Loki..

[Lyfing]

Last night I had a bunch of bad dreams, and I woke up thinking about Loki. I think there is some connection there.

Loki is maybe the most controversial god/giant there is in the Norse Mythology. And, there are many takes on the matter. Here are some of them..

Starting with the Odinic-Rite’s May Loki Be Bound Part I (http://odinic-rite.org/May%20Loki%20Be%20Bound.html), II (http://odinic-rite.org/May%20Loki%20Be%20Bound,part%202.html), and III (http://odinic-rite.org/May%20Loki%20Be%20Bound,part%203.html)..


This article began with a contemplation of Balder and the significance of Loki in the Balder myths and so it is to this we return at the close. As detailed in an earlier article in ORB, at the level of meaning we are dealing with here, Balder is representative of humanity and the individual and the destiny of each individual. In the myths, Balder, the most beloved child of the Gods, is troubled by dreams of ill omen and death. At this level, these are symbolic of the fears and desires we experience due to illusion and which hold back our evolution. Frigga, the force of Divine Love, attempts to protect Balder from these harms, but it is only by our own overcoming that we truly can defeat these things. But it is this divine love which will seek to draw us on our way upwards. Loki guides Hother (Balder's brother) to commit the slaying of Balder. Hother is depicted as being ``blind`` and is symbolic of the blindness of the little ego. With no intent of harm, the blind ego is guided by illusion to do most harmful things. In a state of ``blindness` to Odin consciousness, even with no intended malice, illusion still leads to harm. Thus slain, Balder must dwell in Hel until the final overcoming of Loki and his forces of negativity at Ragnarok (the attainment of higher awareness). Once this has occurred, Balder is ``free`` and reruns in splendour, Hother too is restored to sight (that is, the blindness of illusion is gone). But until Loki is defeated, this cannot be achieved. So with us, until Loki is defeated and bound, we are unable to progress to Odin Consciousness, which is our destiny.

Part I


Now that is what I thought about when I woke up, of course. But, I’ve thought about Loki a lot and there are some more things I’d like to hear some thoughts on..?



Clearly then you will see why Loki is not honoured by the Odinic Rite, the Rite are not deceived into seeing him as a prankster who just went too far. We do not in any way seek to toast, honour or `laugh` with this entity. Within ourselves, within our community, within all levels of reality we strive to bind Loki.

We seek to evolve, we seek the evolution of our folk organism, we seek an attainment of higher consciousness and folk consciousness.... we must therefore strive at all times to bind Loki within and without.

Part I

There is another writing with stands in opposition to the above notion. It’s called Loki: Friend of Othinn. It’s on the Northvegr site which ain’t working right now..


Conclusions

No matter where a person comes down as to what Loki's role is in the Northern Lore, I think it is safe to say that his role is enigmatic in way that he would possibly be pleased with. I believe that I have shown at least the possibility that he was in early lore before the coming of Christianity, more a mischievous figure whose actions ultimately brought the Aesir great benefit although at first they may have seemed negative in nature. But that is indeed the way of Loki, taking disaster and making something beneficial from it. It is likely in my opinion that as the Christian conversion got under way that Loki's character gradually began to be blackened by Christian scribes with an agenda until we come to Snorri and Lokasenna and Loki's demonization. I think also that Loki's binding and his involvement in Baldr's murder could have been late additions. I likewise think that when one takes into account the evidence from Folklore that Loki's connection with fire is a real possibility. I have always thought the nature of fire as an apt representative of Loki's nature, that is just as apt to be helpful or cause problems.

So no matter what the reader's own opinions on Loki are, I hope that I have increased their knowledge of this most enigmatic of the Aesir and have given the reader a few things to consider about Loki. Whether or not the reader would agree with me and call Loki, a friend of the Aesir or if they would call him enemy of the Aesir, there is one thing that cannot be denied and that is that the Lore, and indeed, the Aesir, would not be the same without Loki.

To honour or not to honour..??

Now here is a notion that Joseph Campbell came up with that I would like to present. I think there may be much to this one..? I first said something about it in this thread (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1105)..

In a nutshell it could go like..Loki is the trickster who brought the fire. He is of the order of the shamans of individuality, those that held the individual capable of magic themselves, of the hunters. Not of those who worshiped the rounds of the seasons and were subject to them. Who with their coming bound them ( the individuals ) with order, and as the story goes..will come unbound when the order disintegrates..and round and round we go.

Joseph Campbell was all about individualism..


3. The Social Prospect. Campbell somewhat ominously defines this function of myth-telling as "the validation and maintenance of an established order." (p. 621) As I put it more positively above, it can also be seen as wisdom-rich models for social behavior. Parables embedded with morals attempt to teach us how we should behave -- what is model behavior and what is unacceptable.

Wary of authorities casting unfair judgment on the innocent, as has happened in many a culture as reinforced by mythological belief systems, Campbell chooses here to quote John Dewey, who suggests that an individual's real experience should guide their behavior more than any handed-down social rules: "A philosophy of experience will accept at its full value the fact that social and moral existences are, like physical existences, in a state of continuous if obscure change. It will not try to cover up the fact of inevitable modification, and will make no attempt to set fixed limits to the extent of changes that are to occur." "In sum," Campbell writes, "the individual is now on his own."

Campbell also cites Nietzsche to elaborate on the dillemma, for those who would ditch their mythological stories, of having no supernatural guide in life. Nietzsche said that without God (or someone claiming to know God's mind) telling us what to do, people in the habit of being morally commanded will look to a new authority figure in their own conscience, or reason, or social instinct (the herd), or sense of history, or happiness. Instead of such following, Nietzsche suggests leading oneself as an individual -- a "Superman.". This he calls "Will in its highest sense ... in Absolute Mistrust of the Organizational Force of the Will-to-be-a-Whole."

Leaving it at that, Campbell really seems to distrust the social function of mythology -- except perhaps for any new myths encouraging extreme individualism.

http://drake.marin.k12.ca.us/staff/doherty/fourfunctionsmythology.html

With that in mind..


The highest concern of all the mythologies, ceremonials, ethical
systems, and social organizations of the agriculturally based societies
has been that of suppressing the manifestations of individualism;
and this has been generally achieved by compelling or
persuading people to identify themselves not with their own interests,
intuitions, or modes of experience, but with the archetypes
of behavior and systems of sentiment developed and maintained in
the public domain. A world vision derived from the lesson of the
plants, representing the individual as a mere cell or moment in a
larger process that of the sib, the race, or, in larger terms, the
species so devaluates even the first signs of personal spontaneity
that every impulse to self-discovery is purged away. 'Truly, truly,
I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." n This noble
maxim represents the binding sentiment of the holy society that
is to say, the church militant, suffering, and triumphant of those
who do not wish to remain alone.

But, on the other hand, there have always been those who have
very much wished to remain alone, and have done so, achieving
sometimes, indeed, even that solitude in which the Great Spirit, the
Power, the Great Mystery that is hidden from the group in its
concerns is intuited with the inner impact of an immediate force.
And the endless round of the serpent's way, biting its tail, sloughing
its old skin, to come forth renewed and slough again, is then
itself cast away often with scorn for the supernormal experience
of an eternity beyond the beat of time. Like an eagle the spirit
then soars on its own wings. The dragon "Thou Shalt," as Nietzsche
terms the social fiction of the moral law, has been slain by the
lion of self-discovery; and the master roars as the Buddhists
phrase it the lion roar: the roar of the great Shaman of the mountain
peaks, of the void beyond all horizons, and of the bottomless
abyss.

Primitive Mythology, page 240

When these two clashed..Loki was bound..


I do not know of any myth that represents more clearly than
this the crisis that must have faced the societies of the Old World
when the neolithic order of the earth-bound villages began to make
its power felt in a gradual conquest of the most habitable portions
of the earth. The situation in Arizona and New Mexico at the
period of the discovery of America was, culturally, much like that
which must have prevailed in the Near and Middle East and in
Europe from the fourth to second millenniums B.C., when the rigid
patterns proper to an orderly settlement were being imposed on
peoples used to the freedom and vicissitudes of the hunt. And if
we turn our eyes to the mythologies of the Hindus, Persians,
Greeks, Celts, and Germans, we immediately recognize, in the
well-known, oft-recited tales of the conquest of the titans by the
gods, analogies to this legend of the subjugation of the shamans
by the Hactcin. The titans, dwarfs, and giants are represented as
the powers of an earlier mythological age crude and loutish, egoistic
and lawless, in contrast to the comely gods, whose reign of
heavenly order harmoniously governs the worlds of nature and
man. The giants were overthrown, pinned beneath mountains,
exiled to the rugged regions at the bounds of the earth, and as
long as the power of the gods can keep them there the people, the
animals, the birds, and all living things will know the blessings of
a world ruled by law.

Primitive Mythology, pages 238-239

But now “God is dead”..does that also mean Odin the Allfather is dead..? Or, is going to die..? And what of the next round..?


The prophecy is the same as that of the Eddic Twilight of the
Gods, when Loki will lead forth the rugged hosts of Hel:

Then shall happen what seems great tidings: the Wolf
shall swallow the sun; and this shall seem to men a great
harm. Then the other wolf shall seize the moon, and he also
shall work great ruin; the stars shall vanish from the heavens.
Then shall come to pass these tidings also: all the earth shall
tremble so, and the crags, that trees shall be torn up from
the earth, and the crags fall to ruin; and all fetters and bonds
shall be broken and rent. . . . The Fenris-Wolf shall advance
with gaping mouth, and his lower jaw shall be against
the earth, but the upper against heaven, he would gape yet
more if there were room for it; fires blaze forth from his eyes
and nostrils. The Midgard Serpent shall blow venom so that
he shall sprinkle all the air and water; and he is very terrible,
and shall be on one side of the Wolf. . . . Then shall the
Ash of Yggdrasil tremble, and nothing then shall be without
fear in heaven or on earth.65

The binding of the shamans by the Hactcin, by the gods and
their priests, which commenced with the victory of the neolithic
over the paleolithic way of life, may perhaps be already terminating
--today--in this period of the irreversible transition of society
from an agricultural to industrial base, when not the piety of the
planter, bowing humbly before the will of the calendar and the
gods of rain and sun, but the magic of the laboratory, flying rocket
ships where the gods once sat, holds the promise of the boons of
the future.

"Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest has not heard
that God is dead!" 66

Nietzsche's word was the first pronouncement of the Promethean
Titan that is now coming unbound within us for the next world
age. And the priests of the chains of Zeus may well tremble; for
the bonds are disintegrating of themselves.

Primitive Mythology, page 281

Any thoughts..??

Later,
-Lyfing

[Loki]

Great thoughts Lyfing.

I am one who believes that the excessive demonization of Loki is of Christian origin, someone they had to equate to the Biblical devil. Far from it. Loki is a complex character who cannot be understood in mere black and white terms.

From the Odinic Rite pages:



Within ourselves, within our community, within all levels of reality we strive to bind Loki.




The Circle of Ostara is dedicated to the overthrow of Loki's Brood.


I'm sorry but these are Christian concepts, not heathen ones. Replace "Loki" with "Satan", and you could almost have taken those quotes from the Book of Revelation. :rolleyes2:

[Baron Samedi]

Loki is chaos personified.

Why would we dislike chaos being absent from our lives? What would happen to the antagonists that make epics and legends more.... legendary?

Loki is essential to everything in the Eddas, what makes the heroes more heroic.

Chaos must be embraced to fully appreciate the greater literary tapestry of our lives.

[Baron Samedi]

Great thoughts Lyfing.

I am one who believes that the excessive demonization of Loki is of Christian origin, someone they had to equate to the Biblical devil. Far from it. Loki is a complex character who cannot be understood in mere black and white terms.

From the Odinic Rite pages:





I'm sorry but these are Christian concepts, not heathen ones. Replace "Loki" with "Satan", and you could almost have taken those quotes from the Book of Revelation. :rolleyes2:

I agree with that notion 100% It always came off to me as very Judeo-Christian.... And that is certainly no offense to OR members on this board. Just a personal interpretation.

I can honestly say, I think they are forces within the Germanic paradigm that are FAR worse than Loki/the force that represents Loki.

[Psychonaut]

Loki is a tricky one in every sense of the word. If Ursula Dronke is correct and Lóðurr is one of Loki's names, then he's certainly one to be honored. One the other hand, if he is, as the Eddas seem to indicate, an agent of chaos (similar to all the other Giants) then he deserves our fearful respect, not honor. I think of him as being very similar to a hurricane, an unpredictable, powerful, destructive force that sows misery and death wherever it touches. However none of this is done out of a malicious spirit (as with the Christian devil), but simply because it is in his nature to do so. Can we really be mad at a hurricane for doing what a hurricane does? No. We fear it's power, respect the damage that it's capable of doing and adjust our lives accordingly.

[YggsVinr]

I'm not sure how much credence we can put into it as it would be quite difficult to make even a remotely air tight argument in favour of it, but I recall reading somewhere (I'll try to remember where) that there is evidence to suggest that Loki is another facet of Odin. I suppose it could be looked at in the same fashion that one might look at Jehovah/Satan being different sides of the same coin. Odin and Loki nearly always in direct opposition with one another leading armies against one another at Ragnarok and both somehow connected with the dead during the event (Odin leading the Einherjar, Naglfar sets sail with Loki's forces).

I still think that's quite a bit of a stretch, however, but in a way Loki does act as Odin's foil, directly so in Lokasenna and more indirectly throughout the Eddas. If anything that tells us that Loki is necessary just as any other deity. Then again, what Lokasenna also reminds us is that Odin, the war-cult, and even the warrior ancestor are not holy to trusted either. While Odin may try to justify his deceptive nature it does not cancel out that nature. Similarly, berserks were often seen as a threat to the community at large whilst still being an integral part of any army. The warrior dead both protect the folk and yet can become a real menace to the folk (draugr hauntings, for example). If anything, the Germanic tradition tells us that reality isn't rosy and neither is human nature, that danger is necessary, as much so as unity. To shun the symbol of Loki, to fail to appreciate him and what he represents, whether bad or good, would be highly naive and unrealistic, I think. Maybe even as he acts as Odin's foil, he also shows us our own dark side or shortcomings that we neglect to accept or recognize.

[Baron Samedi]

I'm not sure how much credence we can put into it as it would be quite difficult to make even a remotely air tight argument in favour of it, but I recall reading somewhere (I'll try to remember where) that there is evidence to suggest that Loki is another facet of Odin. I suppose it could be looked at in the same fashion that one might look at Jehovah/Satan being different sides of the same coin. Odin and Loki nearly always in direct opposition with one another leading armies against one another at Ragnarok and both somehow connected with the dead during the event (Odin leading the Einherjar, Naglfar sets sail with Loki's forces).

