"Nodfyr" sounds like a cognate for needfire, which is a Scottish Highland tradition of a fire made by friction of wood-on-wood or rope-on-wood when the signs of sickness hit a herd; the livestock are forced to jump over the fire to purify and drive away illness. Similar traditions are found in number of cultures that have a long tradition of sheepherding or cattle-herding in the same way.
Fire by friction is also used for ritual purposes, like during mid-winter festivals, all over northern europe. In some cases it is done by several people using ropes that drills a pole horisontally into walls etc where an ember is created the used to start the ritual fire. The exact details of tge ritual/process differ widely but the principle is supossedly pretty much the same. The channel Nordic Animism has done a video in which Rune state siurces etc if someone would want to dig deeper into the subject.
The Scots Dialect Dictionary (Warrack, 1911) has for need-fire: a fire caused by friction of two pieces of wood, used as a charm for murrain &c; a beacon fire; spontaneous ignition. The Concise Scots Dictionary (Robinson, 1985) has for needfire: fire produced by the friction of dry wood, having reputed magical or prophylactic properties (17 - 20th centuries). Tak needfyre = take fire spontaneously. Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (Macdonald, 1972) says of need-fire: fire produced by friction, to which a certain virtue is superstitiously attached. Even today, some wild campers esteem that way of making fire over the use of a cigarette lighter.
9:32 I would translate this as "concerning doubtful places which they revere as pertaining to saints." There are several accounts in the early middle ages of tombs being revered locally as if they belonged to a saint but they are later discovered to just belong to some regular person. There's a famous instance of this in the life of Saint Martin where this happens and it turns out it was a demon who convinced the locals that it was a saint's tomb. On another note, the Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum is a great source which leaves so many questions, but also one which needs to be approached with reservations, as you pointed out. Not only could traditions have changed in the centuries and physical space separating it from the vikings, but there is also a tendency for medieval Christians to impose their own ideas about magic and paganism, largely obtained from patristic interpretations of Classical sources, onto the traditions they encounter. For example, augury from birds is often mentioned in these discussion when it was a distinctly Roman practice. That being said, the Indiculus is far less guilty of this than other sources, which is part of the reason why it's such a fascinating glimpse into potential pre-Christian religious practice.
Incertus can also mean 'hidden' (ie, hidden from others knowing about them as opposed to physically hidden as is the case with occultus, which implies being covered with something), so I think this just means 'hidden shrines worshipped for their holiness', as sanctis here could be adjectival.
What I like the most about this video is number one how informative it is. Number two is It’s a reminder that even though each area and each tribe is different, there’s many same continuing themes. It helps people like me to not be too hung up on honing in on one specific god or gods. When tapping into ancient spirituality.
So, that is fascinating. The traditional Latin rite of baptism in the Catholic church is largely unchanged-- question and answers about renouncing Satan and his works remains the same. The fact that the Saxon version of it is specific to the renouncement of their traditional beliefs is intriguing. I didn't know that that was a thing.
Funny you mention that. Many of the specific denunciations are different but this would have been almost word for word of my own baptism for the 1st half.
The "race" mentioned made me think of the "Staffansritt", an old Swedish horse-racing tradition on Boxing Day. In Scandinavian Christianity the martyr Saint Stephen became strongly connected to horses and stables, referred to as a "stalledräng" (stablehand). From what I've read, apparently there used to be an older tradition of racing horses around Yuletide, with the winner of the race possibly bringing the first ray of new year's sunlight to the world. There was a strong horse-cult in ancient Scandinavia and other Germanic areas, so by making St Stephen patron of horses, a literal Stablehand in Scandinavia, the old racing tradition was kept alive around Boxing Day, to smooth out the transition from paganism to Christianity. Horse-races were for a long time a staple of Medieval Christmas-celebration and even later, gradually morphing into becoming sled-races, with people racing home from church, to be the first to bring home Christmas to the household.
Holding named horse-races on Boxing Day is also an English tradition, though if it falls on a weekend the race may be held during the week on the ensuing Bank Holiday.
The translation of the Baptismal Vow into High German is quite straightforward : "Und ich entsage allen Teufeln. Und aller Teufel Werke? Und ich entsage aller Teufel Werke und Worte, Thonar und Wodan und Saxnot und all den Unholden, die ihre Genossen sind." ("diaboles" eq. "Teufel")
Great stuff, thank you. "De petendo quod boni vocant sanctae Mariae" = "From asking for things that the good ones attribute to Holy Mary". The Latin seems a bit obscure, but my guess is that the context might help: the reference can be to certain things that Christians (as the good ones) should rather ask from Mary and not from the old pagan gods...
