. Sif, the wife of Thor, was known for her
wheat-gold hair and was a goddess of agriculture and the fields not unlike
Demeter. And Freyr was seen as a
sexually potent god tied to the fertility of the land, much like Pan.
Deities of Sea
Both
the Norse and the Greeks had sea deities as well. Njord was seen as a wealthy god, likely
because the Norse associated the sea with commerce and raiding which one of
their main sources of wealth. He was
said to have the powers of calming the waves and lives in Noatun, which
translates as Ship Yard. The main Norse
sea deity, though, is Ran, a goddess.
She has a net that she uses to capture and drown sailors, and she and
her husband Aegir, have nine daughters who are the waves and collectively are
Heimdal’s mother (Sturluson) .
The
Greeks’ main sea deity was Poseidon.
Zeus and his brothers won the war against the Titans, they each took
rule of a realm and Poseidon was given the sea.
He was offered prayers by sailors for safety since he was seen as
controlling sea storms (Theoi) .
Deities of Sky
The
Greeks considered Zeus the foremost of the Sky Deities, although since the
Olympians dwelled on Olympus, they all technically dwelled in the upper realms
of the cosmology. Zeus was the King of
Olympus and the wielder of the Thunderbolt which was made for him by the
Cyclopes in their forges for his war against Cronos (Theoi) . He had powers over the storm and his name is
a direct cognate to other sky deities in other pantheons (Serith) .
For
the Norse, the function of the Proto-Indo-European Sky God Dyues Pter was split
into two beings (Serith) . Thor was the Thunderer, but he was never the
King of the Gods. Tyr held that role
before he was transferred at some unknown point to Odin. Even so, Tyr retained some of the functions
of sovereignty (as well as the name cognate to the PIE god) and his association
with the North Star. Thor, on the other
hand, was seen as wielding Mjolnir, made by the dwarves and given him by Loki
as compensation for cutting Thor’s wife’s hair.
Outsiders
The
Norse had a very clear understanding of the Outdwellers in that they were the
forces of Chaos that were in direct opposition to the gods who would one day
take the field against the gods in Ragnarok.
They saw these beings in the long winter cold and named them Jotuns, or
Ice Giants. Thor was tasked with protecting
Midgard, the realm of men, and Asgard, the abode of the gods, from the
Jotuns. That said, not all Jotuns were
bad. Many in fact married into the
‘tribe’ of the gods including Skadi who married Njord and Gerd who marries
Frey. Loki is an ice giant, and so,
technically, is Odin. Therefore, the
concept of Outdwellers is less about blood, but more about affiliation for the
Norse (Sturluson) (Lindow) .
The
Greeks didn’t really have a group that was the Outsiders. The closest would probably be the Titans
because they had actively opposed the Olympian gods, however with the end of
that war and the Titans defeat, they ceased to be an active threat to the
Olympian rule. There was no group that
allied with Chaos in an attempt to bring about the end of the world in Greek
myth, so this is a role that isn’t filled.
Nature Spirits
Norse
religion tended to be highly focused on spirits of the land, or
landvaettir. This is because most Norse
were farmers, no matter how much they may have raided. While the gods were involved in international
politics, the landvaettir were concerned with the local landscape and its
health. If crops were to do well, it was
because of the blessings of the wights, and if they failed or the game fled, it
was also because of the wights (Gundarsson) .
The
Greeks took working with nature spirits a step further, creating in essence and
entire pantheon of nature spirits defined by where they lived. Nymphs, as these lesser goddesses were
called, were further broken down by what sort of plant or location they
inhabited. For example, Dryads lived in
trees, while Naiads lived in various sources of fresh water (Theoi) . The Satyrs were male nature spirits
associated with fertility in the wilderness and the countryside (Theoi) .
Ancestors
The
Greeks honored their ancestors, in fact the Greeks celebrated Genesios, a
festival to honor the dead (Parke) .
Stories honoring their ancestors were shared and offerings made to them. In several of the epics, heroes consult their
dead ancestors for guidance such as when Odysseus goes to meet Tiresias (Homer) .
The
ancestor were equally important to the Norse.
