Hi all,

A while ago, Arith Harger posted a video about the bear in Sami and old Norse mythology (https://youtu.be/4x-pZ7rOtEM). In it, he mentions a story in the Gesta Danorum where a woman is impregnated by a bear and gives birth to a son, who creates the Knudling dynasty. Can anyone elaborate as to where it is in the Gesta Danorum? I’ve tried CTRL+F for “bear” and Arith has not contacted me back.

Any and all assistance would be awesome, thank you!

I have heard few details about the custom of bridal gifts from the Thrymskvida and modern interpretations of the story, but what other customs/rituals related to weddings in Early Medieval Scandinavia do we know of? What did they entail?

Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum notoriously makes for difficult reading, but an excellent translation accompanied by extensive notes can go a long way in easing the difficult. To help out, I've put together a guide to English translations of Gesta Danorum.

You can find it here: https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/gesta-danorum-english-translations

As always, I welcome all feedback, positive or negative. Enjoy!

Hello. I'm Danish, and I'd like to do some reading about the early history of my country, figuring the Vikings or early medieval period would be a good place to start. In particular I'd like to read a modern translation of Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus to get an insight into the old interpretation of medieval history before I read newer works. But I can't decide which edition to start reading. There are so many! I'm mainly looking for something accessible with comments/additions from new authors. I know this might be a long shot, but I figure at least one of you may have some knowledge in this field.

As for modern works, I'm mainly concerned about the early years of the Danish kingdom leading up to the Kalmar Union. The end of the Vikings, the establishment of the church in Denmark, the Baltic crusades etc.

This will be a little side project of mine since I'm not in the historic field of study at all, but history has always interested me.

Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

As the title says I'm going to pick up a copy of Gesta Danorum I was wondering if anyone here has read it or knows much about the different copies/translations and could point me in the right direction?

Also if this is the wrong sub please let me know.

Hi again. Three weeks ago I posted about a project I'm working on. For those who haven't seen it yet:

>So, I am embarking on an interesting project. I intend to experience the best art and media humanity has to offer before I die. Namely this is all the highly notable and interesting books, plays, art, music, films, TV shows, and video games. I guess you could call it a bucket list. I've been indexing it chronologically and downloading it to an external hard drive.

I then solicited suggestions for highly notable/significant ancient and medieval literature that I was missing from an early draft of what the list would cover. I got over 100 responses; it was clear I was missing a lot. So, I pretty much started from scratch, doing multiple sweeps of any pre-Renaissance literature, and incorporated many of the suggestions I received, ranging from missing individual works to missing authors and cultures.

I should also note that in order to prevent this list from becoming unwieldly, I am limiting myself to 10,000 entries total, forcing myself to take a more deliberate and top-down approach. So far, I have 261 entries for the time span 4000 BC to 1400 AD: 12 Ancient-era, 121 Classical-era, and 128 Medieval-era works. 251 are literature, 10 are music. In other words, 2.61% of the list is Medieval era works or earlier, which seems quite reasonable to me and leaves plenty of room for more modern works spanning across more mediums.

I thought I would share what I have so far before I begin work on more modern stuff. Note that bolded entries are in the top 1,000 works, the cream of the crop, the most notable of all. If you're following along with me and don't want it to take a decade or longer to get through the whole completed list, just sticking to the bolded entries will give you a good taste too.

Ancient Era (4000 BC - 1001 BC)

If you haven’t done so already, I recommend reading Part I in this series before proceeding, as I’ll be building upon information I’ve already covered.

Also, see AtiWati’s comment below for more context and clarity.

In the 3rd century AD, a particular funerary trend arose among Romans living north of the Mediterranean wherein certain women and children were buried or cremated with small, club-shaped pendants. These pendants were most commonly worn as earrings or necklaces, and, though shaped to resemble wooden clubs, were typically made of gold (Werner 1964, p. 177).

The pendants themselves are easily reminiscent of the type of wooden club one might imagine in the hand of the demigod Hercules. Many are adorned with what appear to be “branch scars”– small protrusions made to look as though branches have been crudely broken away from the body of the club. One particular find from Köln-Nippes even sports the inscription “DEO HER”, which Werner reconstructs as “DEO HER[CVLI]” and confidently asserts has “secured in writing” an association between these pendants and Hercules (p. 177). Based on Werner’s analysis (and literally, this is all the substantive evidence he presents), these amulets have come to be known as “Hercules clubs”.

