--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> This is not a paraphrase but a parody -- and such an unfair one
that it misses the point completely. You deliberately ignore the
crucial epistemological question of corroboration by independent
evidence.
Don't go pentasyllabic on me. As for the trek of Odin's people
through Europe to Odense we have
1) Snorri's account
2) Saxo's account
3) Saxo's "garbled" account of Tanna fleeing defeat to battle the
Wilcze in what is now Thuringia.
3) The -leben place names in Thuringia and the -lev/-löv place names
in the areas in Denmark and Sweden where Alfred the Great places the
Danes, (< *likW) thus indicating land was distributed.
4) Numerous weapon finds around Odense from that time.
That's a beginning, at least.
We have innumerable independent accounts of Napoleon's biography and
of the circumstances of the Battle of Waterloo.
They confirm one another in many respects and when there are
contradictions there is usually enough data to clarify them.
True, but many of the sources were historians, therefore they must
have heard of the battle of Gaugamela. Tsk, tsk!
If Napoleon were only a character in a patriotic saga written by an
English poet and historian, and if French, German, Russian and other
historians had never heard of him, he'd be the same sort of entity as
Odinus the Trojan.
If we were to believe early Polish historians -- hwaet!
My Gothic is a bit rusty - please translate?
-- our Proto-Polish ancestors defeated Alexander the Great and
repelled the Roman imperial armies on more than one occasion. It's a
pity the Greek and Roman historians managed to cover it all up.
This is the second time I hear of these early Polish historians, but
I never got the names. It's like you Poles are ashamed of them? And
by what name would the Romans know the ancestors of the Poles?
>
> By the way, if any "English historians" really claimed that
Napoleon was "defeated by English troops", they'd be guilty of
Anglocentric megalomania and their story would distort the historical
truth in important respects. The armies of Blücher and Wellington
were Prussian/Saxon and British/Dutch (plus miscellaneous German
speakers), respectively. If I remember correctly, the British troops
(not "English", please; even Wellington was a Dubliner) accounted for
about 25% of the allied forces, even if their contribution was
particularly spectacular.
Yes, I know, I watch Discovery Channel too.
>
> Lastly, not even an English historian would dare to invent a
fantastical genealogy to suggest that Wellington (aka Arthur
Wellesley) had something to do with the half-legendary Arthur of
Britain, or that his ancestors came from a Trojan or Macedonian royal
house.
No, but they *would* have the gall to credit no one but the British
for the outcome of the battle.
>
> Piotr
>
Torsten