I still think that's quite a bit of a stretch, however, but in a way Loki does act as Odin's foil, directly so in Lokasenna and more indirectly throughout the Eddas. If anything that tells us that Loki is necessary just as any other deity. Then again, what Lokasenna also reminds us is that Odin, the war-cult, and even the warrior ancestor are not holy to trusted either. While Odin may try to justify his deceptive nature it does not cancel out that nature. Similarly, berserks were often seen as a threat to the community at large whilst still being an integral part of any army. The warrior dead both protect the folk and yet can become a real menace to the folk (draugr hauntings, for example). If anything, the Germanic tradition tells us that reality isn't rosy and neither is human nature, that danger is necessary, as much so as unity. To shun the symbol of Loki, to fail to appreciate him and what he represents, whether bad or good, would be highly naive and unrealistic, I think. Maybe even as he acts as Odin's foil, he also shows us our own dark side or shortcomings that we neglect to accept or recognize.

Good post, and I agree with a lot of it.... However Odin himself has some seriously dark aspects as well, along with his blood brother.

[YggsVinr]

However Odin himself has some seriously dark aspects as well.

Oh yes, for sure! Actually, Odin as god of the war dead, leader of armies, of ecstatic dance, and poetic inspiration (in relation to the dead) likely came well before his ascension to "Allfather" (I tend to share Richard North's theory that Odin usurped Frey as forebear of kings as warfare became more an aspect of Germanic life throughout the migration period. The folk's priorities changed, so to speak.) I think a lot of modern heathen groups' interpretations of Odin really miss the mark on who this god initially was.

[Lyfing]

Maybe even as he acts as Odin's foil, he also shows us our own dark side or shortcomings that we neglect to accept or recognize.

What I was talking about to begin with was bad dreams and a psychological reading of the imagry of my cult. You hit on that very well with that above. What I'm going on here is that..Jung had this notion of there being a Shadow ..


But if you pretend that you never had that evil wish, if you deny and suppress it, the energy will go towards the development of a complex. A complex is a pattern of suppressed thoughts and feelings that cluster -- constellate -- around a theme provided by some archetype. If you deny ever having thought about crushing the little bird, you might put that idea into the form offered by the shadow (your "dark side"). Or if a man denies his emotional side, his emotionality might find its way into the anima archetype. And so on.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/jung.html


In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. It is one of the three most recognizable archetypes, the others being the anima and animus and the persona. "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." [1] It may be (in part) one's link to more primitive animal instincts,[2] which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.

According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to project: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections are unrecognized "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object--if it has one--or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power." [3] These projections insulate and cripple individuals by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world.

Jung also believed that "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity."[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)

What wiggs me out the most is the notion that my shadow may really be the part of me in my little microcosm here that I see out there in the world..that I find untouchable even. Miscegenation, dishonour, not worth a damnness, and all that stuff. A part of me, no way, well maybe it is, I’ll just tie it up. You know the quickest way to undo a knot is to cut through it. There will be a meeting of the shadow..


Jung said that confronting one's shadow self is an "apprentice-piece", while confronting one's anima is the masterpiece. Jung viewed the anima process as being one of the sources of creative ability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus

I guess the anima is for another one..


I'm not sure how much credence we can put into it as it would be quite difficult to make even a remotely air tight argument in favour of it, but I recall reading somewhere (I'll try to remember where) that there is evidence to suggest that Loki is another facet of Odin. I suppose it could be looked at in the same fashion that one might look at Jehovah/Satan being different sides of the same coin. Odin and Loki nearly always in direct opposition with one another leading armies against one another at Ragnarok and both somehow connected with the dead during the event (Odin leading the Einherjar, Naglfar sets sail with Loki's forces).

It does seem that there is an awe full lot of good and evil to consider. I think a lot of Rydberg, but he had it all figured for it. I’m not so sure to call it all for Christian, or Zoroastrian, or whatever influences though. It could just come from the experience of being human and now we have stories about it.


Their identity is apparent from various other circumstances, but may be regarded as completely demonstrated by the proofs given. Gullveig's activity in anitiquity as the founder of the diabolical magic art, as one who awakens man's evil passions and produces strife in Asgard itself, has its complement in Angurboða's activity as the mother and nourisher of that class of beings in whose members witchcraft, thirst for blood, and hatred of the gods are personified. The activity of the evil principle has, in the great epic of the myth, formed a continuity spanning all ages, and this continuous thread of evil is twisted from the treacherous deeds of Gullveig and Loki, the feminine and the masculine representatives of the evil principle. Both appear at the dawn of mankind: Loki has already at the beginning of time secured access to Allfather (Lokasenna 9), and Gullveig deceives the sons of men already in the time of Heimdal's son Borgar. Loki entices Idun from the secure grounds of Asgard, and treacherously delivers her to the powers of frost; Gullveig, as we shall see, plays Freyja into the hands of the giants. Loki plans enmity between the gods and the forces of nature, which hitherto had been friendly, and which have their personal representatives in Ivaldi's sons; Gullveig causes the war between the Asas and Vans. The interference of both is interrupted at the close of the mythic age, when Loki is chained, and Gullveig, in the guise of Angurboða, is an exile in the Ironwood. Before this they have for a time been blended, so to speak, into a single being, in which the feminine assuming masculineness, and the masculine effemninated, bear to the world an offspring of foes to the gods and to creation. Both finally act their parts in the destruction of the world. Before that crisis comes Angurboða has fostered that host of "sons of world-ruin" which Loki is to lead to battle, and a magic sword which she has kept in the Ironwood is given to Surt, in whose hand it is to be the death of Frey, the lord of harvests (see Nos. 89, 98, 101, 103).

Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology, 35. GULLVEIG-HEIDR. HER IDENTITY WITH AURBODA, ANGRBODA, HYRROKIN. THE MYTH CONCERNING THE SWORD GUARDIAN AND FJALAR.

Later,
-Lyfing

[Brynhild]

I've been working with Loki on a personal level of late. It's taken a while for me to become accustomed to his rather quirky nature. Contrary to what the texts would say, Loki is also the God of Order - about being responsible for one's actions. He may get into shit a lot of the time, but ultimately he shifts the balance back to the equilibrium it belongs to. It's all well and good to say he's Chaos personified, but you can't have Chaos without order and vice versa.

Since he's invited (that would normally be his approach :D) himself into my realm, life has started to turn around for me in ways that I have wished. The only reason I can come up with for this is because I'm accepting that Chaos will always be a big part of my life, and he's shown me how to see it through a different pair of eyes - especially through my humour. I've always enjoyed the more bizarre outlook on life and I see the funny side in most things. I'm going one step further in seeing more of that in my personal life.

I am, for the moment, ignoring the texts, because a lot of it is way too Christianised in describing Loki as some sort of Satanist. He's no saint, and that's what makes him so brilliant. He represents that cheeky, shadowy side of ourselves that we otherwise don't always wish to acknowledge, but it's there in us whether we like it or not. Accept that part and the rest of it - while it may not guarantee smooth sailing, it will never be boring!

[Barreldriver]

I'm curious about Loki, how can he act if he's bound until Ragnarok? Or is a little bit of Loki in all of us maybe it was Loki disguised as Rig instead of Heimdall and he seeded humans not Heimdall? Rigs identity is still a mystery isn't it?

[Baron Samedi]

I'm curious about Loki, how can he act if he's bound until Ragnarok? Or is a little bit of Loki in all of us maybe it was Loki disguised as Rig instead of Heimdall and he seeded humans not Heimdall? Rigs identity is still a mystery isn't it?

Not to my knowledge, no.... Generally Rig is considered to be an alternate heti of Heimdall's.

[Barreldriver]

Not to my knowledge, no.... Generally Rig is considered to be an alternate heti of Heimdall's.

That's what I figured, but after the Christians had their way with the tales how can we determine what is authentic?

[Baron Samedi]

That's what I figured, but after the Christians had their way with the tales how can we determine what is authentic?

If I remember correctly, the Poetic Edda is pretty much untainted.

The Prose on the other hand....

[Lyfing]

Or is a little bit of Loki in all of us maybe it was Loki disguised as Rig instead of Heimdall and he seeded humans not Heimdall? Rigs identity is still a mystery isn't it?

Interesting raþbeorn,

According to Rydberg Heimdall is who brought fire to mankind..


Evidence is presented in No. 82 that Scef-Heimdal brought the fire-auger to primeval man who until that time had lived without the blessings produced by the sacred fire.

21. SCEF THE AUTHOR OF CULTURE IDENTICAL WITH HEIMDAL-RIG, THE ORIGINAL PATRIARCH.

And that the Lóðurr Psychonaut was talking about is Mundilfori Heimdall's father..


From all this it follows that when the authors of mythic genealogies related as history wish to get further back in the Skjoldung genealogy than to the Beowulf Skjold, that is to say, further back than to the original patriarch Heimdall, then they must go to that mythic person who is Heimdall's father, that is to say, to Mundilfori, the fire-producer. Mundilfori is the one who appears in the Latinised name Lotherus. In other words, Mundilfori, the fire-producer, is Lóðurr. For the name Lóðurr there is no other rational explanation than that which Jacob Grimm, without knowing his position in the epic of mythology, has given, comparing the name with the verb lodern, "to blaze". Lóðurr is active in its signification, "he who causes or produces the blaze," and thus refers to the origin of fire, particularly of the friction-fire and of the bore-fire.

83. MUNDILFORI'S IDENTITY WITH LODUR.

Maybe Loki has been confused with Lóðurr on account of this notion..


Heimdal's antithesis in all respects, and therefore also his constant opponent in the mythological epic, is Loki, he too a fire-being, but representing another side of this element. Natural agents such as fire, water, wind, cold, heat, and thunder have in the Teutonic mythology a double aspect. When they work in harmony, each within the limits which are fixed by the welfare of the world and the happiness of man, then they are sacred forces and are represented by the gods. But when these limits are transgressed, giants are at work, and the turbulent elements are represented by beings of giant-race. This is also true of thunder, although it is the common view among mythologists that it was regarded exclusively as a product of Thor's activity. The genuine mythical conception was, however, that the thunder which purifies the atmosphere and fertilises the thirsty earth with showers of rain, or strikes down the foes of Midgard, came from Thor; while that which splinters the sacred trees, sets fire to the woods and houses, and kills men that have not offended the gods, came from the foes of the world.

82. THE WORLD-MILL (continued). THE ORIGIN OF THE SACRED FIRE THROUGH MUNDILFARI. HEIMDALL THE PERSONIFICATION OF THE SACRED FIRE. HIS IDENTITY WITH RIGVEDA'S AGNI. HIS ANTITHESIS, LOKI, ALSO A FIRE-BEING.

Just some thoughts..??

Later,
-Lyfing

[Skandi]

Clearly then you will see why Loki is not honoured by the Odinic Rite, the Rite are not deceived into seeing him as a prankster who just went too far. We do not in any way seek to toast, honour or `laugh` with this entity. Within ourselves, within our community, within all levels of reality we strive to bind Loki.

We seek to evolve, we seek the evolution of our folk organism, we seek an attainment of higher consciousness and folk consciousness.... we must therefore strive at all times to bind Loki within and without.


I was just wondering what the OR members thoughts were on this, so I posted a poll;
Here (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?p=26383#post26383)

[Ulf]

Rigs identity is still a mystery isn't it?

That Heimdall as an ancestor, or kinsman, of humankind appears in the first two lines of the eddic poem Völuspá:'

I ask for a hearing of all the holy races
Greater and lesser, kinsmen of Heimdall.

via wikip.

[Ulf]

I think Odin is more chaotic than Loki. He is the wanderer, the stirrer to strife.

Loki was a giant welcome with the gods, but his loyalty seems to be with his tribe at the end of the day. We must be wary of those outsiders who claim to have our interests at heart.

[Aemma]

If I remember correctly, the Poetic Edda is pretty much untainted.

The Prose on the other hand....

Yep, there are few Christian interpolations in the Prose Edda. It is the Poetic Edda that needs to be read with a critical eye.

[Lyfing]

In thinking about all this again today I remembered a little writing I posted called The Birth of Lugh -Óðinn and Loki among the Celts (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2375)..


Whilst there is a fundamental correspondence between these myths, there is no simple correspondence of one god to another. The interweaving patterns of the tales make it clear that we are dealing with a magical partnership. Óðinn and Loki individually share aspects with several Celtic figures, and no neat summation on the lines of Óðinn = Gwydion = Balar, Loki = Lleu = Lugh is possible. It is not Óðinn alone who is important, but in relationship with Loki, not Lleu alone, but with Gwydion and Math, not Lugh alone, but with Cian and Balar. It is in the patterns within the myths that the primary parallels are found, and definite but inconsistent correspondences of individual characters from these myths appear to be a function of this.

Outside the realms of myth, it is no doubt significant that while the cults of Lleu, Lugh and Óðinn appear to have been popular, there is no trace of any cult surrounding Gwydion or Math, Balar or Cian, or Loki or Bölthorr's anonymous son.

The complex inter-relationship of these tales appears to underline the assumption that the root-myth is of ancient origin. Each tale is deeply embedded in the characterisation of its heroes, and in no case appears to be grafted on to an existing religious system. Without any one of them, the relationship between these stories would appear to concern mainly details, but when we look at all of them together, we see that the links go deeper. Of course some borrowing may well have taken place as the myths rubbed shoulders down the centuries, but if this were simply a case of borrowing, one might expect the pattern to be more obvious. Rather than the result of borrowing on either side, these tales appear to be the common inheritance of Celtic and Germanic peoples alike.

So, seeing as to how there can possibly be found a "root-myth" wherein "It is not Óðinn alone who is important, but in relationship with Loki, not Lleu alone, but with Gwydion and Math, not Lugh alone, but with Cian and Balar" and taking into accout that "outside the realms of myth" "there is no trace of any cult surrounding Gwydion or Math, Balar or Cian, or Loki or Bölthorr's anonymous son." I am left wondering even more so about Loki..??

Thoughts anyone..??

Later,
-Lyfing

[Lyfing]

Well, I had some more thoughts. In The Birth of Lugh - Óðinn and Loki among the Celts (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2375) it's written..


Óðinn sets out in search of the mead, and meets nine thralls mowing. He sets them fighting over a whetstone and they all kill each other. Then, calling himself Bölverkr, he goes to Baugi, Suttungr's brother, whose thrall's they were, and offers to work for him in return for the mead. Bölverkr did as much work alone as the nine thralls had done between them. When winter came he went with Baugi to ask Suttungr for the mead, but he refused. So Bölverkr took an auger, and asked Baugi to bore a hole in the mountain. Baugi tries to cheat Óðinn and stab him with the auger, but Óðinn succeeds in getting through the hole in the shape of a worm. (14)

Óðinn lay with Gunnlöð for three nights, and drained the three vats of mead. Then he turned into an eagle and flew home. Suttungr saw this and changed into an eagle and flew after him, but Óðinn got home with the mead, which he distributed among the Æsir and poets.

In this story, Óðinn's entry into the mountain is equivalent to his hanging on the tree, and Baugi's attempt to stab him with the auger, may parallel his wounding with a spear. Like Lleu in the story of Math, Óðinn turns into an eagle, and like Gilfaethwy, who rapes the virgin foot-holder of his maternal uncle Math, he seduces the virgin daughter of the mead-keeper, a role fulfilled in the alternative version by "the famous son of Bölthorr," his own maternal uncle.