Around the time this trend seems to have died off, a similar trend started to pick up among Germanic groups across the Roman border. Similar to the Roman trend, Germanic graves of women and children began featuring small pendants of a similar shape (p. 178-179), although the artistry tended to be less literal. The finds are typically conical or prismatic in shape and the branch scars are often replaced by circular designs or geometric patterns. The Germanic club-pendant trend continued from the 4th through the 7th centuries (p. 176), terminating roughly 100 years before the canonical beginning of the Viking Age in 793 AD.

Germanic club pendants have been found across wide-ranging territory, from places like modern Serbia in the east to Brita

So I’ve been going down a deep hole of reading tons of ancient Latin texts from the Roman Empire and Holy Roman Empire

Including:

• Gesta Danorum

• Gesta Hungarorum

• The Origins and Deeds of the Goths

These are fucking amazing and hold up 1000 years later better than most modern day fantasy books if you ask me.

The Gesta Danorum is amazing in the sense that there are epic mythological monsters. The Viking king fights off the basilisk and sea monsters. There are wizards, satyrs, dragons and everything in between.

The Gesta Hungarorum is amazing in the sense that’s it’s bloody as hell. It describes how the Huns conquered Europe and is a tale of betrayal and bloodshed. This one is less based on mythology but there’s so much war. The Huns were a warlike people and it describes how they conquered into modern day Germany.

The Origins and Deeds of the Goths is unique in that women have a prominent role in this which is unheard of in a book written a millennia ago. The Amazons feature prominently. Also it speaks as how Scythian women were strong and would defeat rival men in war. Pretty progressive if you ask me.

I highly suggest everybody read some ancient Latin works.

When most people hear the name “Thor” (Þórr in Old Norse), it conjures up images of a powerful, hammer-wielding master of lightning and thunder. However, it may be surprising to learn that a direct connection between Thor and thunder does not appear anywhere in the Poetic Edda, our foremost source for Norse mythology. Throughout its pages Thor is never referred to as a thunder god, never explicitly causes a crash of thunder or a flash of lightning, and is called by no heiti that is indisputably thunder-related.

The Poetic Edda contains only a couple of hints that Thor might have anything to do with thunder. For instance, he is often referred to by the name Hlórriði which is hard to decipher but could plausibly be connected to thunder. Also, the mountains are said to tremble (fjöll öll skjalfa) in Lokasenna 55, when Thor arrives to confront and silence the troublesome Loki. We might assume that they shake at the sound of thunder, although thunder itself isn’t actually mentioned.

In the Prose Edda, the second of our two foremost sources for pagan Norse tales, this association is almost non-existent as well. Although Thor is a frequently recurring character in the author Snorri Sturluson’s narratives, his book contains only one line in a section called Skáldskaparmál that mentions thunder in any kind of association with Thor. At the beginning of Thor’s epic duel with the giant Hrungnir Snorri states:

> Því næst sá hann eldingar ok heyrði þrumur stórar. Sá hann þá Þór í ásmóði. Fór hann ákafliga ok reiddi hamarinn ok kastaði um langa leið at Hrungni.

And in English (transl. by me):

> Thereupon he (Hrungnir) saw lightning and heard great thunder. He then saw Thor in god-like wrath. He (Thor) went forth furiously, and swung the hammer, and cast it from a long distance at Hrungnir.

But how do we know this thunderstorm has anything at all to do with Thor and isn’t just Snorri’s description of epic battle scenery? For that matter, with so little in the way of association between Thor and thunder in the Eddas, where exactly does the idea of Thor as a thunder god even come from?

Let’s start with etymology.

The name Þórr is derived from the reconstructed word *þunraz in an older language called [Prot

Spoiler so the mobile app can generate a good thumbnail.

If you haven’t done so already, I recommend reading Part I and Part II in this series before proceeding, as I’ll be building upon information I’ve already covered. Also, this post contains a bit more personal speculation than the previous two. Please keep in mind that I am not an expert; you should take my speculation with a heavy grain of salt.

