Re: Show here your Germanic warrior impression

[Ingvar Sigurdson]

I think that we, myself included, are in danger of spoiling a worthy thread by further posts here on the discussions on the meaning and composition of Harii. Dan has started the 'Germanic Warrior Cults' topic and perhaps this is were the last few posts belong.

regards
Ingvar

[authun]

I think that we, myself included, are in danger of spoiling a worthy thread by further posts here on the discussions on the meaning and composition of Harii.

No doubt about it David, you introduced the cultic stuff with your 'army of the dead' post. Some of us think it has more earthly significance either refering to warriors in general or to a particular tribe. Relevant views I think, especially for the re-enactors concerned.

best
authun

[Ingvar Sigurdson]

Really Harry!I did not introduce the 'army of the dead' into the conversation and any subsequent reply on my behalf was was to Dan's remark;

'Etemologists believe there is a similarity between the words 'Einherjar' and Harii, and the 'army of the dead' theory'.

With respect, as per my previous post before we sully this worthy topic with further sillyness let us take any further discussion to either Dan's other topic or elsewhere.

best
Ingvar

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi all,

Hi Everyone,
Due to some recent posts in 'Show your Germanic Warrior Impression' about the Harii, I have decided to expand this topic and create a new thread about Germanic Cultic Warriors in general.

I've moved every post about that subject to this thread, to keep the 'show your impression' thread just for that.

[M. Demetrius]

Please let us not descend into quarreling. This is a good thread, and as already stated, should be kept on topic, since it's one of the ongoing threads about kit and development of impression. Thanks! If you wish to battle out the semantic argument on Private Messaging, feel free.

Good move, Robert.

[authun]

Really Harry!I did not introduce the 'army of the dead' into the conversation and any subsequent reply on my behalf was was to Dan's remark;

I wonder what post Votava refered to then: http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat.html?fu...160#289905

best
authun

[Tiberio]

This topic is very amusing! First class enterainment! :lol:
All clichees of the "noble savages", "giant barbarians" and any kind of esotheric graspable legend to add mythical color to the whole thing is just perfect. Of coarse also the best books are then also from people who are far away from the area they are writing about. Since also all surviving writen accounts are from other people than the people who lived in the area called Germania themselves, these writen accounts are then also very believeable. I am certain these kind of statements would get a very big "Hallo" in Cologne, especially if the event could be placed on the 11th of November preferably around eleven minutes after eleven o´clock.
Sorry folks with stuff like that on any event that is above pure "histotainment" you will only get very broad smirks.
Do you folks really want to tell that kind of stuff at reenactment events, to the audiance? Roman and Greek fantasies of the "wild savages" living in dark unknown lands, sprinkeled with a few known tribe names, embellished then with all kinds of myths and legends that have been added over many centuries as "historical facts"? Sorry I have been spoiled by so called medieval events to know what kind of "fantasies" and "fairy tales" are sold as factual accounts, how people supposeably lived in former times, and there is not much missing until some one tries to convince people that at one time "pigs flew". Great example for that kind of humbug are popular magazines or tv shows......just saw on about castles in Hessen where they even had someone in a lorica segmentata and a Weisenau helmet as a "so called knight from medieval times" I almost had to grab a paper bag.
In my opinion that has nothing to do with research, or any historical facts, but has clearly entered the field of the esotherik. And there anything goes.
And I very much doubt that book authers in some far away countries have more detailed information than the historians in the area where these so called mythical warriors once lived.
And no this is not a good thread, as stuff like that opens the doors for any fantasy anyone could think up. Reenactment, or living history is about making graspable historical facts more widely known, but certainly not about what people dream up and try and sell as being factual.
Even people in far away countries should know the differance between a renaissance fair and a archeological museum exhibition!
:-?


Martin

[authun]

I am certain these kind of statements would get a very big "Hallo" in Cologne, especially if the event could be placed on the 11th of November preferably around eleven minutes after eleven o´clock.

You're a fan of Craig Russell then? You must have read Blutadler and Carneval :-)

Not so popular in the Düsseldorfer Carneval though.

cheers
authun

[Ingvar Sigurdson]

I am somewhat bemused by some of your remarks Tibero. Of course your words of caution by raising the spectre of National Socialism are very understandable given the context of the present topic, and I am certain that other contributors are also well aware of the context of the Roman and Greek ethnographers and historians but I do not see any where within the present discussion an urge for a revisionist romantic notion of 'the noble savage' but contrary to your self, an area worthy of discussion with no incitement to the type of entertainment nonsense that you evoke with your very colourful picture of carnival or those,in my own opinion rather odd, Ren' Fairs!

