Germanic Paganism

Here I discuss the concept of fate and its significance in the Germanic tradition, and in light of this concept I give a reading of Robert Egger's Northman (2022), a movie in which the director skillfully combines elements from both the Shakespearean play, Hamlet, and the Norse legend of Amleth (this latter described by Saxo Grammaticus in the Gesta Danorum). While Shakespeare's Hamlet represents a Christian tragic hero wrestling with moral choices and a Christian concept of fate, the Germanic hero lives in the awareness of his existence conditioned by fate and ancestral legacy. The female triad in Norse mythology, the Norns (Urth, Verdandi, and Skuld) are responsible for weaving the fate of men and the world, and their names stand for Fate, Being, and Necessity, that is for an unclosed temporal process. Fate in the Nordic tradition is predestined, integral to the individual's personal self, a self-expression that must be actively realized, and claimed (or shaped) as one's own. Fate is neither to be taken for granted without action nor is it mere blind luck. Therefore, the wise man lives every moment of his life in awareness of its accidental, conditioned character, and prepares for the moment when the wyrd is most personally manifest: the moment of death. Nonetheless, the director delivered more than a masterful interpretation of the German view of fate, and provides an insight into a feud between the worshippers of Odin and Freyr.

This study discusses the passages in Felix's Vita Sancti Guthlaci which refer to the naming of the saint. It suggests that Felix's ideas as to the source and meaning of the name are problematic in that they do not obviously reflect vernacular naming patterns and they were not passed on by Old English writers. It is argued that this might be because Felix's obscure Latin has been mistaken, and that he might have wanted to refer to Guthlac's 'land' and 'tribe' not as the source of his name, but as being named after him. It is pointed out that Felix's vocabulary in the naming passages bears striking resemblance to that in a passage of Jerome's translation of the Regula Pachomii which relates it to desert monasticism, the dominant paradigm for Felix's hagiography. 1 Text and translation (except where indicated) are from Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. and trans. by Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), referred to by the abbreviation VSG and Colgrave's chapter divisions. Translations are Colgrave's except where stated. References to 'Colgrave' are to his notes and discussion.

Zemle means 'in my land' in Russian, and it is the title of a fifteen minutes epic song by the Russian Pagan metal band Arkona. The song narrates about the adventures of a Slavic warrior from a bygone pagan past, who travels throughout Europe in order to find happiness. The warrior meets the indigenous people of every country and asks them what it is that makes them happy. The natives all state in their mother tongues that the beauty of their own land, their own people, their own traditions and their own gods make them happy. In the song, bands from various European countries impersonate these native-born people in the vernacular. For instance, Månegarm sings in Swedish, Obtest in Lithuanian, Skyforger in Latvian, Menhir in German, and Heidevolk in Dutch. Menhir explains: 'Thüringer Land, wie bist du so schön, wie eine junge Maid' 1 , and Heidevolk states: U volgde de zon Door uw goden begeleid Westwaarts bent u gereisd Naar de grenzen van het land Waar de zee de grond verzwelgt Naar het land der drakenschrei Het oord, met mijn aard vergroeid 1 Arkona 2009; Arkona 2010, 'Thuringian land, you are so beautiful, like a young maiden,' my translation.

The East Roman scrivener who wrote abstracts from the travelogues of the Byzantine historian Priscos rhetor - or Priscus - cannot have thought  that  one thousand years later the excerpt, the fragment describing  Priscos rhetor’s diplomatic visit to Sovereign Attila’s residence in 448 AD  would cause  an ’earth tremor’.

Coauthored with Lauren Fountain. The first in-depth survey of English language translations of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's "Risala" of its kind, intended for researchers, translators, and enthusiasts searching for an 'ideal' translation to consult. This PDF edition is based on an ongoing web-based resource, a part of the Mimisbrunnr.info project. Readers can find it at the following URL: https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/ahmad-ibn-fadlan-risala-english-edition-survey

Alfred the Great (849-899) was intensely aware of the divinely-ordained responsibilities of Christian rulership. He became a great king because he activated the virtues of his proto-English subjects: those who prayed, those who fought, and those who worked. Throughout his reign, Alfred sought to ensure that the royal administration worked to provide the conditions essential to the performance of the tasks entrusted to each of the three estates.

Mythological stories are used to explain and maintain the balance between what is perceived as order and what is perceived as chaos within the natural universe. The oral traditions of a particular culture provide a framework for these stories that help explain the unexplainable within a culture's mythology. Myth provides insight from the normal, everyday world into another place, reaching unconscious areas within our mind (Greenwood, 2009, 76-77). It is this oral tradition or the performative aspect of myth that gives myth its power (Greenwood, 2009, 79-80). Myths involve the audience emotionally, emerging from an independent mind backed by a culture's social actions and beliefs (Greenwood, 2009, 76-80).

