Re: Odin as a Trojan Prince

From: Joseph S Crary
Message: 8500
Date: 2001-08-14

Torsten

I've seen this same type of foundation tradition used by several
Nordic-German tribal confederations. The Franks and Langobards use it.
Even the Scots use it. These focus on either Troy or Scythia. The
Scots actually use Scythia in one tradition and Scythia-Egypt in
another. They all seem to use the region immediately north of the
Black Sea as a common point of origin. However, both the Franks and
Langobards had more detailed traditions concerning their migration
from Scandinavia to Germany.


I don't think these traditions are inventions as we would view it
today. I think there may have been different traditions or sets of
traditions floating around. One that applied to the more recent
history of a given tribe. A second, that applied to the very dim and
very ancient tribal history. And, a third tradition that actually
comes from Hellenistic sources, and had been merged with the second
tribal tradition. The merging of the second and third traditions
allowed these tribes a way of relating to the Roman world. Then there
is the Judeo-Christian aspect that later required northwestern
European ruling families to trace their ancestry back to Adam. Its
important to remember that these are real traditions, although
historically they may not be entirely reliable.

These traditions may reflect different aspects of a given tribal or
later national history?

JS Crary