But the similarities to the Irish story are more far reaching, for the Irish hero Cian also seduces the imprisoned daughter of a giant in order to win a prize which he also earns as wages, and is unsuccessfully pursued as a result. Of course this is a fairly common theme in folktale, but in view of other more detailed correspondences, and the three-way link with the Mabinogion story it does not appear to be insignificant.

The main points of similarity between the stories are set out below. I refer here to other Norse stories from Snorra Edda, and alternative versions of the Irish material are included…

Now to quote Rydberg on the mead..


NOTE. - The account in the Younger Edda about Odin's visit to Suttung seems to be based on some satire produced long after the introduction of Christianity. With a free use of the confused mythic traditions then extant, and without paying any heed to Hávamál's statement, this satire was produced to show in a semi-allegorical way how good and bad poetry originated. The author of this satire either did not know or did not care about the fact that Hávamál identifies Suttung and Fjalar. To him they are different persons, of whom the one receives the skaldic mead as a ransom from the other. While in Hávamál the rimthurses give Odin the name Bölverkur, "the evil-doer," and this very properly from their standpoint, the Younger Edda makes Odin give himself this name when he is to appear incognito, though such a name was not calculated to inspire confidence. While in Hávamál Odin, in the guise of another, enters Suttung's halls, is conducted to a golden high-seat, and takes a lively part in the banquet and in the conversation, the Younger Edda makes him steal into the mountain through a small gimlet-hole and get down into Gunnlod's chamber in this manner, where he remains the whole time without seeing anyone else of the people living there, and where, with Gunnlod's consent, he empties to the bottom the giant's three mead-vessels, Óðrærir, Boðn, and Són. These three names belong, as we have seen, in the real mythology to the three subterranean fountains which nourish the roots of the world-tree. Hávamál contents itself with using a poetic-rhetorical phrase and calling the skaldic mead, captured by Odin, Óðrærir, "the giver of inspiration," "the inspiring nectar". The author of the satire avails himself of this reason for using the names of the two other fountains Boðn and Són, and for applying them to two other "vessels and kettles" in which Suttung is said to have kept the mead. That he called one of the vessels a kettle is explained by the fact that the third lower world fountain is Hvergelmir, "the roaring kettle". In order that Odin and Gunnlod may be able to discuss and resolve in perfect secrecy in regard to the mead, Odin must come secretly down into the mountain, hence the satire makes him use the bored hole to get in. From the whole description in Hávamál, it appears, on the contrary, that Odin entered the giant's hall in the usual manner through the door, while he avails himself of the tunnel made by Rati to get out. Hávamál first states that Odin seeks the giant, and then tells how he enters into conversation and develops his eloquence in Suttung's halls, and how, while he sits in the golden high-seat (probably opposite the host, as Richter has assumed), Gunnlod hands him the precious mead. Then is mentioned for the first time the way made for him by Rati, and this on the one hand in connection with the "evil compensation" Gunnlod received from him, she the loving and devoted woman whom he had embraced, and on the other hand in connection with the fact that his flight from the mountain was successful, so that he could take the mead with him though his life was in danger, and there were giants' ways both above and below that secret path by which he escaped. That Odin took the oath of faithfulness on the holy ring, that there was a regular wedding feast with the questions on the next morning in regard to the well-being of the newly-married couple - all this the satire does not mention, nor does its premises permit it to do so.

89. THE MEAD MYTH.


Now I’m going out on a limb here but that sure does seem like what Heimdall was drinking..


As a tender boy, Heimdal was sent by the Vans to the southern shores of Scandinavia with the gifts of culture. Hyndla's Lay tells how these friendly powers prepared the child for its important mission, after it was born in the outermost borders of the earth (við jarðar þröm), in a wonderful manner, by nine sisters (Hyndluljóð 35 = Völuspá in Skamma 7; Heimdallar Galdr in Gylfaginning 27; compare No. 82, where the ancient Aryan root of the myth concerning Heimdal's nine mothers is pointed out).

For its mission the child had to be equipped with strength, endurance, and wisdom. It was given to drink jarðar magn, svalkaldr sær and Sónar dreyri (Völuspá in Skamma 10). It is necessary to compare these expressions with Urðar magn, svalkaldr sær and Sónar dreyri in Guðrúnarkviða in forna 21, a song written in Christian times, where this reminiscence of a triple heathen-mythic drink reappears as a potion of forgetfulness allaying sorrow. The expression Sónar dreyri shows that the child had tasted liquids from the subterranean fountains which water Yggdrasil and sustain the spiritual and physical life of the universe (cp. Nos. 63 and 93). Són contains the mead of inspiration and wisdom. In Skáldskaparmál, which quotes a satire of late origin, this name is given to a jar in which Suttung preserves this valuable liquor, but to the heathen skalds Són is the name of Mímir's fountain, which contains the highest spiritual gifts, and around whose rush-bordered edge the reeds of poetry grow (Eilífr Guðrúnarson, Skáldskaparmál). The child Heimdal has, therefore, drunk from Mímir's fountain. Jarðar magn (the earth's strength) is in reality the same as Urðar magn, the strength of the water in Urd's fountain, which keeps the world-tree ever green and sustains the physical life of creation (Völuspá). The third subterranean fountain is Hvergelmir, with hardening liquids. From Hvergelmir comes the river Svöl, and the venom-cold Elivágar (Grímnismál, Gylfaginning). Svalkaldr sær, cool sea, is an appropriate designation of this fountain.

21. SCEF THE AUTHOR OF CULTURE IDENTICAL WITH HEIMDAL-RIG, THE ORIGINAL PATRIARCH.

And if Lóðurr is Heimdall’s father could there be any connection with the gifts given to Ask and Embla and with what Heimdall was drinking before he came to give his gifts to mankind..??

Could Loki be Lóðurr..?? Loki and Odin are blood-brothers they say..


Óðinn, like Lugos, was equated with the Roman Mercury, and like Balar, he has a single eye - Lugh chants before the battle of Magh Tuiredh with one eye closed. The Gallic Lugus was associated like Óðinn, with ravens, as was Lugh (7). Loki and Gwydion are both known by matronymics, while Lleu's father is unknown. And like Gwydion and Gilfaethwy, Loki is both a father and a mother to animal offspring - the horse Sleipnir, the wolf Fenrir and the serpent Jörmungandr. The names Loki and Lugos are clearly related, and the names of Óðinn and Gwydion are similarly related; Paulus Diaconus History of the Lombards refers to Óðinn as 'Godan,' which may be derived from an earlier *Gwotan (8).

Loki has been seen as Óðinn's comic side-kick, as a "parody" of Óðinn (9).

The Birth of Lugh - Óðinn and Loki among the Celts (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2375)


Psychonaut once wrote..


It's also worth noting that Lugus is a triple God and is usually depicted as being tricephalic. This could relate to Óðinn if we view his brothers (Vili and Vé or Hœnir and Lóðurr) as hypostases of one entity.

..any thoughts..??..other than there are a whole bunch of threes..??

Later,
-Lyfing

[YggsVinr]

So, seeing as to how there can possibly be found a "root-myth" wherein "It is not Óðinn alone who is important, but in relationship with Loki, not Lleu alone, but with Gwydion and Math, not Lugh alone, but with Cian and Balar" and taking into accout that "outside the realms of myth" "there is no trace of any cult surrounding Gwydion or Math, Balar or Cian, or Loki or Bölthorr's anonymous son." I am left wondering even more so about Loki..??

Thoughts anyone..??

Later,
-Lyfing

To be honest it really makes me think of Loki even more as Odin's foil. I know that the term is largely associated with literary device, but I do think the use of foils and/or fools in literature arguably stemmed from their use in folkloric/ oral tradition. In literature the fool or the madman is often used in order to present aspects of a character to which he is attached that no one else dare voice. King Lear is an excellent example of this wherein most if not all the characters at one point fall into irrationality and vice, and only the Fool voices the outside perspective of the complete absurdity or reality of a situation that might not be convenient for others to voice or perceive otherwise.

For example, when in Lokasenna Loki accuses Odin of being an oathbreaker or deceptive because he has granted victory to the weaker enemy and death to a sworn warrior, this aspect of Odin is necessary. In The One-Eyed God Kris Kershaw writes:


This devotion will take a material form: they expect to be wined and dined; in Germanic lands they display a great thirst for beer. It is their right to break into a house or inn, indeed to ride their horses right through the door, and take whatever they want. If they receive the required devotion and find everything in order, they will shower the village or farm with blessings for the coming years. If they do not, justice is swift and brutal: they will pull the roof and doors off the house; in extreme cases they will reduce the house to rubble and put salt in the well.

The youths are possessed; they believe they are the Dead. What about everyone else? Don't they know that these are their sons and brother? This is the part that is hardest for us to comprehend. Writes Meuli, 'Man's attempts to give shape to his experience of the mysteriums tremendum fascinosum have repeatedly led to odd forms, perceived by us as grotesque, and yet for their worshipers they are a satisfying expression of the Numinous.'

The above quote has to do with the role of the Wild Hunt relating it to fertility and tribal blessing, and while I'm not sure I necessarily agree with all of it, I think it is relevant to the question of Loki as a fool or jester of sorts and his role in voicing the nature of the cult of Odin outside the context of its cultic role. The above author questions whether non-cult members really see these young warriors as manifestations of the dead bringing blessing upon them, and whether its true or not we do know that the remnants of the war-cult in the Christian middle ages were often feared and not well liked by the average man. Examples of this are the eventual outlawing of berserkergang, and attitudes toward the medieval knight, far from the chivalric ideal.

Loki shares just enough characteristics with Odin to tie these two gods together above all others, and it is perhaps why Loki, as Odin's blood brother who shares the traits he accuses Odin of (being an oathbreaker/deceptive and taking the guise of a woman), is capable of putting Odin further into perspective for us. Without Loki the god's may very well seem infallible and eternal.

It also brings into question the role of free will, and whether it even exists here. In class today, we were discussing free will in western philosophy as a product of the Hebraic/Christian response to Biblical mythology (original sin and so on), and that how in Plato and Aristotle, while there are hints of the voluntary there is no real sign of a notion of free will the way it was developed in the middle ages and onward.

I started to think of this in the context of Germanic mythology and I think other posters in this thread have been correct when they say that Loki cannot choose to be anything other than what he is. He cannot choose to trick or ridicule the gods and he cannot choose whether or not he will lead the giants and bring about Ragnarok. And so if Loki cannot choose these things, if his entire purpose and fate is to bring about Ragnarok (it should be noted a destruction followed by rebirth. Why does Loki bring about Ragnarok? Does he intend to bring about the world's rebirth or is he simply a vessel of fate?) then can we even fathom equating him with the Christian devil, or with "evil" or "badness"? Without him the cycle would not end, and therefore would not begin anew.

When we look at the sagas we also get that same sense of immutability or inevitability. Egil Skallagrimsson takes after his father Grim who takes after his father Kvedulf, they all share almost identical characteristics (both in personality and appearance) and the two generations of Thorulf's are practically identical as well. Starkad's lifetimes are all predetermined for him no matter what he does. Is Starkad therefore purely heroic or purely "bad" or can he be either, or both?

Thinking about that in the context of your first post, I can't help but wonder if your thinking of Loki after your dreams is a reflection of a fear of inevitability, that one is driven by fate rather than conscious, mutable choice. Or perhaps it means that our fear that our fate is immutable will make it so, and that we need to confront that in order to shape our own destiny. Or perhaps Loki is just bound by fate to provide us with a mirror to show us the deepest corners of our personalities that we may try to explain away, ignore, or justify like in Lokasenna. He allows us to see what we might not have seen before.

I know this post is largely a repeat of what I said in my last post, but your latest post, Lyfing, just made it all fit together a little more in my mind.

[YggsVinr]

Could Loki be Lóðurr..?? Loki and Odin are blood-brothers they say..

..any thoughts..??..other than there are a whole bunch of threes..??

Later,
-Lyfing

I don't think that Loki could be Lóðurr. When we look at every single Loki myth, Loki seems to be, in many ways, extremely one dimensional compared to the other gods who are often multifaceted. When we look at Odin or Frey throughout the Eddas and in their representation in the sagas they seem to function on many levels, whether Odin is oathbreaker or the god of oaths, the dead, poetry and so on. Frey is largely a fertility god but through that role he is also possibly connected to the duel, war and other facets of life. Loki seems to serve one purpose alone, however.

I find myself leaning toward the theory reflected in Psychonaut's post, that the brothers of Odin are Odin himself.

[Psychonaut]

I find myself leaning toward the theory reflected in Psychonaut's post, that the brothers of Odin are Odin himself.

I think it makes a whole lot of sense in the larger IE context, considering that Lugus and several Indian creator Gods are trecephalic. I doubt we'll ever firmly establish any kind of archaeological "missing link" between them though. A three headed Odin would do the trick nicely. :thumb001:

[Lyfing]

Thinking about that in the context of your first post, I can't help but wonder if your thinking of Loki after your dreams is a reflection of a fear of inevitability, that one is driven by fate rather than conscious, mutable choice. Or perhaps it means that our fear that our fate is immutable will make it so, and that we need to confront that in order to shape our own destiny. Or perhaps Loki is just bound by fate to provide us with a mirror to show us the deepest corners of our personalities that we may try to explain away, ignore, or justify like in Lokasenna. He allows us to see what we might not have seen before.


Yep, that's it. Here's a quote ( this post is full of them ) that goes with what you said..



The awakening of the capacity to reason, the power of self-knowledge and judgment, was the most crucial event in humanity's evolution. It brought our human river of life to the point where deliberate choices could be made, where reasoning supplants instinct, and where the knowledge of good and evil will be a deciding factor in the further development of the species. The unthinking kingdoms are guided by the built-in monitoring of instinct, which permits only limited freedom, but once the mind becomes active, aware of itself as a separate being, there comes into play a corresponding responsibility and the doer is accountable for everything he does, thinks, feels, and for his responses to the stimuli of the surrounding universe. Thereafter the godmaker cannot turn back. Each moment brings a choice, and every choice produces an endless stream of consequences, each stemming from its predecessor. Through many wrong choices Loki has become the mischief-maker, the instigator of wrongs in many tales, for he represents too often the lower, ratiocinative brain without inspiritment -- inspiration. He is, however, the constant companion of the gods and serves as go-between in their dealings with the giants. Perhaps his mischievous nature has been somewhat overemphasized for its naughty appeal to the Viking temperament. It is well to bear in mind too that, while he is often the cause of trouble in Asgard, he is also the agent for solving the problems that arise from his own doings.

So acts the mind of man: it causes us no end of difficulties when acting on its own but, when we accept the guidance of Brage, the wise bard who represents poetic inspiration, it resolves them in the end.

The Mask of Odin (http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/odin/odin-7.htm)

I know that's a theosophical text, but heck I think it's the same as comparative mythology with a few twists..

...


I doubt we'll ever firmly establish any kind of archaeological "missing link" between them though. A three headed Odin would do the trick nicely. :thumb001:

Wouldn’t it though. I’m just going to throw a whole bunch of stuff out on the table. It all fits though I’ve yet to really put it all together perfectly and maybe never will, but it’s worth thinking about a little I think..so here goes..