The present article discusses a historical tendency among scholars to focus on male-gendered deities in the Germanic corpus, a boom period of goddess studies in the 1990s under the influence of Marija Gimbutas, and the place of Great Goddess theory in the field of ancient Germanic studies today. Great Goddess theory is argued to remain an influence in ancient Germanic studies, particularly in the field’s tendency to identify goddesses as extensions of a single entity.

The early medieval thrusting pole arms from the Carpathian Basin were found in several categories of finding units. However the most important data have been obtained right from graves. Besides the problem of poles, which I had already discussed elsewhere, I have aimed my attention to 442 lance or javelin heads and six butt-spikes from the undisturbed graves, which I have had at my disposal. My analysis is mainly based on an assessment of the infantryman, horse and horseman graves during seven examined phases of the Early Middle Ages in the Carpathian Basin, i.e. during the last third of the 6th century and the first half of the 7th century, the second half of the 7th century, the first half of the 8th century, the second half of the 8th century, the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 9th century, the 9th century, and the 10th-11th centuries. In the subsequent text I deal with the sector deposition of thrusting pole arms in graves, discussion-provoking ways of their deposition in graves, and finally with the combination of thrusting pole arms with other kinds of arms and armour.

The Anglo-Saxon chroniclers’ interest in eclipses, comets, and other celestial phenomena undoubtedly derives from classical and Continental annals, but the recording of the wind in association with human affairs is quite exceptional. The wind is
noted twelve times in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, between the years 1009 and 1123, but there is no mention of it in the “common stock”. This article investigates the role
of the wind in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and examines whether the Anglo-Saxon annalists’ awareness of the meteorological phenomenon was prompted by the dissemination of computistical materials. These included Easter tables, treatises on natural science, texts and diagrams on the direction and/or names of winds, weather prognostics and prognostication by the wind, which reached England from Fleury during the Benedictine Reform. This study will also consider whether there was a correlation, a cause and effect relationship, between the wind and the events narrated.

Fórmulas de encantamento, de cura e de esconjuro são comuns dentro das comunidades germânicas continentais e no espaço geográfico da atual Inglaterra até meados do século XI, quando o Cristianismo se afigura definitivamente como religião dominante. Até então, sente-se um processo de incorporação e adaptação de determinadas estruturas simbólicas pagãs pela religião monoteísta. As áreas de interpolação com o Cristianismo são inúmeras e várias passagens textuais servem de evidência aos estudiosos. O enunciado e a gestualização são os elementos físico-corporais que auxiliam no processo de contato com o sagrado. Todavia, antes de apresentarmos nessas poucas linhas exemplos de Zaubersprüche -fórmulas encantatórias -oriundas do espaço germanófono continental e anglófono, é mister que partamos de uma discussão prévia, porém sucinta, sobre magia, encantamento e religiosidade. II. DA MAGIA DA PALAVRA AO GESTO MÁGICO -DISCUSSÕES PRELIMINARES Sem nos atermos a considerações mais específicas sobre a dificuldade de estabelecimento de conceitos uniformes sobre magia, encantamento e religiosidade 1 , podemos perceber que 1 -A bibliografia sobre religiosidade, fórmulas de encantamento e magia é imensa. Para este trabalho utilizamos BACON, Isaac, Versuch einer Klassifizierung altdeutscher Zaubersprüche und Segen, in: Modern language notes, vol. 67, n° 4, 1952, pp. 224-232; BRAGANÇA JÚNIOR, Álvaro A. Práticas religiosas germânicas à luz da Literatura; Natureza, Asgard e Céu (no prelo); DAVIDSON, Hilda. Deuses e mitos do norte da Europa.

In this seminar paper written in english I focus on the interpretation of the ornaments of some archaeological finds from the 6th and 7th century Carpathian Basin in the context of germanic mythology. The discussion is about bird shaped brooches, germanic bracteates and the decoration of one particular find, the belt buckle from the 85th grave of the early 7th cemetery at Kölked-Feketekapu B. By this I am hoping to give a few clues as to how did the mythology look like for the germanic peoples living in the Carpathian basin at this time, compared to the later written sources about nordic mythology.

This article investigates recent discussions in the media concerning purported predictions of a "Viking apocalypse". The media attention is contextualized in relation to current trends in modern culture linked to the Viking Age and early Germanic religion.

The goddess Ilmr, attested only in Icelandic sources, has been almost completely neglected by scholarship. This article offers a comprehensive review of the evidence and discusses the possible interpretations. It proposes that ecological conditions in Iceland could be a factor in why this name seems to become increasingly obscure following the settlement period.

Among the many important contributions Patrick made towards the elucidation of the thought-world of Bede and the history of England in the seventh-and eighth-centuries was his paper entitled 'Bede, Bretwaldas and the origins of gens Anglorum', which formed part of the volume he edited as tribute to one of his own mentors, Michael Wallace-Hadrill.

In the 8 th century AD the British isles were divided between several small kingdoms dominated at that time by Mercia. As elsewhere in the Middle Ages, internecine rivalries were not lacking but in general the century was the most peaceful, stable and prosperous since the demise of the Roman empire. The