Although I have not used the word 'elite' myself, perhaps the context in which Dan uses it loses something in translation and I am sure he does not mean it as 'superior' in the sense of
the outmoded ideology that produced the horrors in our recent past of which we are all aware.

Although I can not speak for Dan himself, perhaps he means it the way that I undertsand it in the present context of either a 'professional' standing body of armed retainers or of the high status members of the social structure, often those in charge of the martial aspects of that society and hence the expression, the 'military elite'.


While not wishing to get into a semantic argument, your remark 'Never heard here in Germany of any "elite- or cultic germanic warriors" is this something more from a esoterik fantasy point of view or inspired by too many Osprey books?' is the one that I find the most bemusing. Even within the Varusschlact im OsnabruckerLand Museum und Park Kalkriese publication 2000 Jahre Varusschlact Konflict we get discussion on Odinnic Cult, and if I recall correctly within issue III-3 of Ancient Warfare Magazine we get an article on'Devine Battle Frenzy' which included a very fine painting of a wolf pelted warrior. One would hope that you do not see these two simple and rather innocent examples as been within the 'fantasy and esoterik' genre you seem to advise against.

Your remark also ignores the last thirty years of academic research and publication into the areas of belief and worldview, most of which acknowledge that is true that archaeology can not provide a passage into the to the minds of those of the past it can be studied and help provide signals of belief left in the material culture. The research is ongoing even by archaeologist resident in the present countries were such practices as water depositions took place, see here such a recent publication http://www.remote-sensing.routledge.com/...415606042/ and also here http://www.abdn.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/...neil.price.

Contrary to your own opinion I would suggest that a broad and deeper knowledge of present interdisciplinary research aids the re-enactor and living historian and helps them avoid the esoteric nonsense that you caution against and hence I find such topics as this thread a worthy vehicle for discussion and sharing of knowledge so please lets not close the door on it. I hope Martin this also cause no hard feelings!

regards
Ingvar

[Tiberio]

Why should it cause me any hard feelings, who am I to say what others are to think? But I know for certain, certain open air museums will close their doors to any groups who hold high this mythical esotheric stuff that is based on next to no referances at all from the period. And adding as referances stuff from over a 1000 years later in time can not in the least be taken seriously. But do what ever you want. As views that are commonly share in the greater part of the German scene is viewed by you as amusing, and not worth while being taken into further account. Guess one reason why the larger part of the German scene does not take part here, as you seem to know far better what the people think than the people who live here themselves.
As for me this thread is finished, and I find it not worth my time to add any further comment.

[authun]

What has come out of the academic scholarship in the last 30 years is just how insecure our knowledge of Norse paganism is, let alone earlier Anglo Saxon or Continental Germanic paganism. The problem of how 13th cent. icelandic texts can throw light on the meaning of pre christian norse religions is in itself difficult enough. The question of how rites equate to those religions is even more difficult. By the time we get to having to interpret the archaeology of anglo saxon england via these sagas, many researchers still regard the exercise as fruitless as being too distant in time and space. To interpret the Harii by this method, of whom we have even less evidence and who are even more remote in time, any conclusions are purely speculative.

The problems of space and time mean that the icelandic texts should only be used to offer possible avenues for further research. No conclusions should be drawn directly from them. Even Beowulf, much closer in space and time to pre Christian England, tells us virtually nothing of pre Christian religions in England:

"vast reserves of intellectual energy have been devoted to threshing this poem for grains of authentic pagan belief, but it must be admitted that the harvest has been meagre. The poet may have known that his heros were pagans, but he did not know much about paganism." (Wormald: Bede, Beowulf and the Conversion of the Anglo Saxon Aristocracy)

Interpreting the archaeology or written sources for the time concerned, via sagas written many hundreds of years later, in a different location and crucially, after Conversion to Christianity, inevitably involves much conjecture. Any conclusions drawn are hardly secure. In his book 'Anglo Saxon Paganism', David Wilson rejects the use of these sources:

"It has often been the case that in works dealing with Anglo Saxon paganism that a great deal of space was spent on Scandinavia and its heathenism, the evidence for which has been derived largely from the sagas, and especially the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson, written in the thirteenth century. The details of this heathenism were then projected back in time to pagan Anglo Saxon England as though the differences in time and space were irrelevant and pagan beliefs remained static and uniform."

