Re: [tied] Snorri on "Odin's journey" [Was:Re: Whence Grimm?]

From: george knysh
Message: 31967
Date: 2004-04-16

I'll have a look at the rest of your material later
this weekend.
--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh
> <gknysh@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > Before I forget, yesterday's Berlingske Tidende
> had
> > > an article on the
> > > weapons deposit finds in the Vimose bog (0 - 200
> CE)
> > > on Fyn: five
> > > ring-pommeled swords (usually considered to a
> > > Sarmatian thing). The
> > > researcher involved didn't say as much, but the
> > > angle of the article
> > > was: Danes might have participated in the
> Marcomanni
> > > war we know
> > > from "Gladiator". The understood premise is that
> > > this would have been
> > > the first opportunity for people from this
> country
> > > to meet
> > > Sarmatians. Unfortunately (this was news to me)
> the
> > > notes of the
> > > excavators have been lost, and the finds are
> > > scattered all over
> > > Europe, since a local priest sold out of them,
> so
> > > there is not much
> > > of a chance to place the supposedly Sarmatian
> swords
> > > anywhere within
> > > the given timeframe.
> > >
> > > Torsten
>
> I see you had no comment on the ring-pommeled
> swords.

*****GK: What comment would you want? They seem to be
Sarmatian swords. Of the category "isolated finds".
Not connected to any particular site or particular
epoch (other than the period 0-200 as you say), not
part of some comprehensive archaeological identity in
situ. No conclusion about migration can be drawn.*****


Personally I
> find it strange that people from Denmark should have
> travelled to
> Bohemia to fight the Romans, there aquired some
> Sarmatian swords, and
> then travelled home and dumped them in a bog. You'd
> expect the
> weapons you find in a weapons deposit to have
> belonged to the
> vanquished, who furthermore were vanquished in the
> vicinity of the
> bog. We know no accounts of Germanic peoples having
> travelled long
> distances to dump their trophies in particular bogs.

*****GK: We can speculate to our hearts' content about
the origin of these swords and why they came to be
where they were. The important thing however is
that,to repeat, they are an isolated and disconnected
"find", not part of a more comprehensively documented
local area culture which might suggest
"migration".******

> >(GK)Rydberg's study of this
> > problem, though over one hundred years old,
> remains
> > the best antidote. Cf.
> > http://www.northvegr.org/lore/rydberg/007.php?
> PHPSESSID=8920370ec3d7612e4af8c5277e0f4833
> >
> > There is, however, one point which readers of this
> > thread should remember. And it is this: your
> theory is
> > not Snorri's theory. At best, one may view it as a
> > "variation on a theme from Snorri in the
> > Ynglingasaga". At the moment, you are searching
> for
> > archaeological proof that "Odin's people" wandered
> > westward through Bastarnia and Vandalia before
> they
> > reached Germany proper ("Saxland"). But the route
> from
> > "Asaland" which you have picked for them is not
> the
> > one scripted by Snorri. (The Snorra Edda has
> nothing
> > to say about the specifics of the route, and in
> any
> > case its identification of Turkland with Troy, and
> of
> > Odin as a 20th generation descendant of King Priam
> of
> > Troy should be warrant enough for instant
> dismissal.
>
> Go talk to Schliemann about it.

****GK: Are you suggesting that some latter day
Schliemann will find "Asgard"? Planning an expedition
yourself? (:=)))?? Apparently Snorri himself thought
better of this Troy connection (at least verbally)
when he invented the Heimskringla alternative.*****
>
>
> > It knows nothing of "Asgard", "Vanaland",
> "Tanakvisl"
> > et sim. So it's either Heimskringla or it's
> nothing.)
> > But what does Snorri say? (1) That "Asaland"
> (Odin's
> > country) was located somewhere to the east of the
> Don
> > river, and certainly to the east of "Vanaland",
> which
> > occupied both banks of the Don. [let's not get
> into
> > the impossible archaeology for this, because I
> only
> > want to make a point about the specifics of
> "Odin's
> > journey" according to Snorri] (2) That at some
> point
> > between 70 and 60 BC [the timeframe for Pompey the
> > Roman's conquests in the east, incl. the
> destruction
> > of Mithradates' Empire (which would have abutted
> on
> > the so-called "Vanaland" from the south) and the
> > defeat of Armenia], Odin decided to abandon
> Asaland
> > and set forth on his journey. (3) That initially
> he
> > travelled "westward to Gardariki". Presumably
> since at
> > that time (in Snorri's account) Asaland and
> Vanaland
> > were friends and allies, the "westward" journey
> would
> > start from the Asaland-Vanaland territories, i.e.
> Odin
> > would move across to Don towards the setting sun.
> What
> > was "Gardariki" for Snorri? It was the territory
> of
> > the Rus' complex of his time (as "Turkland" was
> the
> > Seldjuk Asia Minor). We know the geographical
> > boundaries of this complex very well. What next?
> (4)
> > From "Gardariki" Odin and co. travelled "SOUTH" to
> > "Saxland". Now how is it possible to do that?
> There is
> > only one scenario: they are imagined by Snorri to
> have
> > taken "the road from the Greeks to the
> Varangians",
> > which was the prime highway for east-bound
> > Scandinavians in Snorri's time. The most northerly
> > city of the Rus' complex at that time was Ladoga,
> also
> > well known to Norsemen, and from Ladoga, the way
> to
> > "Saxland" is indeed a way to the south. ===
>
> So I'll grant you that: Snorri imposed the routes
> known at his time
> on the material he discovered.

*****GK: Not discovered, invented (and not in the
sense of "find" either). One source he might have used
is the one which influenced al-Idrisi to locate
"Troia" EAST of the Don r. Snorri renamed this
"Asgard".******
>
>
>
> >Let's not
> > worry about the anachronism (one of many). After
> all
> > in the Old Ukrainian Chronicle, the Apostle Andrew
> is
> > made to travel from Chersones to Rome by this
> > "Varangian Road" in the mid-first first century
> AD.
> > (5) After having spent some time in "Saxland" the
> > Odinists started their expansion northward.== This
> > assumes that at first they passed by Scandinavia
> > without stopping. That assumption is entirely
> > compatible with Snorri's story.
>
> I am afraid I don't follow? Stopping on their way
> to?

*****GK: Not stopping on their way from northernost
Rus' (around Ladoga) to Saxland (via the Baltic).
*****
>
>
> > Now I don't think it is possible to demonstrate
> > Snorri's version. It's fantasy.
>
> Because?

****GK: There is no corroborating historical or
archaeological evidence for such a journey at that
time.******
>
>
> >But at least it's
> > fantasy once removed from reality, not twice (as
> yours
> > is, since your theory is "Snorri" (snippets from
> > Snorri) + Torsten). Snorri doesn't say how long
> the
> > trip from Asaland to Saxland took. If you opt for
> the
> > "long" version, you'll have to find your Sarmatian
>
=== message truncated ===





__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html