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Investigations Into Germanic Mythology avatar

Investigations Into Germanic Mythology

Research into the Old Heathen religion of Northern Europe, utilizing Viktor Rydberg's "Epic Method" which holds the Poetic Edda as the primary source, and recognizes Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and Saxo Grammaticus' Gest Danorum as secondary sources.
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05.04.202502:50
The Prose or Younger Edda (Gylfaginning only)
Translated by George Webb Dasent 1842 https://germanicmythology.com/ProseEdda/DasantPROSEEDDA.html
05.04.202502:50
This is interesting. Anyone familiar with Dr Dasent?

"Whatever disputes may have existed as to the mythology of other branches of the Teutonic subdivision of the Aryan race—whatever discussions may have arisen as to the position of this or that divinity among the Franks, the Anglo-Saxons, or the Goths—about the Norsemen there can be no dispute or doubt. From a variety of circumstances, but two before all the rest—the one their settlement in Iceland, which preserved their language and its literary treasures incorrupt; the other their late conversion to Christianity—their cosmogony and mythology stands before us in full flower, and we have not, as elsewhere, to pick up and piece together the wretched fragments of a faith, the articles of which its own priests had forgotten to commit to writing, and which those of another creed had dashed to pieces and destroyed, wherever their zealous hands could reach. In the two Eddas, therefore, in the early Sagas, in Saxo’s stilted Latin, which barely conceals the popular songs and legends from which the historian drew his materials, we are enabled to form a perfect conception of the creed of the heathen Norsemen. We are enabled to trace, as has been traced by the same hand in another place,[21] the natural and rational development of that creed from a simple worship of nature and her powers, first to monotheism, and then to a polytheistic system."

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8933/8933-h/8933-h.htm
08.04.202500:16
An interesting depiction of Yggdrassil and the nine worlds, I recently found online at https://www.beingawakened.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/representation-of-the-nine-realms-in-norse-mythology-1024x712.png (Artist Unidentified).
28.03.202502:13
Thus, when looking for the most reliable information on the Old Heathen religion, we must turn to our most Heathen sources. Scholar John McKinnell helps us in that regard, by identifying the most authentic heathen material in his work "Both One and Many." (1994), posted above.
28.03.202502:15
According to John McKinnell, when we look for genuine heathen voices, there are three or perhaps four principle sources:

a) Mythological eddic poems
b) Skaldic verse
c) Viking Age Picture stones
d) Contemporary Christian views of Norse heathenism

Dating the material is problematic. While some of the eddic poems and skaldic verses may have been composed after the conversion of Iceland, in particular those poems preserved only in late paper manuscripts and skaldic verses incorporated into later sagas, there is little debate that on the whole, the bulk of eddic and skaldic poetry contain authentic heathen material. If the physical texts of the eddic poems can only be dated to the thirteenth century, that is not to say that the poems themselves did not originate much earlier. Eddic poetry bears all the hallmarks of oral-traditional verse, including alliteration, repetition and formulaic construction, with direct analogs in both Old English and Old High German poetry. Evidence indicates that the eddic songs are the last vestiges of the ancient oral histories of the Germanic people which Tacitus, writing in the first century AD, says “form the only record of their past,”(Germania 2), and which the Gothic historian Jordanes, writing in the sixth century, confirms, stating that “in the earliest times, they sang of the deeds of their ancestors,” (Getica, ch. 5).”
05.04.202502:50
That worldview he speaks of would be that of Snorri, described in Gylfaginning ch. 15-16, where he describes the placement of Yggdrassil's roots. It does appear to be completed despite some obviously issues, when one tries to illustrate it visually. But we can clearly see in Snorri's text, he is basing his description of Yggdrassil on the eddic poem Grimnismal, especially stanzas 29-31, so we can trace it back to its primary source and get a more accurate picture of the Old Heathen worldview as Rydberg demonstrates. From the beginning, the scholars have always used Snorri's Edda to explain the older eddic poems, but we must recognize that the Eddic poems were in fact Snorri's own source, and that he likely knew them in manuscripts form, which we know circulated during in time. Saxo speaks of a large trove of Icelandic historical documents about 30 years before Snorri wrote his Prose Edda, and the oldest copies of the Poetic Edda we have date from about 30 years after Snorri's time. So we know such manuscripts were available to Snorri.
28.03.202502:25
Thus we have established a Heirarchy of Sources from the most to the least reliable, identifying the Eddic and Skaldic poems composed by Old Heathen skalds, alongside contemporary historical accounts and Old Heathen works of art, as our best primary sources; And the works of Snorri Sturluson, including the Prose Edda and Heimskringla, and the first nine books of Saxo Grammaticus' Danish HIstory (Gesta Danorum) as our best secondary sources, when it comes to knowledge of the Old Heathen gods and their mythic history.
05.04.202502:50
Snorri uses the word lúðr in the prose and in the verse from Vafthrudmismal he quotes. It litrerally means mill-box, and rationally one could think of it as a wooden box, and akin to a boat. That was the first understanding among the early translators. Dasent's is only the second English translation and its about 20 years before the American Civil war. The Poetic Edda would not be translated fully into English until 1865-66, during the time of the American Civil War by Benjamin Thorpe. So these texts and this scholarship is really not all that old. So it would be foolish to believe that scholars know all there is to know about this religion.
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05.04.202502:50
05.04.202502:50
So here we have a modern scholar translating the same word in two different ways in the same passage! In reality, the word means "millbox" and Vafthrudnismal st. 35 refers to Bergelmir being "laid on a millbox". In Old Norse poetry, a part of something (like a spearpoint or a millbox) can represent the whole (like a spear or a mill), so here it means Bergelmir was "laid on a mill". He was ground up, and his bones became rocks and his flesh became soil, just like his grandfather Ymir before him. In Skirnismal, Freyr's servant Byggvir threatens to do the same thing to Loki. So Bergelmir was not originally a Norse Noah and wasn't saved with his family in an ark. Snorri doesn't really say that either. Snorri simply says he and his family servived the flood by "climbing up on his lúðr".
05.04.202502:50
The early translations are very helpful for researchers and epicists to trace these ideas and find the original sense of the word. This is one of the reasons that the heirarchy of sources is so important. We trace all things back to their original source whenever possible.
05.04.202502:50
These early scholars like Dasent are not out of date or antiquated at all. They are working with the same material we are, without the benefit (and sometime detriment) of the opinions of later scholars. As you noted, Dasent makes some very useful observations, as did Anderson, and Rydberg and others whom modern scholars rarely reference today.
05.04.202502:50
And I cannot emphasize enough: Modern eddic scholarship is not very old, less than 300 years old or so, and really did not get into full swing until the later half of the 1800s. Modern scholars do not have all the answers, and we cannot assume they are correct because they are the "professionals".
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05.04.202502:50
As one of the early translators of Snorri's Edda, he translated lúðr (mill-box) as a boat or "skiff".
Reposted from:
Germanic Faith avatar
Germanic Faith
05.04.202502:50
CHAPTER III.
NORSE MYTHOLOGY COMPARED WITH THE GREEK.

"Dr. Dasent says the Norse mythology may hold its own against any other in the world. The fact that it is the religion of our forefathers ought to be enough to commend it to our attention.. "

The Religion of our Forefathers by Professor Rasmus B Anderson

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/65910/65910-h/65910-h.htm
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