Books By Norse Pagans?

[Xavier]

Does anyone know about books or writings done by believers in the gods of Thor and Odin, or that kind of mythology?

I know that literacy in that part of the world was pretty poor, but if there was any book like Dante's Inferno about Valhalla and Norse mythology it would be great.

[Minimalist]

http://www.oe.eclipse.co.uk/nom/sagas.htm


As with most epic poetry (including the fucking bible) it seems to have had a long oral development phase before being written down.

[The Grand Nudger]

Havamal (think norse proverbs), Prose Edda - as translated by S.S. (though this one likely has immense amounts of christian influence).

[jonb]

Germanic writing without christian influence would be written in runes, and as the runes were mainly used as general reminders, what was written of the gods was just a sort of extreme shorthand version of a commonly known and spoken story. The culture passed on its knowledge in poetry, so we can presume there were commonly know poems and we find with some runic inscriptions that it seems they may have just written down the first letter of each line of a poem. At least that was how it was explained to me.

[Rev. Rye]

There's the poetic and prose Eddas, which compile most of Norse mythology.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Is Beowulf English or Norse in origin?

[jonb]

Beowulf; English written down by monks, but it shows how there was to a great extent a shared culture. There are no works that I know of written before christian influence, because in runic script the story would at best only be hinted at, and latin script only came in with chistianity.

I think you might like to know a few details about runes.
People generally were not as illiterate then as is generally presumed now. This is some information I have picked up over the years
Under Alfred the Great, all children were educated to know their letters by law and that went on to the Norman Conquest when the practice seemed to have just dwindled away. Although educated by the church the letters they learnt included some runes, such as thorn which was the letter for 'Th' sound.
When gothic script came in the letter looked like a backwards facing Y thus 'Ye olde pube' was always 'The Old Pub' the es on the ends of the words denoted a hard O like that in on, rather than a soft oo, and a hard U sound like that in up, which I think shows that peasants were to some extent literate even in late medieval times, in that pub signs would need to be spelt correctly, and that thinking people spoke saying Ye was a latter misinterpretation when the thorn letter was no longer used

[FallentoReason]

http://www.oe.eclipse.co.uk/nom/sagas.htm


As with most epic poetry (including the fucking bible) it seems to have had a long oral development phase before being written down.

Thanks for posting that link. I was reading 'Eirek the Traveller' and stumbled across some very valuable information that backs up my theory of the early Christians:

The king says, “You will achieve this wish if you believe in everlasting God and then take holy baptism, and you will then be brought to life in his body and blood and become a friend of God. Accept Christ and praise him well in all things.”
Eirek said, “I’ll do exactly what you urge. But tell me what I ask you: Where is hell?”
The king says, “Under the earth.”
Eirek asked, “What is above the earth?”
“Sky,” says the king.
Eirek asked, “What is above the sky?”
“The Firmament-Heaven. In that heaven are all the stars like burning fire.”
Eirek said, “What is above the firmament?”
“Waters are fixed there, as cloud.”
“What is above the waters?”
“The Spiritual Heaven, and it’s believed that angels live here.”
“What is above that heaven?”
“The Heaven of Intellect. In that heaven God himself and his kingdom may be seen by those who are deserving of this.”

Quite clearly, the Greek king believed in different levels of heaven, which is similar to the mystery cults of the 1st century, thus backing up my theory that the epistle writers believed in nothing more than a spiritual messiah.

Do you know how far back these tales go? The website says they were penned down in the 13th century, but I wonder how long these tales were being told prior to them being penned.

[jonb]

Do you know how far back these tales go?

The bird in this image could well be being used as a symbol for the soul just as it can still be. People do not tend to reinvent the wheel, but adapt it to their needs. Stories could go back a very long time and leave no evidence.

[FallentoReason]

Do you know how far back these tales go?

The bird in this image could well be being used as a symbol for the soul just as it can still be. People do not tend to reinvent the wheel, but adapt it to their needs. Stories could go back a very long time and leave no evidence.

That's quite interesting. I still think context is rather important though, hence why I would like to know what era these stories were reflecting.