Snorri tells a fascinating story in his Edda wherein Thor must overcome a series of obstacles without his hammer in order to overthrow a jǫtunn called Geirrod. I should note that some English versions of the late-10th-century poem Þórsdrápa, which tells the same story, do feature a description of Thor using his hammer. But in my analysis, this appears to be a misinterpretation of a kenning for Thor found in stanza 20: “the ruler with the bloody hammer.”. Given Snorri’s explicit assertion that Thor is hammerless here, and given the fact that some of Thor’s actions are difficult to explain if the hammer is present, I agree with Snorri that Thor does not appear to actually have a bloody hammer with him where this kenning is used.

Hammerless Thor’s first challenge in the story is to cross a raging river made all the more perilous by Geirrod’s daughter Gjálp who stands astride the river, causing it to rise, presumably by urinating into it.

> Then Thor took up out of the river a great stone and threw it at her and said: “At its outlet must a river be stemmed.” He did not miss what he was aiming at… (Faulkes, p. 82).

After reaching Geirrod’s dwelling, Thor is attacked by Gjálp again, this time alongside her sister Greip. Although he does not have his hammer, Thor does have access to a staff called Gríðarvǫlr. In imagery that is remarkably reminiscent of a [thunder god with a club](https://www.reddit.com/r/Norse/comments/royz4u/when_is_a_hamme

Soo I was trying to find some Othinus and Odin real life legends and stuff since Othinus mentioned that while being the same thing Odin and Othinus have a bit different mythos (e.g she said that Othinus uses crossbows that Odin doesnt) and I was trying to find info on real life differences between Odin and real life Othinus.

But I cant. All I can find is Toaru Othinus. And thats the opposite of what I am lookin for.

Does anyone have any idea where to find real life stroyies about Othinus and Odin and the difference (or mayby a paper on the differences that explores different cultures or at least something?)

I've been curious about Ullr and what kinds of stories he may have been a part of. I know he's scarcely mentioned ever, but I was wondering where I could possibly read more about him?

Ullr? More like Who-llr, am I right? Let's instead talk about the Black Knight of the Twelve Crusaders, Hezul, and his legendary Demon Sword, Mystletainn!

Mystletainn

In the Jugdral Saga, Hezul of the Twelve Crusaders founded the Dominion of Agustria, a federation of kingdoms. His youngest daughter inherited major holy blood from him, but since she married into House Nordion, all future major Hezul blood passed through the Nordions. This meant that the Nordions, owning a small kingdom in Agustria, were the ones who had major Hezul blood and therefore could wield Mystletainn, but Hezul's direct descendants, who had only minor holy blood, were the ruling lords of Agustria. The Nordions agreed to pledge the power of their major Hezul blood to serving the ruling lords of Agustria.

At the start of Genealogy of the Holy War, Eldigan is the lord of Nordion. He and his son, Ares, possess major Hezul blood and are therefore able to wield Mystletainn. Eldigan's sister Lachesis and her children, Nanna and Diarmuid, possess minor Hezul blood.

The word "Mystletainn" itself is an Old Norse word meaning "mistletoe." We do not know the etymological origins of "mystle" but the "tainn" traces back at least to an Old English word meaning "twig." In Old Norse, it was spelled mistiltainn. The various spellings and the nature of how the modern English word is pronounced probably accounts for why the it is recorded as "Missiletainn" in Awakening and Fates.

Get a Grip (-ssonar)

There are two different traditions involving Mystletainn, both from Northern Europe during the Middle Ages. We shall begin with the Icelandic story, Hromundar saga Gripssonar (The Saga of Hromund Gripsson).

The Saga tells the story of Hromund Gripsson, a formidable warrior who serves King Olaf. Olaf and his men raid the Hebrides, an archipelago west of Scotland. One man whose cow is stolen by Olaf tells Hromund that if the raiders wanted to be real men, they would break into the tomb of King Thrainn of Valland. Hromund accepts this challenge and returns the man's cow before he tells Olaf that they should go to Valland.* Personally, I would have kept the cow.

The raiders land in Valland and find the burial tomb of Thrainn. Initially, nobody volunteers to go down into Thrainn's tomb. Seeing he is surrounded by tiny baby men, Hromund decides to go himself. He descends into Thrainn's tomb, which

I just finished reading Hamlet, and I have a ton of questions. But one of the most important ones - Why did the Queen, who was widowed just recently, marry her late husband's brother, who now is the king (he got elected)? Is it because she did not have any control over the kingdom now that the King is dead and did not want to give up her status? From what I have read, Denmark was an elective monarchy at that time. So, could she have become the Queen herself? Or did the kingdom need a King to lead them?