When it comes to maybe a three headed Odin what I think about first is the Morrigan, the Norns, the Valkyries, and the Wild Hunt.

It’s said that the Morrigan are three..


The Morrígan is often considered a triple goddess, but her supposed triple nature is ambiguous and inconsistent. Sometimes she appears as one of three sisters, the daughters of Ernmas: the Morrígan, the Badb and Macha. Sometimes the trinity consists of the Badb, Macha and Nemain, collectively known as the Morrígan, or in the plural as the Morrígna. Occasionally Fea or Anu also appear in various combinations. However the Morrígan also frequently appears alone, and her name is sometimes used interchangeably with the Badb, with no third "aspect" mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morr%C3%ADgan

Also..


It has also been suggested that she was closely tied to Irish männerbund groups[21] (described as "bands of youthful warrior-hunters, living on the borders of civilized society and indulging in lawless activities for a time before inheriting property and taking their places as members of settled, landed communities")[22] and that these groups may have been in some way dedicated to her. If true, her worship may have resembled that of Perchta groups in Germanic areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morr%C3%ADgan


Now when it comes to Perchta..It’s said she leads the Wild Hunt…and has a splayfoot/swan-maiden‘s foot..( the plumage of the Valkyries..?? )



According to Jacob Grimm (1835), Perchta was spoken of in Old High German in the 10th century as Frau Berchta and thought to be a white-robed female spirit. She was known as a goddess who oversaw spinning and weaving, like myths of Holda in Continental German regions. He believes she was the feminine equivalent of Berchtold, and she was sometimes the leader of the Wild Hunt.

In many old descriptions, Bertha had one large foot, sometimes called a goose foot or swan foot. Grimm thought the strange foot symbolizes she may be a higher being who could shapeshift to animal form.[6] He noticed Bertha with a strange foot exist in many languages (German "Berhte mit dem fuoze", French "Bertha au grand pied", Latin "Berhta cum magno pede"): "It is apparently a swan-maiden's foot, which as a mark of her higher nature she cannot lay aside...and at the same time the spinning-woman's splayfoot that worked the treadle".[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchta

The spinning foot goes with the Norns of course..



When we look at the fairy tales compiled by the Brother Grimm we find that a few of the tales contain reference to otherworldly spinners who come to the aid of a person in distress. One of these fairy tales is called "The Three Spinners" and it is a tale about a young woman who is helped out of a bad situation by three women. It might be interesting to add that these women were spinners and that they had physical characteristics that horrified people. One of the sisters had a gigantic thumb, the other had a huge lower lip and the last one had a large foot. If we examine their characteristics we will find that each had a feature that associated them with spinning and if we put this into context with the wyrd sisters it would fit perfectly. The oldest sister firstly spins the fabric, the second puts the fabric into the shuttle and the final spins the fabric into the pattern.

Wyrd Staves: Mystery of the Futhorc

So now here we have Perchta who is like the Morrigan with a Norns foot..?? A definite thread seems to be woven here betwixt the three ( puns intended ).

Perchta also has swan-plumage like a Valkyrie..?? The Morrigan and the Valkyries are much alike..


Clearly, the Valkyries' capacities as goddesses of battle tie them to the Morrígan. Does their relationship go beyond general similarity? Lottner raised several points of comparison over 120 years ago. First, Lottner noted that both the Morrígan and the Valkyries appear in groups of three. However, while the medieval Irish portray the Morrígan almost compulsively as a threesome, the Valkyries appear as three in the prose introduction of Vólundarkvi_a 'The Lay of Volund', two in Hákonarmál 'The Lay of Hákon', eight in Helrei_ Brynhildar 'Brynhild's Ride to Hel', six in Voˆluspá 'The Prophecy of the Seeress', thirteen in Grimnismál 'The Lay of Grímr', and in groups of both nine and twenty-seven in Helgakvi_a Hjorvarþssona 'The Lay of Helgi Hjorvarthsson'.28 In the end, number is no excuse to juxtapose them.

However, the Morrígan and the Valkyries do share a habit of taking on the shape of birds, as Lottner noted long ago (1870-72: 56). The Morrígan's pervasive appearance as a crow has been established. Indeed, her animal form long outlasts the human in literary tradition. The Valkyries, too, appear regularly as swans and occasionally as corvids. For instance, in Voˆlsunga Saga, an óskmær 'wish maiden' (an alternative term for Valkyrie) delivers an apple from Odin to Rerir, father of Volsung himself, while in the form of a crow (krákuhamr) (Byock 1990: 36; Olsen 1906-08: 4). Later in the Volsung lineage, Aslaug, daughter of Brynhild and Sigurd, goes by the name Kraka 'crow' when she is given to Ragnar Lodbrok (Schlauch 1930: 190, 198-202, 212-14). Although Aslaug is not called a Valkyrie herself, she is the daughter of one, and perhaps partakes of her mother's nature.

The Valkyries are further linked to the corvidiae in a more oblique manner in Old English. In the Exodus (Lucas 1977: 102), a raven is described as wælceasiga, 'the slain-choosing one',29 a compound transparently related to wælcyrga, the exact cognate of ON valkyrja. An association between Valkyrie and raven is also apparent in Haraldskvæ_i, in which the poet recounts a conversation between a Valkyrie and a raven, in order to tell of Harold's great deeds (Hollander 1936: 57-62; Jónsson 1912: 22-25). Therefore, although one might wish for a more consistent connection of the Valkyries with crows in order to connect them with the Irish Morrígan, the evidence for a crow association is strong, arguing for a cross-cultural link between them.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010616090850/members.loop.com/~musofire/diss/Compframes.html

I have to bring this one up..what they are weaving with..??


But in another gruesome passage from medieval Icelandic literature, supernatural women refer to themselves directly as Valkyries. In Njáls Saga (Sveinsson 1954: 454-458, Magnusson and Pálsson 1960: 349-51), a group of twelve women who call themselves Valkyries perform a poem know as Darra_arljó_ “The Song of the Spear.” In Caithness, on Good Friday, the morning before the Battle of Clontarf, these twelve supernatural women weave the fate of kings and nations on a broad loom with severed heads for weights and entrails for warp, weapons for the shafts and hettles.

This episode finds a possible cognate in the Morrígan's multiple appearances as the Washer at the Ford. As the Valkyries use entrails to weave, so the Washer washes bloody arms, armor, and entrails in the ford of a river. Both these grisly appearances are associated with prophecy. The Morrígan tells of upcoming defeat in battle for those to whom she appears, much like the Valkyries in Darra_arljó_. While the grisly enterprise and primitive savagery of this scene has seemed, to some scholars, to contradict the “nobler” aspects of the Valkyries, it is fully in keeping with our understanding of the Morrígan. Why not the Valkyries as well? Indeed, does not the “primitive” aspect of the Valkyries merely call forth the bloody reality of war, necessary counterpart to the glory that the “poetic” aspect seems to embody?50 So, too, is the gruesome depiction of both groups merely the flip side of their proposed role as man-eating psychopomps.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010616090850/members.loop.com/~musofire/diss/Compframes.html

Here we have that fire which goes with Loki and Lodur..?? Maybe right here is the confusion between the one..??


While the Celtic and Germanic details do not go far to explain each other, the details seem less idiosyncratic when taken together, perhaps stemming from a common original, dimly remembered. Perhaps this set of data can be illuminated by invoking another Indo-European comparandum, the Greek and Roman Furies. These goddesses are clearly associated with fire, as we have seen in the middle Irish translations. One of their attributes is a torch,78 most directly reminiscent of the torches of the Badb and the flaming spears of the Valkyries. Perhaps these uncertain details in Germano-Celtic mythology hint at an attribute of the war goddess lost to us there because of the sparseness of her description in medieval Irish literature, and the generalization of that attribute in Germanic texts. The so-called “radiant epiphany” may be evidence of a class of Indo-European goddesses associated with armed conflict, and with fire and light. (Of course, fire is associated with war on a purely practical level, both as a weapon of destruction and a source of light.) Since the torches of the Badb figure in Cú Chulainn's ríastrad,79 which I have argued may be the result of possession by the Morrígan, perhaps the nemain dega, too, are connected to this process, the goddess' epiphany and the hero's occurring together.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010616090850/members.loop.com/~musofire/diss/Compframes.html

Just to throw this one out too..


A more popular theory proposed by the scholar Ursula Dronke is that Lóðurr is "a third name of Loki/Loptr". The main argument for this is that the gods Odin, Hœnir and Loki occur as a trio in Haustlöng and the prose prologue to Reginsmál. The Odin-kenning "Lóðurr's friend" furthermore appears to parallel the kenning "Loptr's friend" and Loki is similarly referred to as "Hœnir's friend" in Haustlöng, strengthening the trio connection. While many scholars agree with this identification, it is not universally accepted. One argument against it is that Loki appears as a malevolent being later in Völuspá, seemingly conflicting with the image of Lóðurr as a "mighty and loving" figure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%B3%C3%B0urr

To the Wild Hunt..led by Odin and/or Holda..could they be the same..?? Freya does get half the battle-slain..??


As the wind was believed to rest in a hill in calm weather and to come forth in a storm, so the Furious Host sometimes comes from a hill and goes to a hill. If we regard the dead as following in the train of the Host or of Wodan, then we may conceive of them as dwelling in a hollow hill ruled over by the god. To this corresponds the numerous mountain names such as Wodenesberg, Wodnesbeorh (mons Wodeni), Othensberg, Odensberg, Gudenesberg.28 When Regin and Sigurd were in a storm at sea, a man was seen standing on a mountain. As the ship passed he asked who they were, and when Regin told him and demanded his name, he replied that he was called Hnikar, “Thruster,” but now they must call him Karl af berge, “the man of the mountain.” He was Odin. Gudrun speaks of Sigtyr’s (“the Victory-god’s) mountain in Atlakvitha.29 In this conception of Odin or Wodan as god of a mountain and of the mountain as a place of the dead, may be seen the germ of the Valhall myth as developed in the Viking age (see p. 315). To die was “to journey to Odin” (til Odins fara), or “to be a guest with Odin,” or “to visit Odin,” and similar phrases with the same meaning were used of Valhall. Saxo tells how Odin, as a man of amazing height called Rostarus, cured Siward’s wounds on condition of his consecrating to him the souls of all slain by him in battle. So the Landnama-bok tells how Helgi said, when Thorgrim was slain: “I gave Asmod’s heir to Odin.”30

Eddic Mythology (http://www.heathengods.com/library/eddic_mythology/macculloch-04.html)

Now, here in bold, I suppose is a conclusion, with a three headed Odin..


I have earlier proposed that the Morrígan is the martial furor that possesses Cú Chulainn, as Odin possesses the berserkir. She seems to combine the functions of both Odin and his Valkyries, suggesting that she may indeed be “Queen of the Slain” and perhaps even rules over the heroic Celtic dead as Odin rules over the einherjar.

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2372

..thoughts..??

Later,
-Lyfing

[YggsVinr]

It has also been suggested that she was closely tied to Irish männerbund groups[21] (described as "bands of youthful warrior-hunters, living on the borders of civilized society and indulging in lawless activities for a time before inheriting property and taking their places as members of settled, landed communities")[22] and that these groups may have been in some way dedicated to her. If true, her worship may have resembled that of Perchta groups in Germanic areas.

So its fair to say we, simply put, seem to have three main groups concerning the Wild Hunt and the war-cult here in the Germanic tradition: Odin and his Valkyries (as they are never explicitly shown leading the hunt without Odin, and can be described as his accomplices, for lack of a better word), Perchta, and Freya. The latter two seem to be distinct for many reasons, of course, Perchta possesses Valkyric attributes that, to me, suggest that perhaps that is what she originally was. Yet why does she tend to be associated with the hunt over Wotan in Germany? Freya serves many functions beyond receiving the battle dead, which appears to be only a small part of her role.

My first question is: why does Freya receive the battle dead and to what end? The question is obvious for Odin, he requires warriors for Ragnarok and is distinctly associated with the war-cult throughout, but why do we have a separate tradition belonging to Freya that, on the surface, appears to serve the same purpose as Odin’s cult?

Freya’s battle dead in Sessrúmnir, similar to the einherjar, appear to be in a constant state of eternal battle that does not result in permanent death. So on the one hand we have Odin in Valhalla who’s einherjar fight against one another each day only to be healed at the conclusion of every day’s battle, returning to Valhalla to drink and feast until the next battle. On the other hand we have Freya in Sessrúmnir who’s battle dead fight eternally in Hjaðningavíg. What does it mean? Why these two separate traditions that, on the surface, possess nigh on identical purposes?

I think on the matter of Perchta I will have to read more of the literature associated with her as I am not as familiar with the tradition as I am Odin’s hunt and its variations. But from what little I have read and you’ve presented here, Lyfing, it seems we’re dealing with an extension of the Valkyrie tradition. I’d be surprised if she started out as separate from Odin’s hunt. It also seems interesting that this tradition seems restricted to the continent (and the Isles through the Morrigan it seems), but is there a parallel tradition in Scandinavia? I’m just wondering if what we’re dealing with were originally regional variants of the same tradition. The German hunt tradition, for example, seems to figure female huntresses over Wotan, at least from the little I’ve read, whereas elsewhere Odin or later adaptations predominated. If Perchta and her variants are, themselves, variants of an independent Valkyric tradition I’m just wondering why this seemed to develop mostly in Germany and not elsewhere.


Later in the Volsung lineage, Aslaug, daughter of Brynhild and Sigurd, goes by the name Kraka 'crow' when she is given to Ragnar Lodbrok (Schlauch 1930: 190, 198-202, 212-14). Although Aslaug is not called a Valkyrie herself, she is the daughter of one, and perhaps partakes of her mother's nature.

I would have to do more research, but it would not be surprising if she did. There are many cases of children taking on their parents’ attributes when they pertain to warfare. In the female tradition there are the two Hervörs of Heiðrek’s saga, the latter being the granddaughter of the first and hinted at being the first Hervör “aptrborin”. What I also found interesting just now, and this is just a thought so don’t take my word for it, but thinking of the story of the first Hervör, she goes viking for the greater part of her youth, quests to inherit Thyrfing from her father, and continues to go viking until one day she retires to her spinning (the term used in the saga, which just made me wonder just now). Her granddaughter supposedly fell in battle in her prime while leading a Gothic army against the Huns.

Now, if we return to the Odinic tradition for a moment, we know that the young warrior, whether he carry on in the war-cult after his youth or not, is idealized and immortalized in his state of youth no matter if he dies in battle or lives to die a “straw death”. The ideal is that immortalized young warrior of the war-cult, who dances between spears in Tacitus, who is at the forefront of every army. This makes me wonder if Freya’s tradition works in the same way for warriors like the two Hervörs or Freydís Eiríksdóttir of the Vinland sagas. Are they, too, rare as they may be, idealized in their youth, retiring in Sessrúmnir rather than Valhalla? Hervör goes viking in her youth and “settles down” and retires to marriage and “spinning” or weaving when she is past her prime just as a young warrior might retire to farming after his rite of passage has passed, yet when he goes to Valhalla its as the warrior in his prime. This could all be very out there, and its just something that occured to me now that I’d never considered before. Its just this problem of Valhalla vs. Sessrúmnir that is puzzling me, and an aspect of mythology that I had never really given much thought to. If you guys have other info that might lend some insight do feel free to challenge me on this rather hasty thought of mine.


