Re: Odin from Asia?

From: William P. Reaves
Message: 11650
Date: 2001-12-04

Hej All,

>Snorre´s stories about Odin, viewed as the king of the gods in Norse
mythology, portrayed him as fighting battles. By contrast, Snorre treated
Thor, the god of thunder, as a mythical hammer-wielding figure riding
through the air.

Just a couple of small points:

1) Snorri did not treat Thor exclusively as said above, but specifically
states that he was an ancient anscestor of Odin the immigrant, and a son of
King Priam of Troy (from Roman mythology). This occurs in the preface to
Gylfaginning and runs throughout the work.

2) Snorri didn't treat the Aesir as originating in Russia, but rather as
originating in the city of Troy (which they called Asgard) now in modern
Turkey.

>"Snorre didn´t sit down and dream this all up," Heyerdahl said at the
launch of his book with his co-author, Per Lillestrom. "In ancient times,
people
treated gods and kings as one and the same thing."

It's pretty clear he did not just "dream it all up", there was already a
trend afoot in Roman days to connect all peoples of the world to the city of
Troy and the war and resulting migrations there, just as the later
Christians would further connect all races to Noah and his sons. Snorri was
not alone in this.

And besides, regarding Heyerdahl's evidence-- we know that Scandinavians
migrated to Russia, but do we know that the opposite is true? Heyerdahl's
evidence only suggests that the migrations to Russia occured earlier than
previous thought.

Wassail, William