If one knew nothing of 7th century Christianity but attempted to reconstructed it via a study of Christ in 8th cent. Islamic texts, one would inevitably be drawn to the wrong conclusions and the importance of the Trinity to Christianity would be entirely lost. An example of how an over reliance on later sagas can mislead is in the equation of Woden with Odin:

"A plausible model of Wodan's cult is established, which sees this cult as being geographically limited, and originating probably within the first half millenium of the Common Era; the cult of Odinn would appear, moreover, to be substantially separate in development from that of Wodan." (Philip Andrew Shaw: Uses of Wodan The Development of his Cult and of Medieval Literary Responses to It)

Even the cited publication by Lotte Hedeager, 'Iron Age Myth and Materiality - An Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000' posits that the Old Norse Odin Cycle may have its origins in the Hunnic invasions and that ultimately Attila is the model for Odin. It postdates the Harii so if one wanted to rely on icelandic texts for some things, they certainly cannot be used for the question of the Harii if Hedeager is to be believed.

If Shaw's view that Woden cults were geographically separate and different tribes worshipped different dieties, that is, there was no pan germanic supreme deity and the equation of Mercury with Woden is wrong, then we cannot assume that the Harii worshipped even Woden, let alone Odin in his 13th century form. We don't know what the motivations behind Tacitus' observations were.

This view is supported by Andrén, Jennbert and Raudvere in their book 'Old Norse religion in long-term perspectives: origins, changes, and interactions'. Andrén, Jennbert and Raudvere are proponents of the use of later mythology in interpreting the past. They "want to go one step further and create a ritual history which should be viewed as a complement to the studies of myth". Nonetheless they are forced to recognise that by:

"switching the focus from myth to rite, it has become highly obvious that Pre-Christian Norse religion is not a uniform or stable category. Instead there were profound chronological, regional and social differences in pre-Christian religious practice in Scandinavia. The archaeological traces of rites are in fact so different in time and place that one can seriously question the term 'Norse Paganism'. Instead a picture emerges above all of regional rites."

Again, if we cannot rely on Icelandic Sagas to accurately interpret observed rites in viking age Scandinavia, it is highly doubtful that they are of use in helping us determine what the Harii were about.

Andrew Shaw has plans to publish his thesis as a book but in the meantime, for those who are interested, his thesis is online:

http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/393/1/uk_...270854.pdf

best
authun

[Redwald]

Hi Harry,
I have read Shaw and can you offer you my notes - if you want them. I enjoyed his thesis very much and he raises some valid points, but don't think that his writing is the last word on the subject of Northern Religions. There are many recent works that are just as valid.

By the way - we may be straying off topic a bit as this thread is about Germanic Cultic Warriors - this is a much wider discussion. Should we take this elsewhere?

Paul

[authun]

I have read Shaw and can you offer you my notes - if you want them. I enjoyed his thesis very much and he raises some valid points, but don't think that his writing is the last word on the subject of Northern Religions. There are many recent works that are just as valid.

Hi Paul,

Do you mean his book 'Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World: Eostre, Hreda and the Cult of Matrons (Studies in Early Medieval History)'? I have that, but haven't read it yet.

Yes, I agree, everything is up for change, but there are only so many interpretations of existing data possible and we will probably run out of them soon. However, as more archaeological data comes to light, old theories will be revised and new ones formed. Fortunately, new archaeological data is quite frequent thesedays.

best
authun

[Redwald]

No Harry - I mean his thesis - Uses of Woden. The other title has been much delayed - but I have it on order and will read it with great interest when it arrives.

Paul

[Ingvar Sigurdson]

'What has come out of the academic scholarship in the last 30 years is just how insecure our knowledge of Norse paganism is, let alone earlier Anglo Saxon or Continental Germanic paganism.'

Fully agree Harry, what it does do is continue to stimulate and as long hypothesis and conclusion are not presented to a potential audience as certainties but used in a balanced manner of presenting differing opinion they can be perhaps be of benefit.

regards
Dave