To the Wild Hunt..led by Odin and/or Holda..could they be the same..?? Freya does get half the battle-slain..??

So far, I do think the Odin/Holda hunts, at least originally, were one and the same but underwent regional variations. I still wonder while Perchta/Holle predominate in the German tradition…any ideas?

I'm not as familiar with the Celtic tradition so I cannot really comment on your ideas on the Morrigan. As for the rest of it, I'll have to give it some more thought. The above are just some ideas I had just now.

[Lyfing]

So far, I do think the Odin/Holda hunts, at least originally, were one and the same but underwent regional variations. I still wonder while Perchta/Holle predominate in the German tradition…any ideas?


Great post..

Well, I’m not so sure why, but I do have a few ideas. So here goes..

Holle puts me in mind of Hel one of Loki’s brood..


The exact origin of Mother Hulda is difficult to trace but it is thought that the character originated in Norse mythology, where she is associated with a number of different deities including Frigg and Hel; also in German, there is an etymologic connection between the name Holle, the name Hel, and the word for hell (Hölle).

Hel is the queen of Hel, the Norse underworld, and described in Norse mythology as a half-dead, half alive monster, but in German mythology she was viewed with some beneficence, as a more gentle form of death and transformation. In this context, Mother Hulda is connected with Hertha, the goddess of peace and fertility, otherwise known as Hlodyn in the Edda. Hlodyn herself was more commonly referred to as Jord, the personification of the primitive, unpopulated, and uncultivated Earth. She is one of the wives of the chief god Odin and the mother of the god Thor. Since the term mother goddess is used interchangeably in various texts across Europe it is possible that some confusion exists over the exact status of Jord and Frigg in this context.

In early Germanic mythology however, Hulda was known as the goddess of marriage. She was a beneficent deity, the patroness and guardian of all maidens.

Marija Gimbutas[2] names Hulda (or Holda, Holla, Holle) as having originally been an ancient Germanic supreme goddess who predates most of the German pantheon, including deities such as Odin, Thor, Freya and Loki, continuing traditions of pre-Indo-European Neolithic Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Hulda

Now here I think of Ragnarok and what Joseph Campbell called “The Meeting with the Goddess”..


For she is the world creatrix, ever mother, ever virgin. She encompasses
the encompassing, nourishes the nourishing, and is
the life of everything that lives.

She is also the death of even-thing that dies. The whole round
of existence is accomplished within her sway, from birth,
through adolescence, maturity, and senescence, to the grave. She
is the womb and the tomb: the sow that eats her farrow. Thus
she unites the "good" and the "bad," exhibiting the two modes
of the remembered mother, not as personal only, but as universal.

…

She was Cosmic Power, the totality
of the universe, the harmonization of all the pairs of opposites,
combining wonderfully the terror of absolute destruction
with an impersonal yet motherly reassurance. As change, the
river of time, the fluidity of life, the goddess at once creates, preserves,
and destroys. Her name is Kali, the Black One; her title:
The Ferry across the Ocean of Existence.31

The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Page 105


There is a connection between the Kali Yuga and Ragnarok..


"...Hindu sacred epics and puranas (popular tellings of ancient lore) the number of years reckoned to the present cycle of time, the so-called Kali Yuga, is 432,000; the number reckoned to the `great cycle' (mahayuga) within which this yuga falls being 4,320,000."

"...in the Icelandic Eddas, I discovered that in Othin's(Wotan's) warrior hall, Valhoell, there were 540 doors, through each of which, on the `Day of the Wolf' (that is to say, at the end of the present cycle of time), there would pass 800 divine warriors to engage the anti-gods in a battle of mutual annihilation. 800 x 540 = 432,000..."

http://www.greatdreams.com/432.htm

I guess what I’m getting at here is that if we look at Ragnarok as being in the domain of a/the Goddess in as much as it destroys and creates a parallel is drawn with chaos and order. And in this way the question of not necessarily why Odin in the North and Perchta in the South but rather why a change from feminine to masculine can be raised..?? Loki has babies. What’s going on here..??

Later,
-Lyfing

[Aemma]

And in this way the question of not necessarily why Odin in the North and Perchta in the South but rather why a change from feminine to masculine can be raised..?? Loki has babies. What’s going on here..??


Good point and interesting notion to ponder for sure. I guess all I can offer here is the fact that there seem to be some instances in the Lore that deal with the theme of androgyny from what I can quickly recall. Odin as well as Loki taking a female form when they shape-shift; Thor dressing as a woman--as quick examples. I think the theme of androgyny is interesting when examining the Lore and might point to a period of transition between the shift from a matron-cult to a more warrior-cult???

I dunno...any takers on this one?

Most excellent thread by the way Lyfing! :thumb001:

Cheers for now!...Aemma

[YggsVinr]

And in this way the question of not necessarily why Odin in the North and Perchta in the South but rather why a change from feminine to masculine can be raised..?? Loki has babies. What’s going on here..??


Good point and interesting notion to ponder for sure. I guess all I can offer here is the fact that there seem to be some instances in the Lore that deal with the theme of androgyny from what I can quickly recall. Odin as well as Loki taking a female form when they shape-shift; Thor dressing as a woman--as quick examples. I think the theme of androgyny is interesting when examining the Lore and might point to a period of transition between the shift from a matron-cult to a more warrior-cult???


Good question Aemma, and I would argue that if we look at previous transitions between female and male deities, or hermaphroditic transitions in earlier mythology such an observation would suggest that there was a difference between the hermaphroditic transition between Nerthus/Ing/Frey (and his sister Freya), and the occasional hermaphroditic nature of Odin and Loki. What I will suggest below is that Odin and Loki's transformations were related to their connections to magic/shamanism rather than to a transition from a matron-cult and the war-cult.

Aemma, your post reminded me somewhat of an argument I made in another thread on this forum, and I'll start with a few quotes to set the background for my argument.


What is also interesting is that the duality/hermaphrodite nature of Tuisto is reflected in Nerthus, Ing, and Frey/Freya.


However, in the case of Tuisto and Nerthus/Ing/Frey, one might question whether the blending of Nerthus/Ing/Frey (according to time period), all whom represent a similar concept or deity but with a change of form or name, might be extended to include Tuisto.


The evidence begins with an interesting point about Nerthus' name brought up by a few historians and linguists, which is that Nerthus' suffix is masculine, not feminine. Nerþ-uz (like harjilaz, kungingaz etc.) would be a typically masculine ending. One might claim that the name was translated into Latin, however, the -us suffix in Latin is also a masculine ending (unless its being treated as an irregular, which is not likely).

However, Tacitus still writes that "Nerthum id est Terra Matrem".

So what's Tacitus talking about? Well, considering it wouldn't be the first time Tacitus translated or transfered a Germanic name into Latin, he calls Odin Mercury, after all. It is quite likely that Tacitus has once more made a blunder when it comes to the Germanic pantheon and equated Nerthus with Magna Mater/Cybele. But why would he equate a male deity with a female deity? Note that Lyfing's article brings up a good point, that Cybele was once viewed as a hermaphroditic figure, and if he was doing this would it not make sense to equate that with Nerthus, likewise hermaphroditic.


There seems to be a great confusion of the genuine gender of Nerthus. The name is typically masculine yet Nerthus is still described by Tacitus as being an earth mother. So is Nerthus a hermaphrodite or did he undergo a change of gender? I still find the ambiguity of Nerthus' gender to be an indication of a splitting of gender, as in the case of Frey and Freya.

Ok, so when we look at the case of the history of the transition of the above fertility deity, what is noteworthy is that the deity literally changes form. Nerthus, male in name, eventually becomes a female deity and appears to give birth to, first, Ing, then Frey/Freya. We are able to see that transition through the literature from Tacitus' time into the viking age.

In the case of Odin and Loki, first of all in early reports of the Germanic myths we have an Odin-like figure in Mercury/Mars who is very much concerned with warfare. If we look at the usurping of Frey by Odin, if this did occur and there is much evidence to suggest it, then it likely began around the inception of the migration period when the Germanic tribes entered into a period of frequent warring with each other, invading tribes, and the Romans; a lifestyle transition that could understandably create a cultic shift. The Frey we see in the Eddas does not much indicate the past revealed to us in earlier histories and archaeological evidence, so would a more feminine Odin not have been reflected in the histories as well, and to what extent would that already changing aspect be reflected in the Eddas? By the time the Eddas were transcribed, the Germanic people had long been concerned with the war-cult.

But what we do get in the early histories that is also reflected in the Eddas and sagas is that the early Germanics had a great respect for their seeresses, and one might argue that it was viewed that women often held the gift of prophecy over men. If this is so, then this explains Odin learning seid from Freya. In The King, the Champion and the Sorcerer, Lotte Motz writes the following:


III.2.2.5 Perversion
It is believed by some nations that a change of sex increases a magician's powers. This notion finds especially strong expression among the Chuchkee and the Koryaks of north-eastern Siberia. While a female sorceress may wish to turn into a man, the attempts of men to impersonate a woman are more frequently encountered. Such a man will take to wearing women's clothes and to pursue women's activities. In a second stage he may alter his character to become 'soft and helpless' like a woman. In an even more advanced degree of perversion he may 'choose a husband'. It is assumed that such shamans have actually changed their sexual organs. Amon the Yakuts male shamans frequently wear women's clothes and hair styles and among the Samoyeds the shaman wears a woman's hat. The belief or its traces are seen among non-Eurasian peoples. The enares, Scythian soothsayers, wore women's clothes. The ecstatic priests of Kotys, a Thracian goddess, bore the hemigynoi, 'Half-women'. The castrated devotees of Cybele wandered in women's garments through the provinces. On a Germanic bracteate of Fyn a dancer, identified as a sorcerer, is depicted with a woman's breasts. We thus find a correspondence between Odinn's ergi and the phenomenon of a shaman's ritual perversion.


Loki, like Odin is a magician, this is suggested, for example, in Thrymskvitha wherein Loki gains information from Thrym while Thrym is mound-sitting. When one is mound-sitting one does not converse in Midgard or Asgard or Jotunheim, one has journeyed to Hel, and so Loki seems to have sought Thrym out in the realm of the dead, suggesting both are mound-sitting; further indicated when Loki changes his shape after the confrontation.

When it comes to sleipnir, Odin is most frequently reported riding him when riding to hell (thinking in the context of the Gothic hell-runners, Brynhild as riding to hell, sorcerers and seeresses being referred to as hell-runners or hell-riders). In fact, sleipnir is most often associated with death as Odin only ever (correct me if I'm wrong if you can think of an instance) rides him into battle (to gather his half of the slain, at Ragnarok) or to Hel, and his eight-legged nature connects him with the otherworld. It seems that most who make the journey to Hel, who communicate with the dead, or are associated with the dead have some kind of physical abnormality (in the case of sleipnir his eight legs). Perhaps in the case of a man gaining the gift of prophecy/traveling to Hel, a physical alteration was required, ie. turning into a woman.

So Loki a magician/shape-shifter gives birth to another magician/shape-shifter's vessel to Hel/connection with the underworld. The birth itself seems somehow to symbolise some kind of shamanic ritual for the purpose of gaining prophecy or knowledge.

Does Loki giving birth to sleipnir simply mark him as a powerful magician? Why does he give birth to sleipnir? It would appear that he is attempting to help the gods, but in Voluspa hin skamma it is written:


Gat Loki the Wolf with Angrbotha,
and Sleipnir he bore to Svathilfari,
But of all ill wights most awful by far
is Byleist's brother's baleful offspring.

A half-burnt heart which he had found-
it was a woman's- ate wanton Loki;
with child he grew from the guileful woman.
Thence are on earth all ogres sprung.

The whole prophecy centres around the events that lead up to Ragnarok, so it makes me wonder. Loki's changing into a woman (eating a woman's heart as well) seems highly shamanistic and purposive rather than the result of a cult shift.

Also, what do you make of Byleist? We're looking at another trio representing Odin/Vili/Ve, Odin, Lodurr, Hoenir, and the Prose Edda suggests that Loki is, indeed, Odin's brother but can anyone think of any earlier suggestions (EDIT: I should probably clarify, we've had lots of evidence regarding Odin/Vili/Ve, Odin/Lodurr/Hoenir, but I'm wondering about what seems like that single mention of Helblindi/Byleist/Loki...I'm not sure I'm explaining myself the best way possible)? I'm just wondering if this was a later development or not.

Also in the case of Odin -> Perchta (perhaps as Valkyrie), I think that the shift from a male Odin) to female figure (Perchta/Valkyric) differs from the case of a male deity becoming a female deity. I don't know though. Will have to think about it some more.

Am I making any sense here on either account? Any suggestions?

[Lyfing]

Good question Aemma, and I would argue that if we look at previous transitions between female and male deities, or hermaphroditic transitions in earlier mythology such an observation would suggest that there was a difference between the hermaphroditic transition between Nerthus/Ing/Frey (and his sister Freya), and the occasional hermaphroditic nature of Odin and Loki. What I will suggest below is that Odin and Loki's transformations were related to their connections to magic/shamanism rather than to a transition from a matron-cult and the war-cult.

I think their transformations are absolutely related to shamanism. I touched upon that a little in my first post…( of course my thoughts now are way beyond that thanks to the great contributions in this here thread )..


In a nutshell it could go like..Loki is the trickster who brought the fire. He is of the order of the shamans of individuality, those that held the individual capable of magic themselves, of the hunters. Not of those who worshiped the rounds of the seasons and were subject to them. Who with their coming bound them ( the individuals ) with order, and as the story goes..will come unbound when the order disintegrates..and round and round we go.

They say Odin learned seid from the Vanir, namely Freya. That maybe even it is evil, and was first taught by Gullveig. And with Ragnarok that Wyrd will play itself out. There is talk of Freya being Frigga even. Now this is where I bring up the matron-cult..

Joseph Campbell said this in his Occidental Mythology..



The victory of the patriarchal deities over the earlier matriarchal ones was not as decisive in the Greco-Roman sphere as in the myths of the Old Testament…For in Greece the patriarchal gods did not exterminate, but married, the goddesses of the land…

Page 28

Thus in Medusa the same two powers coexisted as in the black goddess Kali of India, who with her right hand bestows boons and in her left holds a raised sword. Kali gives birth to all beings of the universe, yet her tongue is lolling long and red to lick up their living blood. She wears a necklace of skulls; her kilt is of severed arms and legs. She is Black Time, both the life and the death of all beings, the womb and the tomb of the world: the primal, one and only, ultimate reality of nature, of whom the gods themselves are but the functioning agents.

I must interrupt here with..Even the Gods and Goddesses are subject to Wyrd..