And, what happened to the Queens when their Kings died? (in regards to the aforementioned)

I have seen many people assuming Odin to be the final boss and that might as well happen. But If the devs want to go with who is stronger in the myths, that'd be Thor, not Odin, and there's not even a question about it.

Norse myths are pretty straightforward about it, I mean, you can read it by yourselves.

In Gesta Danorum:

"He - Ragnar - therefore feared the might of no supernatural prowess, save of the god Thor only, to the greatness of whose force nothing human or divine could fitly be compared."

In Gylfaginning:

"For this reason must he be called Allfather: because he is father of all the gods and of men, and of all that was fulfilled of him and of his might. The Earth was his daughter and his wife; on her he begot the first son, which is Ása-Thor: strength and prowess attend him, wherewith he overcometh all living things."

Gylfaginning again:

"Then said Gangleri: "What are the names of the other Æsir, or what is their office, or what deeds of renown have they done?" Hárr answered: "Thor is the foremost of them, he that is called Thor of the Æsir, or Öku-Thor; he is strongest of all the gods and men."

Völsungasaga:

"The daughter and wife of Odin was Earth, and of her he got Thor, him followed strength and sturdiness, thereby quells he all things quick; the strongest of all gods and men, he has also three things of great price, the hammer Mjölnir, the best of strength belts, and when he girds that about him waxes his god strength one-half, and his iron gloves that he may not miss for holding his hammer’s haft."

We also have one direct comparison, Odin won a horse race against the Jotun Hrungir, Hrungir started to talk crap, threatening the Gods, instead of Odin who had just raced against him, fight him, they called Thor to do the job, and he displays a titanic level of power: when he arrieved to the battle, the entire sky burned and the planet split, Hrungir who was threatening every god at the same time shit his pants and was killed in a single blow.

And before someone think this is all about physical strength only and not power, in the same Gylfaginning part of the Edda that claims Thor to be the strongest many times, says that Magni, as a child, was already physically stronger than Thor, so when they claim Thor to be the strongest, they mean the most powerful, not physically the strongest.

But anyway the devs don't need to always follow the myths so they can go with anything they want, but to me who read the myths, it feels odd to see

There is a strange ambiguity in the Nordic figure Hading. He seems related to the god Óðinn, but also to the sea god Njǫrðr. Like Njǫðr he marries a Jǫtun woman who chooses Hading by only looking only at the legs and exactly like Njǫrðr and Skaði Hadding and Ragnhild prefers the seaside and the mountains and express displeasure at the howls of wolfs and the screeching of sea birds respectively.

-

In sum, it looks as if Hading perhaps could perhaps be a South Scandinavian modality of Njǫrðr, but then - What is the meaning of the following myth. Hading kills some sort of sea monster but on his way back he meets a woman who curses him for this act.

-

Woe onto you Hading, for what you have done.

The revenge of the gods will strike you.

Where ever you turn in the world,

this will follow you - [etc. etc. etc.]

A god you have killed in the likeness of an animal

Now all the spirit world will turn against you

-

What do you think ?

Hail all you sons of Heimdallr, Assassin's Creed critics, raiders and rune masters, sages and shitposters, Valhalla-bros and Vegvisir-enthusiasts! It's been almost a year since I horse-dicked around with Alvíssmál. Here's something completely different:

#The Rune Chronicle

So what is the Rune Chronicle? Here's what middelaldertekster.dk has to say:

>The manuscript in the Arnamagnæan Collection with the signature AM 28, 8o, also called Codex Runicus, is probably the most famous Danish manuscript from the Middle Ages, but it is also one of the most unusual. […] instead of Latin letters, the unknown scribe has chosen to fill the leaves with runes in their medieval form, the so-called stung runes.
>
>The layout of the manuscript, with red headings and initials in different colours, reveals that the Latin book format was the norm aimed at by the Codex Runicus' compiler.
>
>[…] It is not known what motivation the three scribes had for choosing runes to reproduce the Danish text; special letters for Nordic sounds had long been incorporated into Latin script, so it was unlikely to have been a desire to better reproduce Danish speech. But perhaps they wanted to give the text a secretive character or wanted to give the impression that the book had high age, and by virtue of this a precedence over other texts. This last theory fits well with the fact that the manuscript content is mainly legal; and the runic book may have signalled that it contained 'the good old law'. But Codex Runicus is not unique; we know of a fragment of another Old Norse manuscript written in runes, and it is therefore possible that runic writing was a literary fashion in 14th-century Scania.
>
>Like most of the historical literature from the Middle Ages in Danish, the fragment of the Chronicle found in Codex Runicus is a stylistic concise affair. The chronicle lists Danish kings from the legendary Hadding to Erik Menved (d. 1319). […] On the whole the chronicle has a recapitulatory style that more closely resembles the Enumeration of Kings [Kununktallet, also in Codex Runicus] than the more elaborate chronicle style of for example Annales Ryenses.

Text edition:
Codex Runicus, which can be read in all its glory here.

#Translation

[…]^1 Hellespont ^2 and subjugated Dynuburh ^3 and made it tributary. Then Froþe, s

I am looking for books about norse mythology. Like the story's. I heard "the poetic Edda" from Snorri is the one to read. Is this true, or should I read another book? or is this the wrong subreddit?

Ранняя история Дании страдает не от недостатка сведений, а от их избытка - при том, что основная масса их заведомо легендарна и совсем не проверяема. Первая датская династия конингов - Скьёльдунги - вела род от самого бога Одина и существовала исключительно в разнообразных героических сагах про стародавние времена, которые ни с какими прочими сочинениями в фактуре не пересекаются. Пересказ этих легенд о разнообразных рагнарах лодброках составляет практически весь первый том самого объемного сочинения о "начале датского рода" - "Деяний датчан" (Gesta Danorum), написанных в XIII веке грамотным клириком Саксо Грамматикусом на латыни. И ценность эти истории имеют сугубо фольклорно-епическую, как "песни народностей".

https://preview.redd.it/318z6pgfocz61.jpg?width=457&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=746cd0a5b340e02b5452f984fa72d2f034dc6411

"Портрет" Саксо Грамматикуса периода очень северного неоромантизЬма (кликабельно)

Какие-то отрывочные факты, аки вспышки молний, начинают появляться только в результате столкновений датчан с цивилизованными народами, заносящими сии события в свои летописания. Так, первым известным нам из более-менее достоверного источника ("Анналы королевства франков") конунгом (королем) данов стал Сигфред, упомянутый три раза - в 777 и 782 годах он давал убежище бежавшим от завоевателей саксам и их вождю Видукинду (ака Виттекинду), а в 798 году снова "всплывал именем" в связи с событиями в Саксонии. Зато с сыном Сигфреда Готфредом Щедрым или Сильным (Гутфредом, ака Гудрёдом, ака Гётриком) франки и их соседи сталкивались уже много раз, и кое-что об этом написали. В 804 году он собрал в своем стольном граде Слиесторпе (Хедебю) большой флот и угрожал войску самого Карла ВеликАго, тусившему за Эльбою. Между ними даже шли какие-то переговоры - о чем и с каким результатам, нам нынче великое ХЗ.

В 808 год Готфред напал на ободритов (бодричей) - славянское племя, обитавшее на южном побережье Балтики и посмевшее заключить союз с франками. Проторусская недальновидность была наказана огнЕм и мечЕм, а торговый город-порт Рёрик (именно такЪ - антинорманниЗДы захлебывае слюняме) был пожжен и пограблен, мастеров-ремесленников захватили в полон и вывезли в Хедебю. Ободриты лизали сапоги и обещали плОтить дань, а чтобы глупые франки чего не удумали, конунг повелел выкопать ров с валом "от можа до можа" (Северного - Балтийского), то есть впервые в мире построил систему укреп

The Faroese ballad. Not to be confused with the Bjarkamál paraphrase in Gesta Danorum.

There are some excerpts in "Beowulf and its Analogues". Chambers did a few excerpts. And Mitchell.

Anybody got any further leads?

There is a pretty inconsistent and incongruent picture of the afterlife in surviving Old Norse sources, unlike the dogmatic and delineated picture present in the Bible.

It is not said in any text that someone’s soul goes to the afterlife, it’s always simply ___ went to the afterlife. There’s an inherent physicality present in the Norse afterlife (the presence of food and drink at feasts, farms and battle) and it’s not clear if there was even the same notion of the separation of soul and body generally held in Western culture today.

