From: Torsten
Message: 66963
Date: 2010-12-14
>Asia's full of those guys.
> At 4:20:35 PM on Wednesday, December 1, 2010, Torsten wrote:
>
> > http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Heimskringla/Ynglinga_Saga#Of_the_People_of_Asia.
>
> [...]
>
> > I can't see anything in that description that would be
> > improbable for a ruler of an Iranian upper layer / nomadic
> > people.
>
> Perhaps, but that's only Ch. 2. Then there's Ch. 7:
>
> Ã"ðin changed shapes; his body then lay as if asleep or dead,
> and he was then a bird or an animal, a fish or a serpent,
> and travelled in the twinkling of an eye to distant lands,
> on his or other people's errands. In addition he was able
> with words alone to put out a fire and calm the sea, and to
> turn the winds any way he wished. Ã"ðin had a ship that was
> called Skiðblaðnir, on which he travelled over great oceans,
> but it could be folded up like cloth. Ã"ðin had with him
> MÃmir's head, and it told him many tidings from other
> regions. And now and then he awakened dead men from the
> earth, or sat under a gallows; on this account he was called
> lord of ghosts or lord of hanged men. He had two ravens
> that he had trained to talk; they flew far and wide all over
> the lands and told him many tidings. From these things he
> became very wise. He knew all the skills with runes and
> incantations that are called witchcraft; on that account the
> Ãsir are called sorcerers. Ã"ðin knew that skill that the
> greatest might accompanied, and himself practised what is
> called <seið>. And thereby he could know people's fates and
> things yet to come, as also cause people's death or bad luck
> or illness, as also to take from people their wits or
> strength and give them to others. But so much lewdness
> accompanies this sorcery when it is performed that it did
> not seem to men other than disgraceful to deal with it, and
> this skill was taught to the priestesses. Ã"ðin knew about
> all treasure hidden in the earth, where it was hidden, and
> he understood the incantations that opened the earth before
> him, and boulders and stones, and the mounds, and he bound
> with words alone those who were present, and went in and
> took as he wished. He became very famous on account fo
> these powers; his enemies feared him, but his friends
> trusted him and believed in his power and in him himself.
> And he knew the most skills of his sacrificing priests; they
> were closest to him in all witchcraft and sorcery. Yet many
> others learned much and have thence spread the art of
> sorcery far and wide and long continued to practise it.
> And people worshipped Ã"ðin and those twelve chieftains and
> called them their gods and believed in them long afterwards.