Or let us take the curious legend of the blind sage Tiresias, to whom even Zeus and Hera turned once for judgement….In this tale the mating serpents, like those of the caduceus, are the sign of the world-generating force that plays through all pairs of opposites, male and female, birth and death. Into their mystery Tiresias blundered as he wandered in the green wood of the secrets of the ever-living goddess Earth. His impulsive stroke placed him between the two, like the middle staff (axis mundi) of figure 1; and he was there upon flashed to the other side for seven years--a week of years, a little life--the side of which he formerly had had no knowledge. Whence, with intent, he again touched the living symbol of the two that are in nature one, and, returning to his proper form, was thereafter the one who was in knowledge both: in wisdom greater than either Zeus, the god who was merely male, or his goddess, who was merely female.

The patriarchal point of view is distinguished from the earlier archaic view by its setting apart of all pairs-of-opposites--male and female, life and death, true and false, good and evil--as though they were absolutes in themselves and not merely aspects of the larger entity of life..

Pages 26-27

With the last paragraph there, I suppose we go beyond good and evil and with Nietzsche’s amor fati we make our Wyrd. That’s another story though and part of our very own perhaps. The point I’d like to bring up here is that maybe in this case the meeting of the two brought this one beyond them both about.

This is such a broad subject now I can’t help but be a little scattered..

With the Vanir there seems to be both shamanic and matron cult stuff going on. Freyr is a good example. He goes around in a wagon just like all the mother goddesses do and..


The Shaman:*Some folk regard Freyr as a god of ecstasy, mainly sexual, similar to other such ancient deities. He may thus be linked to early shamanic practices and sorcery. This would be part and parcel with his role as a guide, mediator or bridge between humans and the wild and between life and death. In this context, he may have been associated with ritual sexual ambiguity - a ritual or social expression of the crossing of boundaries seen in several cultures. His priests may have cross-dressed. Saxo Grammaticus' hero Starkaðr fled Freyr's temple at Uppsala because of the "effeminate gestures", the "unmanly clatter of bells", and the "clapping of mimes upon the stage" (Saxo, VI, 185, p. 228).

Tacitus describes a similar phenomenon among the Naharvali, a Germanic tribe: "The Naharvali proudly point out a grove associated with an ancient worship. The presiding priest dresses like a woman; but the deities are said to be the counterpart of Castor and Pollux. This indicates their character, but their name is the Alci. There are no images, and nothing to suggest that the cult is of foreign origin; but they are certainly worshipped as young men and as brothers." (Tacitus, p. 137)

…

Freyr then sends Skírnir to woo Gerðr, but must give the messenger his horse and his sword (both often considered symbols of his manhood) so that Skírnir will be able to get past the trolls on the way and ride through the ring of fire surrounding Gerðr.

http://www.haukafellkindred.org/Frey.php


Now here we go with Ehwaz the horse-rune..


A case can be made for connecting the horse cult with the equally ancient Indo-European cult of the Divine Twins. In Hindu mythology the Asvins were sons of the sky or the sun, whose parents took the forms of horses to conceive them. They are the physicians of the gods and may appear with horse heads or in a golden chariot drawn by horses. In the Greek and Roman pantheon, Castor and Pollux, the hero-twins and sons of Zeus called the Dioscuri, are often portrayed on horseback.

Stories of brother or twin heroes are common in the genealogies of the Germanic royal families, the most suggestive, from this point of view, being the Anglo-Saxon Hengest and Horsa ( Stallion and Horse). According to Tacitus, the Naharvali, a tribe on the North Sea, worshipped twin gods called the Alcis, “revered under the character of young men and brothers” (Germania: 43), whose attributes were the same as those of Castor and Pollux. Ellis-Davidson mentions the find of an urn from the La Tene period in the same region showing men on horseback connected by a crossbeam, which is similar to the Spartan symbol for the Dioscuri (194, p.169).

Although the twin gods seem to be mainly associated with fertility, healing, and youthful skill in warfare, their duality may also have sexual implications. Tacitus tell us that the priest of the Alcis presided over the ancient rites conducted in the sacred grove “dressed in women’s apparel.” Interestingly enough, although “by Castor and Pollux” was a common Roman oath, women swore simply “by Castor.” One wonders whether this indicates the survival of an Indo-European tradition in which the power of the horse was invoked for fertility by women.

The horse may also represent the psychic or spiritual energy of individual or tribe, an energy that can carry one to the realm of the gods. In Siberia, the drum is the “horse” of the shaman. In the Afro-diasporic traditions (Voudoun, Umbanda, Santeria, etc.). the worshiper who is possessed by a deity is referred to as a “horse” and the deity his “rider” Glosses (1989) suggests that this metaphor may have been used for possessory experience in Germanic culture as well.

The relationship between horse and rider is significantly empowering--together, they are able to do things that neither would accomplish alone. However, the effectiveness of the relationship depends on the wisdom of the rider and the willingness of the one who is ridden. Its success requires cooperation and harmony.

A sense of transcendence though the equal union of opposites may also accur in sexual union. It has been suggested that the twins were originally not identical, but one of the brother-sister pairs (such as Freyr and Freya in the shapes of a stallion and a mare), common in early mythology. If so, nothing of the sort survived in the mythologies in which the twins retained a mayor role. Another possibility is that the transsexual aspect of the worship of the Alcis (like the transsexuality of the shaman) symbolized the union between masculine and feminine aspects of the psyche and the ability to move between the worlds.

EHWAZ would seem, therefore, to represent extension of strength through union and spiritual or physical energy, operating in both the physical and spiritual realms. In the physical world, it may be considered a rune of Freyr, the Divine Stallion. Freyr’s blessing is invoked for cooperation for peaceful purposes, political and social unions, and fertility as a result of sexual union. Sacred kingship and physical power are also implied. In the spiritual realm, EHWAZ can also be seen as a rune of Odin as master of trance magic, which facilitates union and cooperation with the spiritual worlds, the gods, and spiritual forces within and without, a rune of protection for spiritual journeying.

Taking up the Runes, by Diana L. Paxson, pages 198-199

That goes with this..


When it comes to sleipnir, Odin is most frequently reported riding him when riding to hell (thinking in the context of the Gothic hell-runners, Brynhild as riding to hell, sorcerers and seeresses being referred to as hell-runners or hell-riders). In fact, sleipnir is most often associated with death as Odin only ever (correct me if I'm wrong if you can think of an instance) rides him into battle (to gather his half of the slain, at Ragnarok) or to Hel, and his eight-legged nature connects him with the otherworld. It seems that most who make the journey to Hel, who communicate with the dead, or are associated with the dead have some kind of physical abnormality (in the case of sleipnir his eight legs). Perhaps in the case of a man gaining the gift of prophecy/traveling to Hel, a physical alteration was required, ie. turning into a woman.

I guess these questions could be all for now. What is up with the Vanir, and their seid, in regards there being some connection between shamanism and the matron cult. Did they just meld together somewhere sometime..?? Did Odin ( and Loki as a part of him ) come along later and a situation such as that with Tiresias come about..??

Later,
-Lyfing

...
Also, what do you make of Byleist? We're looking at another trio representing Odin/Vili/Ve, Odin, Lodurr, Hoenir, and the Prose Edda suggests that Loki is, indeed, Odin's brother but can anyone think of any earlier suggestions (EDIT: I should probably clarify, we've had lots of evidence regarding Odin/Vili/Ve, Odin/Lodurr/Hoenir, but I'm wondering about what seems like that single mention of Helblindi/Byleist/Loki...I'm not sure I'm explaining myself the best way possible)? I'm just wondering if this was a later development or not.

I'm thinking about it..??

[Lyfing]

Also, what do you make of Byleist? We're looking at another trio representing Odin/Vili/Ve, Odin, Lodurr, Hoenir, and the Prose Edda suggests that Loki is, indeed, Odin's brother but can anyone think of any earlier suggestions (EDIT: I should probably clarify, we've had lots of evidence regarding Odin/Vili/Ve, Odin/Lodurr/Hoenir, but I'm wondering about what seems like that single mention of Helblindi/Byleist/Loki...I'm not sure I'm explaining myself the best way possible)? I'm just wondering if this was a later development or not.

Well, I found this..


Irmin, Ingo, Isto
A study on the brothers of creation

In the poetic Edda, we are told of three brothers, sons of Borr, that create the first man and woman (Askr & Embla) from two pieces of wood they find on the beach. They are named Oðinn, Hœnir and Loðr. Snorri Sturluson, on the other hand, names these three brothers differently in his prose Edda; Oðinn, Vili and Vé. In Tacitus's Germania we find three other names for what appear to be these very same brothers; Irmin, Ingo and Isco. Who are these brothers Tacitus mentions and how can we compare them to their Norse equivalents found in the Edda's?

...

Isco

As the third son of Mannus we find Isco. If we take the above comparisons for temporary truth, we are forced to conclude this Isco is comparable to the God named Loðr or Vili, the God that provided Askr and Embla with blood and senses. In essence we could state that Isco was the provider of the actual human body, the one that changed the form of the trees to that of a human form. Grimm in a way supports that theory when he suggests a similarity between Isco and Askr. Altough Grimm offers this similarity as a comparison of Isco to Askr, he also admits to the idea of Isco representing the body. It would be off in comparison to the Norse Gods to place Isco to be Askr, as these brothers would have given life to Askr, not be the being themselves. If we look to the lore (Skaldskaparmal 1), we find one God that accompanies Hönir and Wodan in their travels; Loki. It is one of the few times we read about Hönir traveling with his brother Wodan and the name of Loki appears. Could Loki be this God Isco, Loðr or Vili, the third brother?

Another name for Loki is that of Loptr, and Loki is paralleled with Logi by Snorri. Both Loptr, Loðr and Logi are names having to do with fire. Loptr is a reference to the unsteady air, Loðr one of a raging earth fire, Logi simply fire itself. Loki seems to be connected with fire, that much is clear. Next to the obvious likeness and meaning of Loptr and Loðr we can see the gift of Loðr, that of blood and senses, as the warmth of the body, the fire if you will.

It is interesting to note that Loki is presented as one of three brothers by his parents Farbauti and Laufey. His brothers are known as Hellblindi and Byleist. We know too little of these brothers to compare them to Irmin and Ingo or Wodan and Hönir. If we do however propose these brothers to be the very brothers of the famous trio, we would have to look at the role of Farbauti as he would be comparable to Mannus. This may seem to be unlikely, as he is described as a demon-like giant, like the Jotuns. However, we must not forget the christian influence on Loki that depicts him as a devilish character. In that manipulation, it would seem logical to depict his father as purely evil as well.

Grimm discusses the giant Forniotr, which seems to be Farbauti himself, to which he grants three other sons, namely Logi, Hlêr and Kari or in other words Fire-Water-Air. Of this trio we find another familair name, besides that of Logi, that of Hlêr. In Snorri's Edda we find a reference to Ægir, which is also called as Hlêr. This seems logical as we know that Ægir's name most likely refers to the sea directly. Kari, as air, seems to be easily compared to Wodan, if not only for the breath he grants Askr and Embla. In this case we are served with an odd trio: Loki, Eger (Ægir) and Wodan. Could Eger be Ingo? Perhaps related to Ingo much like Fro is referred to as Ingo?

In Tacitus' Germania, he mentions the Istaevones as all the rest, where he grants the coast to the Ingaevones and the middle-country to the Herminones. This reference would place these peoples to the east, the west and part of the north already given to the Ingeavones, the middle country (mainly Germany of today) to the Herminones. It is perhaps interesting to note that the Jotuns (Loki's kind) are said to be of the East, wheras the Vanes (Ingo) are of the West. Next to that, we can note with these three beings a good balance of the three main beings: Ases, Vanes and Ëzan (Jotuns).

In a far more extreme speculation, could Tacitus comment of all the rest refer to the Reginorahha (Raganrök)? Could it be a statement of the future einhari towards their enemies the Ëzan? Where the peoples of the Ases (Irmin) and the people of the Vanes (Ingo) will fight with their Gods against the people of the Ëzan (Isco) in the end of times. A farfetched concept, but perhaps worth noting in this small study of the three brothers.

http://www.heithanissa.nl/v2/?id=articles&sub=5&gloss=

The first thing that comes to my mind is what Rydberg had to say..

http://i43.tinypic.com/21ccbc0.gif

And when it comes to Hadding..


It has been suggested that they were originally two Proto-Germanic legendary heroes by the name *Hazdingōz, meaning the "longhairs", and that they were identical to the Alci mentioned by Tacitus. According to Tacitus, the Alci were worshiped as gods by priests in female clothing:

[...] and the Nahanarvali. Among these last is shown a grove of immemorial sanctity. A priest in female attire has the charge of it. But the deities are described in Roman language as Castor and Pollux. Such, indeed, are the attributes of the divinity, the name being Alcis. They have no images, or, indeed, any vestige of foreign superstition, but it is as brothers and as youths that the deities are worshipped.[1]

Cassius Dio mentioned c. 170 the Astingoi as a noble clan among the Vandals, and the Asdingi reappear, in the 6th century in Jordanes' work as the royal dynasty of the Vandals.

The root appears in Old Icelandic as haddr meaning "women hair", and the motivation for the name Haddingjar/Astingoi/Asdingi was probably that men from Germanic royal dynasties sported long hair as a mark of dignity (cf. the "longhaired Merovingians").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadding

I think there may be something here..??

There are some pretty interesting parallels with Hadding and Loki. Him being taken care of by the one-eyed man, him drinking "Leifnir's flames", him being bound like Loki ( by Loki..?? ), and him eating a heart..


The one-eyed old man is endowed with wonderful powers. When he landed with the lad at his home, he sang over him prophetic incantations to protect him (Hist., 40), and gave him a drink of the "most splendid sort," which produced in Hadding enormous physical strength, and particularly made him able to free himself from bonds and chains. (Compare Hávamál 149, concerning Odin's freeing incantations by which "fetters spring from the feet and chains from the hands".) A comparison with other passages, which I shall discuss later, shows that the potion of which the old man is lord contains something which is called "Leifnir's flames," and that he who has been permitted to drink it, and over whom freeing incantations have simultaneously been sung, is able with his warm breath to free himself from every fetter which has been put on his enchanted limbs (see Nos. 43, 96, 103).

The old man predicts that Hadding will soon have an opportunity of testing the strength with which the drink and the magic songs have endowed him. And the prophecy is fulfilled. Hadding falls into the power of Loki. He chains him and threatens to expose him as food for a wild beast - in Saxo a lion, in the myth presumably some one of the wolf or serpent prodigies that are Loki's offspring. But when his guards are put to sleep by Odin's magic song, though Odin is far away, Hadding bursts his bonds, slays the beast, and eats, in obedience to Odin's instructions, its heart. (The saga of Sigurd Fafnisbani has copied this feature. Sigurd eats the heart of the dragon Fafnir and gets wisdom thereby.)

Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology, 38. THE WORLD WAR (continued). THE WAR IN MIDGARD BETWEEN HALFDAN'S SONS. GROA'S SONS AGAINST ALVEIG'S. LOKI'S APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. HADDING'S YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES.

Any thoughts?