In archaeological evidence and burial practices, it can be seen that at some early date there’s an association of the sea and ships with the afterlife.

There are memorials shaped like ships (Ales Stenar from 550 A.C.E.) and also ship burials (Oseberg and Gokstad)

There are many instances in the Íslendingasǫgur and other sources of people being buried in ships:

• Gísla Saga Súrssonar chapter 17

-Laxdøla Saga chapter 7

• funeral of Baldr in the Prose Edda, Gylfaginning chapter 49

Also present is the idea that people must cross a river to reach the afterlife:

-Hermóðr crossing the river Gjǫll to reach Hel and negotiate for the return of Baldr in Gylfaginning chapter 49

-The river Slíðr which runs with daggers and swords appears in Vǫluspá 35, and in Gesta Danorum Saxo details a river of daggers and swords men must cross to go to Hel

-Óðinn appears as a ferryman carrying the Vǫlsung hero Sinfjǫtli’s body across a fjord, both in Frá Dauða Sinfjǫtla and Vǫlsunga Saga chapter 11

There are four afterlives with some credence in Norse myth: Valhǫll, Hel, the afterlife ruled over by Rán in which those who die at sea reside, and a nameless gray zone, a state of one being between life and death (for example Helgakviða Hundingsbana II 39-51).

I did not mention Fólkvangr purposefully. I know this is open for interpretation and still a hotly debated theory, so everything I say beyond this point is personal conjecture based on arguments I’ve seen from scholars. I am one who believes at some point Frigg and Freyja were the same goddess, meaning Óðinn and Frigg/Freyja function in a spousal capacity and I would argue rule over the same afterlife, Valhǫll. To further elaborate, let’s take a look at the translation of Fólkvangr: fólk translates to people, cognate with English folk, and vangr translates to field. This translation sounds like an eerily close description of Valhǫll, where the folk of Óðinn, his retainers, battle each

Hello!

I’m currently doing research on Baldur, but the only lore I can find on him is his death, and how that led to ragnarok. Is their anything else I should know about him? Thanks!

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

Hello, I'm trying to do some research on Ragnar Lođbrok and Ivar the Boneless, and I wanted to go through as many possible (suspected)sources that we have. I'm already working through Gesta Danorum, and I've read through the saga of Ragnar Lođbrok, but I've also seen 'Gesta Hammaburgensis' and 'Chronicon Roskildense' listed as mentioning these characters. So I was firstly wondering if anyone knows if these two additional sources do in fact mention Ragnar/Ivar and if so are there are any good editions of the above two books. I'm a sucker for dual editions, as I like having the original text to look through, but any English or Scandinavian edition would also do just fine. I'm a sucker for hidden gems.

(I'm sorry if it's been listed in the reading list, but I couldn't find anything there.)

Ragnar mentioned in season 1 that he fought a bear to win lagertha. I just realized that the bear was rollo. Could this be it?

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes. Many words hurt brain? Image help.

Berserkers. Mushrooms. We've all heard it, we've all wept and gnashed our teeth. The story we're all familiar with can be summed up like this:

> Before a battle, vikings would eat mushrooms to work themselves into a trance-like battle rage. Alternatively, they would make reindeer eat mushrooms then drink the reindeers piss. Or make a virgin drink it and then drink that person's urine.

Feel free to read that again in Spongebob letters. It still crops up from time, but how on earth did this piss poor theory gain currency? Let's have a look.

#A Brief History of Frenzy

The berserkers we know from pretty much all pop-cultural depictions are instantly recognizable. Fur-clad bearded men with glistening, Conan-esque pecs and comically large axes, it's like watching Macho Man Randy Savage if he was some hypermasculine Norse dude named Thorolf. Just look at this Amon Amarth cover art. It's just a guy yelling and shaking his weapons in the midst of battle…

… which is actually pretty much exactly how berserkers behave in the their earliest mention in Þorbjǫrn Hornklofi's Haraldskvæði!

> Grenioðo berserkir / guðr var þeim a sinom / emioðo úlfheðnar / ok ísarn glumdo
"the berserks roared, the battle was in full swing, the wolfskins howled / and shook the irons".

