A Random Thought.

[Wayland]

I was reading an article in a book discussing the Old Norse mindset compared to ours, and it left me with an interesting thought.

If I were to pick up a stone on the beach and then drop it, a modern, rational mind would say that it was attracted to the ground by the force of gravity.

A Norseman living a thousand years ago, if he thought about it at all, would have said that it was the stone's destiny to be on the beach.

I might throw it and it would fly through the air, it might fall into the ocean and it would sink beneath the waves, but one day it would be washed back onto the beach and it would end up exactly where it was destined to be.

People struggle with the Norse concept of destiny and yet although science can tell us the effect gravity has on the stone, it would appear that nobody actually understands exactly how it does it?

 

[GuestD]

I was listening to a scientist on the radio yesterday admitting that gravity is not fully understood by the "scientific community", from my point of view the Norse concept is perfectly understandable.

 

[Wayland]

Destiny is a concept very difficult to communicate to modern children and yet it underpinned the entire mindset of the "Vikings" if we call them that.

If your fate had already been decided, there was no point trying to avoid it.

The only thing that mattered was how you faced that fate.

 

[GuestD]

How do you know what your fate is ? From my own point of view, I don't want to know, good or bad. In today's world, fate seems to be "after the fact" rather than being discussed or predicted as your future destiny.

 

[Wayland]

Óðinn resorted to necromancy usually. It would seem that the dead had the inside track on the future somehow.

Mortals drew upon the powers of more shamanic sources.

 

[Janne]

Could you provide a link please?

 

[GuestD]

The past always has a tract to the future. Learning not to ignore it is the important bit. For every prediction that has proved to be true, how many that are completely wrong are remembered ? Michael Fish 1987 perhaps ?

 

[Wayland]

Could you provide a link please?

The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion

 

[Janne]

Remember that the Northern Germanic tribes ( Norse the more familiar one ) developed much of their religion from the Roman ( who developed it from the Greeks) religions and cults.

Adopted to own environment and culture.

To know or understand the mindset of them is a hard task.

Not much is known sadly, only a glimpse can be seen from the various writings put down ( in most cases) centuries later, when the oral traditions have been somewhat tainted by the Christian belief.
Much is a fairly modern after construction.

When I studied Swedish History this was one of the subjects, comparing the Norse religions/ beliefs to the other European religions and beliefs, inluding the influence if the Roman ones.

European history is a total mess.....

 

[Wayland]

The past always has a tract to the future. Learning not to ignore it is the important bit. For every prediction that has proved to be true, how many that are completely wrong are remembered ? Michael Fish 1987 perhaps ?

And of course two peoples destinies might not always agree.

 

[Janne]

The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion

Supermany thanks, I will delve into it with pleasure!

Edit. Link opens not!

 

[Wayland]

Much of it goes right back to the Vedic tradition just like the Indo European language Janne.

Fascinating stuff to look into and as you say, almost impossible to wrap a modern brain around but it is the job of a storyteller to build new worlds in the minds of the audience and getting the mindset right is a good foundation.

 

[Wayland]

Try this one Janne:

https://norse-mythology.org/viking-spirit-introduction-norse-mythology-religion/

 

[oldtimer]

Interestingly, John Hospers in "An introduction to Philosophical Analysis" (1976) uses the stone metaphor in his chapter on Determinism. You posit a problem that philosophers before the Norsemen and since wrestle with. I'd love to debate this but here is not the place. But what a wonderful topic to wrangle over beside a campfire!

 

[Wayland]

That's interesting, I'll have to look that up.

 

[Janne]

Much of it goes right back to the Vedic tradition just like the Indo European language Janne.

Fascinating stuff to look into and as you say, almost impossible to wrap a modern brain around but it is the job of a storyteller to build new worlds in the minds of the audience and getting the mindset right is a good foundation.

We do not have to go back that far. Most people today can not understand the mindset ( and reasonings/ choices) our great grand and grand fathers / mothers had.

( well, my son did / does not understand my minset...... )

But it is an incredibly interesting subject. I used to carry one book with me, either a religious ( bible, quran) or a philosophy text.

 

[Wayland]

I'm waiting for a new edition of Neil Price's book at the moment. Constantly referred to but difficult to find a good copy.

H.R.Davidson's Gods and Myths of Northern Europe is worth reading as well. Older but still a standard reference work.

Gods and Myths of Northern Europe https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0140136274/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_9hzACb14R6SA6

 

[snappingturtle]

If you cast runes and see a defined fate by that knowledge you have already changed it, so its a path of the possible and are most defining power is free will and the power to change are fate I'm sure that would be apparent to people of all century's?

 

[Janne]

But then you are assuming that you very carefully write down the by the runes defined fate, and see that it comes true.
If you do NOT write it down, what you think you predicted in the runes, when it happens, will just be a dejà vu moment

And you are also assuming that it is possible to find out the fate, by casting runes, bones or reading the intestines of the animal you just sacrificed.

 

[Wayland]

"Casting runes" is a new age invention, no evidence for it happening in the "Viking Age"

Seið was the only practice of magic which seemed to include divination and that is more akin to the shamanistic practices of the Saami.