Later,
-Lyfing

[YggsVinr]

Irmin, Ingo, Isto
A study on the brothers of creation

In the poetic Edda, we are told of three brothers, sons of Borr, that create the first man and woman (Askr & Embla) from two pieces of wood they find on the beach. They are named Oðinn, Hœnir and Loðr. Snorri Sturluson, on the other hand, names these three brothers differently in his prose Edda; Oðinn, Vili and Vé. In Tacitus's Germania we find three other names for what appear to be these very same brothers; Irmin, Ingo and Isco. Who are these brothers Tacitus mentions and how can we compare them to their Norse equivalents found in the Edda's?

Good find! I didn't even think of Irmin, Ingo, and Isto in the context of this thread, how silly! It definitely does look as though we have a trinity of Odin, Frey, and Loki. Odin calls himself Helblindi "Grim is my name, and Gangleri, Herjan and Hjalmberi, Thekk and Thrithi, Thuth and Uth, Helblindi and Har." Har also seems to have a similar meaning to Irmin. And what about Thrithi? The third (third of three brothers?)? The footnote in my edition gives it a Christian connotation but is it really?

I tried to do some searching on Byleistr but didn't come up with much. The first hit I got was:


Byleist
Brother of Loki. His name means Roar-of-the-Galewind-Lightning.

But that doesn't seem to fit. But I did find an interesting hit on the prefix portion of the name. The entry for Byleist itself didn't give much insight but right above it was one for Byggvir and Beyla.


Like his wife Beyla, Byggvir is mostly understood through the etymology of his name, although the problem is complicated by the competing form in the poem, "Beyggvir". Bygg is the word for barely, and much of what the poem says of Byggvir can be imagined to fit barley, which is tiny, ground in a mill, and used in beer. Barley would be associated with Frey insofar that Frey is a fertility god.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=37pHbBKCbXQC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=byleist+etymology&source=bl&ots=wCHeof1a88&sig=Iuz-d3U5cdlE9ioNcirqPEFyxzg#PPA91,M1

It got me wondering if the prefix of Byleistr is related to Bygg etymologically at all. I couldn't find much on the suffix, though.

I also found:


byggja (gð)> dwell, settle; build, inhabit [Pokorny bheu-, bheu̯ə-, bhu̯ā-, bhu̯ē- : bhō̆u- : bhū- :: to grow, prosper]
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/norol-BF-X.html

If Frey/Ingo/Vili is Byleist then it would make sense that the name be associated with growth and prosperity.

I don't have much to add for now, I've been reading some material on Loki and shamanism that I'll post as soon as possible.

Great posts!

[Lyfing]

The possible connections between Odin/Irmin/Helblini/Kari, Haenir/Vili/Ingo/Byleist/Hler, and Lothur/Ve/Isto/Loki/Logi/Hadding have been pointed out in the above.

I’ve been off trying to find connections between Odin/Irmin/Helblini/Kari and Gudhorm, and Haenir/Vili/Ingo/Byleist/Hler and Svipdag.

This is all proving to be a heck of mess. Rydberg was good at this and had the following to say in regards it..


We must consider that nearly all mythic characters are polyonomous, and that the Teutonic mythology particularly, on account of its poetics, is burdened with a highly-developed polyonomy.

And further..


The simplest of the rules he followed was to avail himself of the polyonomy with which the myths and heroic poems are overloaded, and to do so in the following manner:

Assume that a person in the mythic or heroic poems had three or four names or epithets (he may have had a score). We will call this person A, and the different forms of his name A', A'', A'''. Saxo’s task of producing a chain of events running through many centuries forced him to consider the three names A', A'', and A''' as originally three persons, who had performed certain similar exploits, and therefore had, in course of time, been confounded with each other, and blended by the authors of myths and stories into one person A. As best he can, Saxo tries to resolve this mythical product, composed, in his opinion, of historical elements, and to distribute the exploits attributed to A between A', A'', and A'''. It may also be that one or more of the stories applied to A were found more or less varied in different sources. In such cases he would report the same stories with slight variations about A', A'', and A'''. The similarities remaining form one important group of indications which he has furnished to guide us, but which can assure us that our investigation is in the right course only when corroborated by indications belonging to other groups, or corroborated by statements preserved in other sources.

But in the events which Saxo in this manner relates about A', A'', and A''', other persons are also mentioned. We will assume that in the myths and heroic poems these have been named B and C. These, too, have in the songs of the skalds had several names and epithets. B has also been called B', B'', B'''. C has also been styled C', C'', C'''. Out of this one subordinate person B, Saxo, by the aid of the abundance of names, makes as many subordinate persons — B', B'', and B''' — as he made out of the original chief person A — that is, the chief persons A', A'', and A'''. Thus also with C, and in this way we get the following analogies:

A'*** is to B'***and C'***as
A'' B'' C''***and as
A''' B''' C'''

By comparing all that is related concerning these nine names, we are enabled gradually to form a more or less correct idea of what the original myth has contained in regard to A, B, and C. If it then happens — as is often the case — that two or more of the names A', B', C', &c., are found in Icelandic or other documents, and there belong to persons whose adventures are in some respects the same, and in other respects are made clearer and more complete, by what Saxo tells about A', A'', and A''', &c., then it is proper to continue the investigation in the direction thus started. If, then, every new step brings forth new confirmations from various sources, and if a myth thus restored easily dovetails itself into an epic cycle of myths, and there forms a necessary link in the chain of events, then the investigation has produced the desired result.

An aid in the investigation is not unfrequently the circumstance that the names at Saxo’s disposal were not sufficient for all points in the above scheme. We then find analogies which open for us, so to speak, short cuts — for instance, as follows:

A'*** is to B'***and C'***as
A'' B' C''***and as
A''' B'' C'



That all being said..

Rydberg has already done the work of connecting Gudhorm with the Herminones and Svipdag with the Ingvaeones with this..


In the Roman authors the form Herminones is found by the side of Hermiones as the name of one of the three Teutonic tribes which descended from Mannus. It is possible, as already indicated, that -horm in Gudhorm is connected with the form Hermio, and it is probable, as already pointed out by several linguists, that the Teutonic irmin (jörmun, Goth. airmana) is linguistically connected with the word Hermino. In that case, the very names Gudhormr and Jörmunrekr already point as such to the mythic progenitor of the Hermiones, Herminones, just as Yngve-Svipdag’s name points to the progenitor of the Ingvœones (Ingævones), and possibly also Hadding’s to that of the Istævones (see No. 25). To the name Hadding corresponds, as already shown, the Anglo-Saxon Hearding, the old German Hartung. The Hasdingi (Asdingi) mentioned by Jordanes were the chief warriors of the Vandals (Goth. Orig., 22), and there may be a mythic reason for rediscovering this family name among an East Teutonic tribe (the Vandals), since Hadding, according to the myth, had his support among the East Teutonic tribes. To the form Hasdingi (Goth. Hazdiggós) the words istœvones, istvœones, might readily enough correspond, provided the vowel i in the Latin form can be harmonised with a in the Teutonic. That the vowel i was an uncertain element may be seen from the genealogy in Codex La Cava, which calls Istævo Ostius, Hostius.


43. EVIDENCE THAT DIETERICH “OF BERN” IS HADDING. THE DIETERICH SAGA THUS HAS ITS ORIGIN IN THE MYTH CONCERNING THE WAR BETWEEN MANNUS-HALFDAN’S SONS.

Rydberg also has the notion that..


The conflict between the gods has its counterpart in, and is connected with, a war between all the Teutonic races, and the latter is again a continuation of the feud between Halfdan and Svipdag. The Teutonic race comes to the front fighting under three race-representatives — (1) Yngve-Svipdag, the son of Orvandel and Groa; (2) Gudhorm, the son of Halfdan and Groa, consequently Svipdag’s half-brother; (3) Hadding, the son of Halfdan and Alveig (in Saxo called Signe, daughter of Sumbel), consequently Gudhorm’s half-brother.

The ruling Vans favour Svipdag, who is Freyja’s husband and Frey’s brother-in-law. The banished Asas support Hadding from their place of refuge. The conflict between the gods and the war between Halfdan’s successor and heir are woven together.

38.THE WORLD WAR (continued). THE WAR IN MIDGARD BETWEEN HALFDAN’S SONS. GROA’S SONS AGAINST ALVEIG’S. LOKE’S APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. HADDING’S YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES.


One of the first problems I came across with connecting Hadding to Loki is that he was favored by the Aesir. That just doesn’t fit especially with Loki binding him like he himself is bound…? But, I found something..


Our antiquity has plenty of hero brothers to show, but no twins with a
name like Alci, if this plural of Alcus is the true form. It occurs to me, that one
of Othin's names is Ialkr (S詢. 46b 47b), and jolk in the Vermland dialect means a
boy. (42)

Grimms Teutonic Mythology, Page 239

Remember up above how Hadding is connected with the Alci..?? Now with that maybe it is shown how Hadding is favored by the Aesir, and even how Odin is connected with Loki ( as cross-dressing blood-brothers )..??

For a long time now I’ve had it figured there to be a connection between the war of the Vanir and the Aesir and that of Ragnarok. My line of thinking being somewhere along the lines of Gullveig being the central cause in the First War, and her and Loki’s brood in the Last. That’s all obvious I think. But, it has seemed to me like the same war I guess is what I'm getting at.

Now, with Rydberg drawing a connection between the First War in the World and “a war between all the Teutonic races” and the writer of that essay with Ragnarok..


In a far more extreme speculation, could Tacitus comment of all the rest refer to the Reginorahha (Raganrök)? Could it be a statement of the future einhari towards their enemies the Ëzan? Where the peoples of the Ases (Irmin) and the people of the Vanes (Ingo) will fight with their Gods against the people of the Ëzan (Isco) in the end of times. A farfetched concept, but perhaps worth noting in this small study of the three brothers.

..I am left wondering if there isn’t some really powerful and ancient motif of the three brothers at work here. Showing itself in all the myths above compared..?? And that is a lot of myths..very important ones..??

Rydberg also wrote this…


One of the results of this investigation is, therefore, that the songs about Mannus and his sons, ancient already in the days of Tacitus, have, more or less influenced by the centuries, continued to live far down in the middle ages, and that, not the songs themselves, but the main features of their contents, have been preserved to our time, and should again be incorporated in our mythology together with the myth in regard to the primeval time, the main outline of which has been restored, and the final episode of which is the first great war in the world.

43. EVIDENCE THAT DIETERICH “OF BERN” IS HADDING. THE DIETERICH SAGA THUS HAS ITS ORIGIN IN THE MYTH CONCERNING THE WAR BETWEEN MANNUS-HALFDAN’S SONS.

I wonder what the results of this investigation could be..??..:thumb001:

That is the what I have been thinking about for the most part…

One more thing though..


And if our heroic legend associates Irmenfrit, i.e., Irmin with Iring, and Irmin-street alternates with Iring-street, then in the god-myth also, there must have existed points of contact between Irmin = Othinn and Iring = Heimdallr: well, Heimdallr was a son of Othinn, and the Welsh milky way was actually named after Gwydion, i.e., Woden. From the Irminsul four roads branched out across the country, Eriksgata extended in four directions, four such highways are likewise known to English tradition, though it gives the name of Ermingestret to only one, and bestows other mythic titles on the rest. Of Irmin and of Iring, both the divine personality and the lapse into hero nature seem to be made out.

Grimms Teutonic Mythology, Page 236

…where could Rig’s place be with the three..??

Any Thoughts..??

Later,
-Lyfing

[Lumi]

Loki is probably one of the most misunderstood Gods in all the nine realms.
Whenever something goes wrong, he's blamed, even though it's not necessarily his fault. That being said, when it has been his fault, he has always fixed it.
For example in the case of Idunn and her apples. Loki caused trouble, and when he realised how much shit he had caused, he fixed it.

Being so strongly connected to Thor means I get visits from Loki in my dreams.
He is a bit odd, I'll admit that, and he does take some getting used to. He appeals to my mischevious side, my inner child. The side that likes to cause trouble.

I don't mind having him around, though I'll admit that even I blame Loki when something goes wrong or goes missing xD

Loki is a necessary evil. He creates the balance between good and evil, as it were, but even he's been known to switch sides.

[Germanicus]

Great thoughts Lyfing.

I am one who believes that the excessive demonization of Loki is of Christian origin, someone they had to equate to the Biblical devil. Far from it. Loki is a complex character who cannot be understood in mere black and white terms

Funny enough ASH does not acknowledge Loki.:coffee:

[Supreme American]

What, no pics of Loki drunk tapdancing on a table with a lampshade on his head?

.... Bo-ring!

[RagnarLodbrok666]

The chaos and mischief he brings to this world is misunderstood but needed. It is a mistake to just cast him as a universally good or universally evil deity.

[Germanicus]

There is no mention of Loki in Anglo Saxon Heathenry.:)

[Lumi]

What's your point, Germanicus?

[Germanicus]

What's your point, Germanicus?

Why There Were Differences

Of course, it is understandable why there would be similarities between ancient Anglo-Saxon heathendom and ancient Asatru. After all, both groups of people descended from the Germanic tribes. Why, then, would there be any differences between the two? There are several reasons and all of them are very simple. The first is that even when a large group of people (such as several tribes or several nations) share a belief system, variations in that system will often arise peculiar to any given people. A perfect example of this is Irish and Italian Catholicism. Even though both Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics belong to the same denomination of the same religion, one can easily observe differences between the two, especially in the ways in which each group observes church holidays. The Anglo-Saxons and Icelanders would have naturally evolved their own beliefs and customs peculiar only to themselves.
Second, ancient heathendom was a religion closely tied to the land and hence the changing of the seasons. For the ancient Germanic peoples, winter did not necessarily arrive with the winter solstice, but whenever the first frost occurred. The beginnings of the seasons and the dates of festivals would then vary according to the climate. Naturally, a festival which would take place at the beginning of winter would occur later in a warmer clime than it would a colder one.

Third, there are differences between ancient Anglo-Saxon heathendom and ancient Icelandic Asatru because of the time frame involved. England was converted in the 6th and 7th centuries CE while Iceland was not converted until 1000 CE. In the 400 years between the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and the conversion of the Icelanders there was considerable opportunity for the religion to change and evolve, and no doubt such changes came even quicker due to the ever changing social conditions forced upon Northern Europe by Christianity.

Other changes developed from the social and political climate of the times. For the Anglo-Saxons the institution of sacral kingship was very important. Four hundred years later, however, the Icelanders had witnessed Norwegian kings demeaning the very office by breaking troth with the gods and the folk through unabashed tyranny. The institution of sacral kingship then ceased to be important for the Icelanders and they sought other ways of defending the tribal luck. Finally, it appears that the ancient heathen believed that great men could become gods upon their death--the Icelandic sagas show a few examples of kings being deified after they had passed on. In the 400 years between the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and the earliest Old Norse sources, various heroes could have been raised to godhood in the people's minds.

While Anglo-Saxon heathendom and Icelandic Asatru both belong to the same religion and as a result share much in common, there are also minor differences between the two which can occasionally result in confusion for anyone new to the study of heathendom.