Seaxneat was the originator of the kings of Essex (now a county in England not a kingdom), all the other kings came from Woden. And that - again - is all we know about another Old English heathen god. Excellent video again.
There’s also an early Saxon story that has Woden creating ‘Ents’ from trees (seven of them, I think), a similar story to Odin along with Hodur and Lodur, breathing nine divine elements into the Likmof Ashk and Embla (qu. spelling but Ash and Elm). One of these ‘Ents’ is named Seaxnot and I suspect that the others are, in story terms, the progenitors of the other six main lines of Saxon kings.
@@AllotmentFox my original response seems to have disappeared, I’ll try again, this time having emailed it to myself so I can copy the text and have a record of it!
@@AllotmentFox I was aware of the Saxon Baptismal Oath and wondered about the trinity of Woden, Thunnor and Seaxneat with two being very familiar and the other being a mystery. Likewise I could only find the name mentioned elsewhere as an origin for a line of Saxon Kings, as you said. It struck me that it was important, both for the very fact of its mention in the oath and its sharing a root part of the word with Seax and Saxon. This seemed like someone important. After asking around and finding nothing, I gave up. Then I ordered and read Brice Stratford’s beautifully written and eminently readable Anglo Saxon Myths. Reading the story of Frig And The King Of The Elves, my jaw dropped. Woden travelled round the Middle Earth, then, spurned by Erce, until he found the perfect tree, and this he carved to the shape of a man, and clothed it, and sang life into it. This he did again, and then again, and then again. He named them many names, his tree-men-Sceafa, Seaxneat, Geat, and more; Wecta, Baldag, Withelgeat; Withlag, Casser, Uinta. When each was made and fresh he placed it in the waters of Middle Earth, to the middengoddess Geofon’s embrace, and he joined with her there, and their union gave the tree-men life, and thereafter they did breath and live as other men, and did roam mighty around the Middle Earth, and do just as they must. In this way, then, we’re the tribes born, and the lines of the Seven Kings established, who all today descend from Woden, as many elves descend from Frig. To me this is very similar to the Norse tale of Ashk and Embla (Ash and Elm), their Lik given nine immortal gifts from Odin and Hodur and Lodur to become the first humans. Familiar with elements of wood and water and the creation of life and yet also strikingly different. It was the same of other stories (such and the fighting of Wearg (Fenrir) and Wyrm (Jormungandr). It could be that the author was extrapolating and writing good stories, but it doesn’t feel like it. Whilst there is no bibliography and list of sources with the work, it feels that that was where he was working from, I just haven’t been able to chase down those sources yet. However…I recently asked about King Rædwald of East Anglia and Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo. I am now wondering about his genealogy descending through Caesar (he does have strong links to Byzantium and some to Imperial Rome-his people, the Wuffingas, were originally Alemanni Saxons invited to Britain by Rome to defend the Saxon Shore in exchange for land, eventually mixing with migrating Angles after the Roman withdrawal). I am wondering if Caesar was a misspelling of Casser…? Another possibility would be Geat, as some have drawn links between Rædwald and the poem Beowulf, both in the name of the peoples, Wuffingas and Wulfingas (People of the Wolf, I believe), the ship burial at the beginning of Beowulf and Mound 1 itself as well as Heorot Hall and the long hall at Rendlesham. There is a mingling of people’s in Beowulf, with aid being given by incoming Geats. I’m probably stretching a point here. The other part which did grab me, however, was reading Brice Stratford’s story of Woden fighting Wyrm. He searches for nine herbs upon the World Tree, fashions them into nine runes and places those runes upon nine spears which he is able to use to defeat the previously undefeatable Wyrm. I wanted to know what the nine herbs were (I could recognise Mugwort, but that was it). A friend sent me a version of the tale from Hullwebs History of Hull, Lay of the Nine Twigs of Woden, which has a translation of the herb names as well as recounting the same tale. What really got me excited was the link between these tales and the grave goods in Mound 1. The magnificent helm is a Woden/Odin mask. The shield mounts may represent Erne, the Sea Eagle, searching the seas for Wyrm (possibly even carrying Woden’s will with him). There were also weapons, which link me back to the herbs/runes. A spear is a common, almost ubiquitous part of a man’s grave goods if he is of sufficient status. Mound 1 is unique, as far as I am aware, however. Next to the where the body would have lain were found spears, all different. Nine spears. As I mentioned, don’t have the author’s source for the stories he has told, but it does feel like he has used original source material. Thus I came to the further piece of information about Seaxneat/Seaxnot, originator of one of the Seven lines of Kings in Britain. Perhaps this divine heritage is why he is important enough to be referenced in the Baptismal Oath. Apologies for the long and wordy reply!