Basically, berserkers and úlfheðnar seem to be the same and they just make a lot of noise. No mentions of fury, yet. This changed with Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum. Saxo's Latin prosimetrum doesn't use the word "berserker" (shocking), but there are several passages where he describes what is clearly berserkers: roving band of warriors invulnerable to iron and fire, biting their shields and seized by a sudden burst of fury:

> At that time a certain Harthben, who came from Hålsingland, imagined it a glorious achievement to kidnap and ravish princesses and would slay any man who hindered him from wreaking his lusts; because he preferred his brides aristocratic, not humble, he calculated that the more high-ranking the women he could take to bed and violate, the greater credit it was to him. Anyone who had the presumption to measure his courage against Harthben’s did not escape reprisal. His towering frame stretched t

Do your worst!

*A slightly altered version of two old comments, saved for my own convenience.*

Don't judge a book by its cover! (1/2)

Guerber's work is a combination of outdated scholarship, which is not surprising considering it's from 1908, and straight up fabrications. It's also sprinkled throughout with 19th century poetry for some reason. The book should be consigned to the trash heap of history - the only reason it keeps popping up is that some sly and industrious person slapped on a nice looking cover. It's even public domain - you're getting duped if you buy it. As per Brandolini's law, going into too much detail with a larger portion of the book would probably result in a series of posts longer than the actual book. But since I routinely advise people on r/Norse to stay the hell away from it, I should put my money where my mouth is:

Here's chapter II, Odin.

Let me start off by noting that Guerber is extremely uncritical of the Old Norse sources, and continually states information from the Prose Edda as historical fact.

>Odin, Wuotan or Woden was the highest and holiest god of the Northern races. (p. 16).

No. Going by toponyms, the cult of Óðinn never penetrated South-Western Norway or Iceland (Stefan Brink, "How Uniform was the Old Norse Religion?" p. 125; Terry Gunnell, "Pantheon? What Pantheon?" p. 161). Instead, Freyr or Þórr seem to have been "the highest and holiest" in many places, fx Gotland (Anders Andrén, "Servants of Thor? The Gotlanders and their Gods"). Of course, even in areas with toponymic evidence for Óðinn worship, it's impossible to say if Óðinn was "the highest and holiest".

>None but Odin and his wife and queen Frigga were privileged to use this seat [Hliðskjálf], and when they occupied it they generally gazed towards the south and west, the goal of all the hopes and excursions of the Northern nations (p. 16).

Fabrication❌. They don't generally look in any direction. Freyr also seems to have a connection to Hliðskjálf as well, using it with no mention of Óðinn's supposed sole right it.

>Odin was generally represented as a tall, vigorous man, about fifty years of age, either with dark curling hair or with a long grey beard and bald head. He was clad in a suit of grey, with a blue hood, and his muscular body was enveloped in a wide blue mantle flecked with grey an emblem of the sky with its fleecy clouds (p. 16).

Fabrication❌. While Óðinn in saga literat

Seems like 90% of what we know about Norse mythology comes from Icelandic authors (particularly Snorri). What would we know if Iceland were never settled? Would we have a different attitude towards the myths?

I’m a bit suspicious about the authenticity of Iceland-sourced mythology, because the DNA of Icelanders is 30% Irish. I can feel there is a kind of Celtic lyricism in Icelandic tales that is not present on mainland Scandinavia, so I can never be sure that they are really capital N Norse, or a blend of Norse and Irish.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

Because she wanted to see the task manager.

Ежедневно в покоях своей матери, грязный и безучастный, кидался он на землю, марая себя мерзкой слякотью нечистот. Его оскверненный лик и опачканная грязью наружность являли безумие в виде потешного шутовства. Что бы он ни говорил, соответствовало такому роду безумия, что бы ни делал — дышало безмерной тупостью. Чего же более? Не за человека его можно было почесть, а за чудовищную потеху безумной судьбы.

As many heathens are well aware, Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum notoriously makes for difficult reading, but an excellent translation accompanied by extensive notes can go a long way in easing the burden. To help out, I've put together a guide to English translations of Gesta Danorum.

You can find it here: https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/gesta-danorum-english-translations

As always, I welcome all feedback, positive or negative. Enjoy!

Notoriously, Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum makes for difficult reading, but an excellent translation accompanied by extensive notes can go a long way in easing the difficult. To help out, I've put together a guide to English translations of Gesta Danorum.