One of the folk beliefs seems to be that ancestors, especially male
ancestors, died into the grave mound and became one with the land that they had
worked, bled for, and sweated on (Gundarsson) . Female ancestors were honored especially on
the first night of Yule, called Mother’s Night.
4) Discuss how the following seven elements of ADF's
cosmology are (or are not) reflected in the myths of two different
Indo-European cultures. For this question, please use the same two cultures as
a basis of comparison for the entire question. (minimum 100 words each)
Upperworld
Both
the Greeks and the Norse had an Upperworld, and in ADF we approach this upper
world in prayer and devotionals that ask for the gods’ wisdom and guidance.
For the Greeks,
this Upperworld was Mt. Olympus, the home of the Olympian gods. Mt. Olympus was seen as being a connection
between the gods and man, but one that men could (probably) not climb. In the modern era, its highest peak was not
climbed until 1913. As the highest
mountain in Greece and the second highest in the Balkans, Mt. Olympus is was a
part of the earth that was inaccessible to man. That made it an ideal setting
for the stories of the gods who came to Earth and interacted with man, then
returned home to the sky.
The Norse divide
the Upperworld into three realms. Asgard
is the home of the Aesir, Vanaheim, the home of the Vanir, and Alfheim, the
land of the elves. To reach Midgard, the
gods travel across Bifrost, the rainbow bridge, which is guarded by Heimdall (Orchard) . Unlike the Greeks, the Norse did not have a
real world location for where they imagined their gods dwelling place.
Middleworld
The
Middleworld for both the Greeks and the Norse was the land of men, the physical
plain of existence. In ADF we also
consider it the land of the land spirits who inhabit our environment (both
inside and outside).
For
the Norse, the Middleworld was again divided into three parts. Midgard was the realm of men. It was surrounded by the ocean that contained
the world serpent, Jormungand, a child of Loki who was destined to fight Thor
at Ragnarok. There is some disagreement
as to which of the rest of the realms are located in the Middleworld. The Norse generally considered Niflheim, the
realm of mists, to be located to the North, although some maps of Norse
Cosmology place it in the Underworld.
Niflheim was located over Hel, and held the entrance to the land of the
dead. In the South was Muspelheim, the
land of fire that was inhabited by Surt, who will lead the enemies of the Gods
to Ragnarok. Jotunheim was also on the
level of Midgard and was the home of the Frost Giants who were the primary
enemies of the gods (Orchard) .
The
Greeks saw the Middleworld as encircled by water, too, although for them it was
in the form of a river called Okeanos, not an ocean (Hesiod) . The Greek Middleworld was less defined than
the Norse. The saw the world as the
embodiment of Gaea surrounded by her husband the Sky. Because of this, there was some overlap
between the concept of Upperworld and Middleworld since the gods lived in the
Upperworld of the Heavens, but still below the dome of the sky.
Divisions Of Middleworld
As discussed in
the previous section, the Norse divided the Middleworld into different
parts. Which parts are in the
Middleworld vary slightly based on source.
Generally though, the Middleworld, consisted of Midgard, the realm of
men, and then the realm of fire (Muspelheim) to the South and Niflheim or the
land of mists to the North. This played
a role in the creation story, since the fire of Muspelheim and the misty rime
from Niflheim flowed together into Ginnungagap to create building blocks of
salt and ice for the beginning of the world and the ordering and filling of the
void. Some also include Jotunheim in the
Middleworld, since the Giants were constantly threatening the world with
destruction (Crossley-Holland) .
The Greeks didn’t
really divide their Middleworld.
Certainly not to the extent the Norse did. All of the land was seen as part of Gaea, and
was surrounded by the river Okeanos. The
sky was personified by Gaea’s son/husband Ouranos, and was a dome that
completely covered the earth, touching her on all sides (Hesiod) . Because of this, we could potentially make
the argument that the Greeks divided the Middleworld into Earth, Sea, and Sky,
however that confuses the mapping issue of the entire cosmology.