@@petersmedley459 I am going to buy Brice Stratford’s book, I enjoyed reading the sample on the internet. But I can’t see where he got it from apart from (1) reconstructing Indo-European myths and jumping those myths forward 3,500 years (ie, Tyr being the chief god at some point which he isn’t even in Norse mythology, in my opinion) substituting Norse mythology for English mythology (yes, the Franks casket confirms some shared culture with the Norse in a very significant way) but we have very, very little authentic evidence in English about English beliefs; (3) comparative mythology and (4) some folk lore, the vast majority of English folk customs today made up by Georgian and Victorian vicars, our authentic customs abandoned (unlike the French and Italians) on the altar of the Industrial Revolution. We keep looking nonetheless but we have to make sure it is evidence-based and where we hav3 a hypothesis to make it clear how tentative that may be. I was both interested and shocked when I was reading it. The poem Deor and the Nine Herbs Charm is (unfortunately and to my knowledge) the only really good source material on English heathenism that we have, which is a tiny amount to say anything at all. I want to believe, but I can’t. It’s not going to stop me going to one of the Mayday Morris events but I sceptic I will remain.
I really appreciate your sidetracks into other Germanic languages. I for one would be stoked if you were able to get more scholars or knowledgeable enthusiasts in these languages on your channel
The text is also known as the 'Oud Utrechtse doopgelofte' and it is probably one of the oldest known written texts in Dutch/Frisian, (or at least one of its direct forbearers, the old Saxon) Its fascinating that a text of this age is stil quite readable and recognisable, from a Dutch perspective. But to read it is one thing, to understand it its something else. Thanks for pointing this text out and putting things into perspective.
The point about the lunar eclipse suddenly reminded me of the 'wargs' (bad wolves) that eat the sun and the moon, Sköll and Hati. Little bit of a revelation to be honest, don't know why I didn't realize this earlier.
Friction fire actually plays a significant part in finnish traditions too, for certain ceremonial bonfires (kokko) were started with friction fire even up to the 1950's in the rural regions. And Yeah we still have a ton of old traditions that are directly related to pagan traditions eventhough they are not thought of as pagan, and the entirety of Finland has been christianised for 800 years. The church at my home municipality had to actually intervene in the 1950's because hundreds of people would gather every spring and autumn in to an ancient holy grove (hiisi) to give food offerings to finnish equivalent of vættír (väki) and to celebrate some traditional holyday that had roots in pagan tradition. All of the participants were devout christians and none would ever dare to admit being anything other than christian in any way, but those celebrations had gone on for aeons and they would be darned if they would give up those ancient traditions.
Several of the things that the Saxons are admonished to refrain from sound like stuff that the Frisians were doing in the History with Hilbert lecture about per-Christian religion among the Frisians. That part about the "sacred fonts" or whatever it was sounded a lot like his speculation about wells being places of sacrifice.
Also, I want to say that the simulacra of flour and bread strike me as being similar to symbolic offerings that many cultures make for either spirits or gods or the dead.
I must've read an article about this in Dutch some time. I think the filthy things in february supposedly still happened in the Netherlands in the 16th century. Namely debauchery during a certain 'christian' festival, although I don't recall which.
Perhaps they had something corresponding to the Scottish/Irish/Manx festival of Imbolc or St Brigid's Day, only recently made an official Bank Holiday In Ireland. This was at the beginning of February and marked the lambing season and perhaps also the spring sowing. Brigid was an Irish goddess before she became a Christian saint. Her connection to fertility may have entailed practices that the Christian monks considered debauched.
That's not very convincing because there's little reason for the -on to have fallen off of the end and been replaced with an -as there, as well as both a long medial 'e' and short initial 'e' to have both turned into 'i'. It's not impossible, but it would be very unlikely, as you would expect something closer to 'nimate' in Old Saxon. Perhaps something from similar origin to Old English 'niman', meaning 'to take'?
@@therat1117 Well, -on is a grammatical ending (Nominative singular neuter) in Gaulish and so is -as in Old Saxon (Nominative plural masculine? - in which case the question would be why did it change gender, but that does happen in loanwords). Both e's were short in nemeton, in fact - would they have become "i" in Germanic? The change t > d could be explained by Verner's Law.