You can find it here: https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/gesta-danorum-english-translations

As always, I welcome all feedback, positive or negative. Enjoy!

So I’ve been going down a deep hole of reading tons of ancient Latin texts from the Roman Empire and Holy Roman Empire

Including:

• Gesta Danorum

• Gesta Hungarorum

• The Origins and Deeds of the Goths

These are fucking amazing and hold up 1000 years later better than most modern day fantasy books if you ask me.

The Gesta Danorum is amazing in the sense that there are epic mythological monsters. The Viking king fights off the basilisk and sea monsters. There are wizards, satyrs, dragons and everything in between.

The Gesta Hungarorum is amazing in the sense that’s it’s bloody as hell. It describes how the Huns conquered Europe and is a tale of betrayal and bloodshed. This one is less based on mythology but there’s so much war. The Huns were a warlike people and it describes how they conquered into modern day Germany.

The Origins and Deeds of the Goths is unique in that women have a prominent role in this which is unheard of in a book written a millennia ago. The Amazons feature prominently. Also it speaks as how Scythian women were strong and would defeat rival men in war. Pretty progressive if you ask me.

I highly suggest everybody read some ancient Latin works.

So I’ve been going down a deep hole of reading tons of ancient Latin texts from the Roman Empire and Holy Roman Empire

Including:

• Gesta Danorum
• Gesta Hungarorum
• The Origins and Deeds of the Goths

These are fucking amazing and hold up 1000 years later better than most modern day fantasy books if you ask me.

The Gesta Danorum is amazing in the sense that there are epic mythological monsters. The Viking king fights off the basilisk and sea monsters. There are wizards, satyrs, dragons and everything in between.

The Gesta Hungarorum is amazing in the sense that’s it’s bloody as hell. It describes how the Huns conquered Europe and is a tale of betrayal and bloodshed. This one is less based on mythology but there’s so much war. The Huns were a warlike people and it describes how they conquered into modern day Germany.

The Origins and Deeds of the Goths is unique in that women have a prominent role in this which is unheard of in a book written a millennia ago. The Amazons feature prominently. Also it speaks as how Scythian women were strong and would defeat rival men in war. Pretty progressive if you ask me.

I highly suggest everybody read some ancient Latin works.

Hail all you sons of Heimdallr, Assassin's Creed critics, raiders and rune masters, sages and shitposters, Valhalla-bros and Vegvisir-enthusiasts! It's been almost a year since I horse-dicked around with Alvíssmál. Here's something completely different:

#The Rune Chronicle

So what is the Rune Chronicle? Here's what middelaldertekster.dk has to say:

>The manuscript in the Arnamagnæan Collection with the signature AM 28, 8o, also called Codex Runicus, is probably the most famous Danish manuscript from the Middle Ages, but it is also one of the most unusual. […] instead of Latin letters, the unknown scribe has chosen to fill the leaves with runes in their medieval form, the so-called stung runes.
>
>The layout of the manuscript, with red headings and initials in different colours, reveals that the Latin book format was the norm aimed at by the Codex Runicus' compiler.
>
>[…] It is not known what motivation the three scribes had for choosing runes to reproduce the Danish text; special letters for Nordic sounds had long been incorporated into Latin script, so it was unlikely to have been a desire to better reproduce Danish speech. But perhaps they wanted to give the text a secretive character or wanted to give the impression that the book had high age, and by virtue of this a precedence over other texts. This last theory fits well with the fact that the manuscript content is mainly legal; and the runic book may have signalled that it contained 'the good old law'. But Codex Runicus is not unique; we know of a fragment of another Old Norse manuscript written in runes, and it is therefore possible that runic writing was a literary fashion in 14th-century Scania.
>
>Like most of the historical literature from the Middle Ages in Danish, the fragment of the Chronicle found in Codex Runicus is a stylistic concise affair. The chronicle lists Danish kings from the legendary Hadding to Erik Menved (d. 1319). […] On the whole the chronicle has a recapitulatory style that more closely resembles the Enumeration of Kings [Kununktallet, also in Codex Runicus] than the more elaborate chronicle style of for example Annales Ryenses.

Text edition:

Codex Runicus, which can be read in all its glory here.

#Translation

Then Dan, son of Uffi, was king ^1 , and Huhlek, son of Uffi, was king. He killed two chieft

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.