Nether/Underworld
The
Underworld is the Land of the Dead. In
ADF, the Underworld is where we go to interact with the Ancestors. The Norse and Greek underworlds have some
interesting parallels, the most striking of which are that they are both
guarded by a dog (Garm for the Norse, Cerberus for the Greeks) and the entrance
for both is said to lie in the North.
In Norse mythology
the Underworld is again divided into parts.
The first of these divisions is Hel, the land of the dead which lies
directly below Niflheim. Hel is the
final destination for most people, named for the Goddess who rules the land of
the dead. Snorri describes it in fairly
morbid terms, but most scholars agree with Ellis-Davidson’s points that this
was due to Christian influences (Ellis-Davidson) .
There is a special section of Hel called Niflhel that is reserved for
evildoers. Also part of the Underworld
is Svartalfheim, the land of the dwarves, properly translated as Dark
Elves. Some sources place also place
Niflheim in the Underworld, but as discussed in the section on the Middleworld,
the cosmology makes more sense if that is part of the Middleworld.
The Greek underworld
is ruled by Hades. During part of the
year, he is joined by Persephone as his queen, which causes her mother Demeter
distress and plummets the world into winter.
The Underworld is divided into Tartarus, a land of punishment, and the
Elysium Fields where those who earned a pleasant afterlife are sent (Hesiod) .
Fire
In ADF we see Fire
as a gate between the worlds.
Specifically, it is the flame that transforms our offerings into smoke
that rises to the Upperworld where the gods dwell.
Fire was as
important to the Greeks as it is to ADF.
Again, it was the way that sacrifices were transformed and carried to
the gods, especially the smoke from animal sacrifices. Fire was sacred to Hestia, who was the
goddess of the hearth, tending the fires in the hearth on Mt. Olympus. Because she was the goddess of the
sacrificial flame, she received a part of every sacrifice to the gods (Theoi) . Fire was given to Man by one of the Titans,
Prometheus, who stole the flame from Olympus (Theoi)
The Norse used
fire slightly differently. Though they
burned sacrifices, there were other ways of setting apart the Gods’ portion
than just burning it. Still, some
sacrifices were burned among the Norse.
One of the main uses for fire in a ceremonial context was in funeral
rites. The gods themselves built a pyre
for Baldr when he was killed (Orchard) , and one of the few
surviving texts describing the eyewitness account of Ibn Fadlan (Sessrumnir
Kindred)
of a funeral for a Northman gives details about the arrangement of man, goods,
and slaves to be burned to send him on his journey to the next world
Well
In
ADF, we see the well as the gateway to the realms of the ancestors. This is a concept that resonates very clearly
with the Norse. The Norse had three wells
in their Lore, each located under one of the roots of the world tree
Yggdrassil. The first is the well of
Mimir, or memory. This is the well that
Odin sacrifices an eye to in order to gain knowledge. The second well is the well of Urd, or
Wyrd. This is the well where the Norns gather. They use the water of the well of wyrd to
water the world tree. In doing so, they
use the wyrd of those who have gone before to nurture the tree, which in turn
drops its leaves and fruit into the well showing the interconnection of not
just life, but all of our actions in the great cycle. The final well is the Hvergelmir. This is the well that is the headwaters for
the eleven rivers that make up the Elgavir.
Additionally, this is where Nidhogg, the serpent that causes distress to
the world tree, lives (Orchard) .
The Greeks didn’t
have a well as such, however they did have a similar relationship with
water. Okeanos was the river that
surrounded the land (Hesiod) ,
and all of the other rivers got their water from it, not unlike the way the
Norse saw Hvergelmir. In Greek myth, the
underworld is reached by way of the River Styx, so the concept of traveling
through underground waters to reach the realm of the dead is also
consistent. The River Styx becomes the
gate by which the Ancestors are reached, and offerings to the well, in the form
of the coin needed to pay the ferryman Charon could be seen as the offerings
made to the dead.
Tree
ADF
uses the Tree as the connection between the realms, or the axis mundi, allowing
us to reach all of the realms in ritual.