By far our best source on information on the gods worshipped by the ancient Germanic peoples are the Old Norse and Icelandic poems and sagas. References to the gods in Old English (the language of the Anglo-Saxons) sources are exceedingly rare. The names of the major gods were, however, preserved in several place names. Because of this we know that ancient Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxon heathendom and Icelandic Asatru shared most of the major gods named in the Norse sources.
Below is a table listing the major gods known to us from the elder sources. An asterisk before the name of a god indicates that it is a reconstruction (that is, the name does not actually appear in the language). A short commentary follows on each of the gods.

The Gods of Anglo-Saxon heathendom and Asatru Old English Icelandic/Norse
Wóden Óðinn
Þúnor ÞórR
Fríge Frigg
Tíw TyR
Fréa FreyR
Fréo Freyja
*Néorð NjörðR
*Forseta Foreseti
Hama HeimdallR
Bealdor BaldR
Geofon Gefjun
Hel Hel
Éostre ?
? UllR
? Loki


Even a cursory glance at this table shows that ancient Anglo-Saxon heathendom and ancient Asatru share the major gods of the Eddas in common. We know that these gods were worshipped by the Old Norse speakers from the literary record, place names, and archaeological evidence. While the Old English literary record of these gods is scant, we do have place names and archaeological evidence that shows that the Anglo-Saxons worshipped them. That the Anglo-Saxons and the Icelanders (and the ancient Scandinavians before them) apparently held these gods in common shows that there was a high degree of agreement in the overall religion that is heathendom. Naturally, there were a few differences between the two, and some gods found in Icelandic heathendom might not have been known to the Anglo-Saxon heathen. Similarly, a few gods appear to have been known to the Anglo-Saxons, but not to the Icelanders.

Wóden: Known in Old Norse as Óðinn, best known now by an Anglicized version of that name, Odin, he appears to have been an important god for both the Anglo-Saxons and the ancient Scandinavians. He is the god most often mentioned in Old English sources and both England and Scandinavia boast several places named for him. Interestingly, the most important Old English source to mention Wóden, The Nine Herbs Charm, casts him in a role familiar to us from Norse mythology--as the supreme wizard.

Þúnor: Called ÞórR in Old Norse and Thor in modern English, he was perhaps the single most popular god among the ancient Germanic peoples. Both England and Scandinavia had several places named for him and the fifth day of the week still bears his name in English and most of the Scandinavian countries (in modern English, Thursday).

Fríge: Wóden's wife, called Frigg in Old Norse and Frigga in modern English. She is rarely mentioned in Old Norse sources and references to her in Old English are nearly non-existent; however, places were named for her in both England and Scandinavia. The day Friday was also named for her (OE Frígesdæg).

Tíw: Called TyR by the Old Norse, references to Tíw in Old Norse and Scandinavian sources are rare. Nonetheless, we know he was important to both the Anglo-Saxons and the ancient Scandinavians from the places named for him and the day which still bears his name (NE Tuesday).

Fréa: Called FreyR in Old Norse and Frey in modern English, he was frequently mentioned in Old Norse sources. Also called Ing or Yngvi in Old Norse, he may be remembered in the Old English Rune Poem's verse for Ing as well as the genealogy for the kings of Bernicia, where an Ingui is listed. Places were named for him in both England and Scandinavia.

Fréo: Called Freyja in Old Norse and Freya in modern English, the sister of Fréa had places named for her in both England and Scandinavia. She appears in the Old Norse sources more than any other goddess.

NjörðR: The word Néorð appears nowhere in Old English as the name of a god, though this would have been that god's name in the language. Though he is never mentioned in Old English sources, it is quite possible that the Anglo-Saxons worshipped him. The Roman scholar Tacitus in Germania records the worship of a goddess Nerthus among various Germanic tribes, among them the Angles who would settle Britain a few centuries later. The name Nerthus is almost certainly the same as NjörðR, which has led to much debate as to this goddesses' identity. Some have even assumed that somehow through the centuries the goddess Nerthus changed sexes to become the god NjörðR. More likely explanations are that Tacitus either heard the gender of the god's name wrong and assumed he was a goddess or that the Nerthus mentioned by Tacitus is simply NjörðR's cult companion, perhaps the mysterious sister mentioned in Old Norse sources. At any rate, Scandinavia had many places named for the god.

Forseti: The word Forseta appears nowhere as a name for a god in Old English. Like NéorðR, it is provided here to show what the Old English name of the god would have looked like. While his name does not appear in Old English sources, Forseti was probably worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons. He was the favourite god of the ancient Frisians (in whose language he was called Fosite), who later migrated to Britain with the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The name literally means "he who presides" or "president." He was apparently less important to the Old Norse speakers, as references to him in their literature is sparse. Indeed, he is even made the son of BaldR! The Old Norse sources do show, however, that Forseti was thought of as a "president." In the Eddic poem Grímnísmál it is said that Forseti settles all disputes. This brings to mind the head of a thing or judicial assembly, who often had to settle disputes between people.

HeimdallR: In the Old Norse sources HeimdallR appears as the guardian of Bifröst and the enemy of Loki. A scrap of a myth refers to a battle between HeimdallR and Loki in the form of seals over a gem called the "sea kidney"--sometimes identified with Fréo's necklace, Brísingamen by modern scholars. It is difficult to tell if the Anglo-Saxons knew of HeimdallR. The poem Béowulf relates a tale in which a hero named Hama rescued a necklace called Brosinga mene, which could well be the Old English name for Fréo's necklace. It seems possible that the author of Béowulf confused the Germanic hero Hama (the German hero Heimo linked to the cycle of Dietrich of Bern legends) with the god HeimdallR and attributed one of the god's legends to the hero. It also seems possible that Hama was simply a shortened form of the Old English equivalent of HeimdallR (if one even existed). If this is the case, then HeimdallR may have been worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons. Unfortunately, as Béowulf drew heavily upon continental sources, the tale of Hama and the necklace may have come from Denmark, making it possible that the Anglo-Saxons did not known of the god.

BaldR: It is difficult to say if BaldR was even a god. There are almost no places named for him and evidence of his worship is non-existent. To further complicate matters are the conflicting myths about BaldR. In the Icelandic sources he appears as a god. He is the son of Wóden and Fríge and the most beloved of the gods, brave, wise, and pure of heart. The Danish scholar Saxo paints an entirely different picture of him. He calls BaldR a semideus or "a demigod," indicating that he was the son of Wóden by a mortal woman (keep in mind that this was not unusual--most Germanic kings traced their descent from Wóden). Saxo also portrays BaldR as anything but pure of heart. He is selfish, devious, and wholly wanton. It then seems possible that the BaldR myths developed along national and political lines. For the Norwegians he may have been a hero, one of such stature that he was later deified. For the Danes he may have been an archvillain, one who would never see the halls of the gods. As for the Anglo-Saxons, there are no certain references to BaldR in Old English. Indeed, some scholars have questioned whether the word bealdor, a cognate of BaldR meaning "bold one, brave one." even existed. Of course, if BaldR was merely a hero deified by the Norwegians, we would have no reason to believe that the Anglo-Saxons worshipped him.

Geofon: Geofon appears as a word for the sea in Old English. No place does it appear as the name of a goddess; however, it appears to be the cognate of Gefjun. Gefjun was a Danish goddess of whom Snorri tells a short myth in the Prose Edda. Gefjun came to King Gylfi of Sweden as an old beggar woman and entertained him so well that he offered her as much land as she could plough with four oxen in a day as a reward. She then turned her four sons by an ettin into oxen and hitched them to a plough. She ploughed so deep and so hard that she dragged the land to a sound west of Sweden. She then fixed the land so that it wouldn't move and named it Zealand (now Danish territory). Where Zealand had once been there was now the lake called Mälar. Considering the fact that in this myth Gefjun deals as much with the sea as she does the land and considering the fact that she was worshipped in Denmark (the general area from whence the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes originated), it is quite possible that Geofon was worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons and that her name later became a byname for the sea. Regardless, many places in Denmark bore her name.

Hel: In the Old Norse sources Hel is the queen of the realm of the dead (also called Hel). In Old English sources Hel is also the name of the realm of the dead (hence our modern word Hell). In his Teutonic Mythology Jacob Grimm theorized that the goddess Hel was known to most, if not all, of the Germanic peoples. He even theorized that she and her realm may well have been inseparable, if not one and the same. Grimm noted that in Anglo-Saxon literature the place called Hel is often described with the characteristics of a person or or a wolf (its gaping jaws are often referred to)--so often that it seems possible that they were not speaking figuratively of a place, but literally of an entity. If this is the case, then the newly converted Anglo-Saxons may have still held a belief in Hel as an entity who governed the dead. This particularly seems likely concerning Hel's position in the Eddas.

Éostre: In his De Temporum Ratione the Anglo-Saxon scholar Bede stated that the Old English Éosturmónaþ (roughly around March or April by the modern calendar) was named for the goddess Éostre, to whom the Anglo-Saxons sacrificed during that month. Our modern word Easter, used for the Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, also derives from her name. That she was also worshipped by the Continental Germans can be proven from the fact that the modern German name for the same festival (Ostern) also derives from her name. The name Éostre itself is related to the names of the Greek and Roman dawn goddesses, Eos and Aurora respectively, so that she was perhaps a goddess of the dawn and hence spring and the renewal of life. Unfortunately, Éostre appears to have been unknown in Scandinavia and Iceland, as they preserve no trace of her name. It is possible that she was known to the Scandinavians under another name. The goddess Iðunn mentioned in the Eddas as guarding the apples of immortality would seem a possibility, considering the fact that she also appears to deal in the renewal of life.

UllR: UllR is mentioned infrequently in Old Norse sources, though place names in Norway and Sweden show him to have been an important deity. He appears nowhere south of Norway and Sweden, however, and references to him are almost totally absent from the records of Denmark, the Continent, and England. It seems unlikely then that he was worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons.

Loki: Loki is one of the major characters in the Icelandic sources, although his behaviour seems a bit schizophrenic when the myths are taken as a whole. He appears as either a good natured trickster, sometimes getting the gods into trouble, but ultimately helping them, or a malevolent creature who commits acts of evil against the gods and ultimately sides with the ettins against them. The reason for this is difficult to say. Perhaps Loki began as a benevolent trickster figure but evolved under Christian influence into a demonic character. Equally likely is that there were two Lokis. Both the Eddas and Saxo Grammaticus refer to an ettin named Utarðaloki, who is quite clearly hostile to the gods. It is possible that the two eventually became confused in the people's minds, so that myths once attributed to Utarðaloki were now attributed to the trickster. Regardless, there is no evidence that Loki was ever worshipped. None of the elder sources refer to his worship nor are there any places named for him. Loki's name is entirely absent from Old English and it is impossible to know if the Anglo-Saxons believed in Loki at all, let alone whether they regarded him as a benevolent trickster or a malevolent ettin.

[heathen_son]

Loki is probably one of the most misunderstood Gods in all the nine realms.

Loki was a god?

[Lumi]

Loki was a god?

Yes. One of the sons of Odhinn. Brother of Thor and Baldr.

[heathen_son]

Even if that were correct, which it isn't, why do you think being numbered amongst the Aesir, he was regarded as a god by the Norse heathens?

[Lumi]

What do you mean it's not correct?
In all the books I've read, Loki is the Norse God of Mischeif. He lived in Asgard with the other Gods before he killed Baldr.

[heathen_son]

If your books are saying that Loki was the son of Odhinn, I'd get some better books.

[Lumi]

They say he is the brother of Thor. Thor is the son of Odhinn. Makes sense that Loki should be the son of Odhinn too, eh?
If you've got any sources to counter what's been said, please, enlighten me.

[heathen_son]

The Codex Regius:

http://www.why.is/myndir/voluspa_060305.jpg

[Lumi]

Ones that I can read, preferably.

[Rastko]

Well he is like common case of misbehaved child with inferiority complex to his ''perfect'' brother.

And if he isn't evil why are his kids evil then? The kids he got with Angrbode.

-Hel,the shadow goddes which is ruling the underworld(and souls of those who died with natural death)
-Fenrir,so awful wolf that he needs to be tied by gods.
-And the serpent from the sea dephts,Thor's biggest enemy.

[Supreme American]

Still waiting to see Loki drunk and tapdancing on a table top with a lampshade on his head.

:thumb001:

[Lumi]

Well he is like common case of misbehaved child with inferiority complex to his ''perfect'' brother.

He is the God of Micheif. It's kind of his job to be a trickster.


And if he isn't evil why are his kids evil then? The kids he got with Angrbode.

He's not evil. Just misunderstood. He may have caused a lot of trouble but at least he stuck around to help the other Gods get back out of it again.


-Hel,the shadow goddes which is ruling the underworld(and souls of those who died with natural death)

Hel isn't evil. She's just indiscriminate. If you've been good in life, she will let you rest in peace. If you havn't, well, she'll punish you for the rest of eternity.


-Fenrir,so awful wolf that he needs to be tied by gods.

Fenrir was the chaos wolf destined to eat the sun. Yes, he IS evil.


-And the serpent from the sea dephts,Thor's biggest enemy.

His name is Jormungand. He is not a sea serpent. He's the serpent that is wrapped around the Earth.

You forget Sleipnir, the eight legged horse that Loki gave birth to when he disguised himself as a mare. Sleipnir is the steed of Odhinn, and not evil.
Skoll is the wolf destined to eat the moon, so I'll give you that. That's two out of five kids that are evil.

[Sarmatian]

Well he is like common case of misbehaved child with inferiority complex to his ''perfect'' brother.

And if he isn't evil why are his kids evil then? The kids he got with Angrbode.

-Hel,the shadow goddes which is ruling the underworld(and souls of those who died with natural death)
-Fenrir,so awful wolf that he needs to be tied by gods.
-And the serpent from the sea dephts,Thor's biggest enemy.

In order for any system to stay stable it must have some unstable element. Loki is such element.

Its wrong to consider Gods and their surroundings from the concept of Good and Evil. They don't care if you have lot of good or bad things happening in your life because its not their concern to please you. Their role is to keep balance of forces to ensure existence of the Tree of Life.

You wouldn't think the plumbers are all dirty people just because their job is to fix stinky dirty pipes in your toilet, right? Its the same everywhere, someone have to do the dirty job.

[Reyek]

Seeking a greater understand of Loki has brought me a greater understanding of myself, and helped me grow. I would not be the person I am if it were not for him.

[Guapo]

..........

[SilverKnight]

Loki your greatness/ highness I bring you some fresh quality ripped grapes from my garden




http://www.wallcoo.net/photography/fruit_grape/wallpapers/1024x768/fruit_grape_wallpaper_grape_11.JPG

[Reyek]

And now that I come back to see if there have been any further posts on this topic, I am reminded of something I wanted to point out in regards to a comment Regent made. That being, "Well he is like common case of misbehaved child with inferiority complex to his ''perfect'' brother." Do you refer to the Marvel Comics character, or the actual mythological figure? In the mythology Marvel drew their inspiration from, Loki is the foster-brother/blood-brother of Odin, who is far from perfect.