This is very clearly aligned with Norse cosmology in which Yggdrassil,
the world tree, holds each of the realms in its being. Further, it plays a central role as the
structure of the universe. The Lore
tells that it grows brittle unless it is watered by the Norns at the Well of
Wyrd and covered with clay to protect it from the serpent of chaos that gnaws
at its roots (Orchard) . It shows the balance between Chaos and Cosmos
that was inherent in the Indo-European view of the cosmos (Newberg) .
The Greeks did
not have the concept of the world tree, and the tree as the structure of the
universe does not resonate with Greek myth.
What they did have was the Omphalos, or the navel of the world. It was created
by Zeus, who sent two eagles to fly in opposite directions around the
world. Where they met was said to be the
center (Newberg) . Zeus placed the Omphalos there. The Omphalos was the stone that Cronos was
given to swallow instead of the baby Zeus.
The Omphalos is at Delphi, which became the home of the Oracle of Delphi
because this center of the world was considered to be a place where
communication between the gods and man could occur (Jones) .
5)
To what extent do you think we can offer
conjectures about Indo-European myths in general? Are the common themes strong
enough that the myths seem like variations? Or are the differences so powerful
that the themes are less important than the cultural variations? (minimum 300
words)
For the purpose of these exit standards, I
have focused on only two cultures’ myths: the Greeks and the Norse. Even in only comparing the two, I found that
there were surprising numbers of similarities between the myths of the two
cultures. Many more than I had initially
expected. I think that’s because when I
am reading the myths as literature or even as inspiration for ritual, I get
caught in the cultural specifics, not in the universal themes beneath
them. I don’t know that I would go so
far as to say that they seem like variations, but rather that there are themes
that have survived through time in each culture.
For example, the idea of the world tree is
one of the primary parts of Norse lore but non-existent in the Greek. Looking at it on the surface, this would seem
as if it wasn’t a universal theme in IE myth at all. However, if we take a step back from the
concrete idea of a Tree, and instead look at the idea of a physical center to
the cosmos, then we find an idea that is easier to align throughout the IE
mythologies. Another example of this is
the idea of the Earth Mother. While the
Slavic pantheon has kept even the name the Moist Earth Mother and held onto a
fierce veneration of Her, the concept is lacking entirely from the Norse and
the Greeks have an incarnate Earth, but don’t necessarily venerate and
sacrifice to her.
The approach that we take in these
situations says a lot about ADF as a pan-IE organization. Accepting that not everything will fit
perfectly, and giving us the ability to make adjustments to our rite and
rituals allows us the flexibility to embrace the parts of the core order that
mesh well, and make allowances for the parts that don’t.
That said, there is a lot that can be
learned from the differences. They can
tell us things about when cultural differences emerged in the course of the
Indo-European migration out of the homeland.
They can give us clues as to where the homeland even was. They can tell us things about the original
culture, based on where the differences occur.
Taking this comparative view gives a
certain depth that straight reconstruction can lack. An instance of this for me was in discussing
the Moon. The difference between why the
Germanic peoples see the moon as male while the Greeks and Romans see the moon
as female always baffled me. Somehow,
the difference explanation of the sun in hot climates was brutal where as it
was seen as nurturing in northern colder climates never made sense. But talking about a Mediterranean substrate
of culture that likely influenced the change from male to female makes perfect
sense (Puhvel) .
There are two final points about this I wish
to add. The first is the cliché that the
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Particularly for the Indo-European cultures that were pre-literate, it
is important to remember that some things were sadly lost. That does not mean they never existed. This isn’t an excuse to do random things,
rather it is a way to ground a recreation of what was lost. If neighboring Indo-European cultures had
something that there is no evidence for, it stands to reason that something
could be approximated for it to fill the gap.
Similarly, when we have evidence for
obvious post-pagan changes, such as the way Snorri discusses the realms of the
dead, having proximate cultures to draw material from allows us to try and weed
out some of the encroachment and get closer to what our ancestors likely
actually believed. While this has to be
done very, very carefully, comparative analysis is a useful tool.
Overall,
I feel that the similarities outweigh the differences. There is clear evidence for a broader basis
than the culturally specific myths that we have to draw on. Cross cultural analysis is a useful tool so
long as we don’t take it too far and instead wipe out the differences that give
life to the stories.
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