@@davidmandic3417 Neuter nouns do not tend to switch gender as loanwords in Proto-Germanic > Old English/Old Norse, including 'iron' and 'copper' (isern and copor in Old English) unless there is some kind of large phonological pressure to reanalyse them as a different gender, which there isn't for 'neméton'. As you can tell from that spelling, both of the 'e' vowels were *not* short, one was short and one was long, the long vowel was where the emphasis was placed which would make Verner's Law unproductive, and on top of that, this loan is only possible after Verner's Law, which occurred very early in Proto-Germanic (ie, before ~400 BCE), before the few Celtic loans into Proto-Germanic that we have occurred.
I would also add, that we cannot realistically assume that the people the Indiculus was written about, were a monolithically pure Saxon population. This was written at the tail end of the Migration era, and people of various cultures were tossed together like a salad from all over Europe in many ways for centuries. These cultures then formed new mixed cultural identities , in the various ways mixed culture Foederati settled, and or intermarried with whomever they settled next to. For example, how Lombardy was settled by a mixed group of Langobardi, and Saxons who then settled and intermarried into that region of Italy, These mixed groups would almost certainly be practicing some sort of syncretic religion, or at least have rolled in elements from the other cultures they had been in close contact with. Thus, this Nimidas and other words we cannot quite translate could be coming from surviving Romano Gaulic pagan practices vs just a simple loan word, or from any number of sources,and all of that would have happened very messily from a linguistic perspective
@@therat1117 That makes sense, but I'm not sure how relevant that spelling really is. Both e's were short originally, cf. Greek δρυνέμετον or the Welsh and Breton reflexes of nemeton - all point to short e in both syllables. As for spelling, e.g. the Vaison-la-Romaine inscription does have νεμητον (neméton), but also βηλησαμι (bélésami), with two long e's, so that might have nothing to do with stress and vowel length. We know (next to) nothing about Gaulish prosody. As for Germanic, I must admit I don't know much, so you could be right. But then, aren't the precursors of 'town' and Ger. 'Reich' Celtic loans, and they've even undergone Grimm's Law, which pre-dates Verner's Law?
I primarily watch these videos for the nice scenic backrounds with the scholarly early scandinavian research theme, I don't pay much attention to what's actually being said, I may be in the minority in having these videos be backround ambience, but they really enhance my day.
From a danish point of view the Old Saxon is relatively easy to understand. The "church" language in Dk seems quite archaic sometimes so a word like "forsager" - in this saxon tekst "forsacho" - is mainly if not only used in baptisms and such but is still very understandable.
@@christopherstein2024 All the Scandinavian words beginning with an unstressed for-/för- are either borrowings or calques from Middle Saxon/Middle Low German.
Given the context, and given the ancient location of the Nemetes tribe, could not nimidas be related to or cognate with nemeton or the Latin nemus / nemora?
6:37 A theory about "spurcalia" - it refers to Lupercalia. A theory about Sigurd and Brynhild invoking Sun and Moon for healing powers - they invoked Apollon the Healer and Diana Puerpera.
I wonder if this vinceluna is actually referring to the summer solstice. The eclipse is pretty likely, but I’ve always wondered about solstice festivals in Germanic paganism
That old vow isn't in use anymore, but it was Confirmation Sunday today (05.05.) Thursday will be a day off, because it's Ascension Day, more popular called Fathers' Day. If the weather is nice, that's a day for bicycle tours, and of course quite a lot of maibock is usually involved. Two weeks from now, the Pingstbööm will be erected in old Haduloha and vicinity, since the maypole tradition differs here from elsewhere in Germany. I'm afraid, they must be "watered" heavily, again. Have a nice time everybody!
Saxnot is mysterious, but Sax- ginota’ or ‘Friend of the Saxons’, could well be be the old lord of the tribe we know as InguZ or Freyr (in OldNorse). A questionable friend of the Saxons, Saint Boniface was punished according the Ewa Frisionum, the ancient Frisian law in 754 common era. People here, including an old friend of mine, with a darker patch of hair on the scalp, were/ are considered as descendants of the warriors responsible for his fatal headwound.
The Saxons are descendants of the Ingvaeones (one of the main tribes in Germania mentioned by Tacitus) and therefore, the god Ing is known to them. Me too, I think that Saxnot is related to Ing / Yng or Freyr in Scandinavia
Wild Hypothesis: This word "yrias", which might be connected to englisch "to race", might also be cognate with modern high German "rasen" (vor Wut), meaning being mad or furious. Could this have been connected to a decendent Idea of Wodnaz in some manner? A pagan practice (or at least something that pagams did), where they got themselves into a state of madness sounds a bit like something that would be associated with an old man, with a wide brimmed hat and one eye. Also the expression "rasen vor Wut" contains the German word "Wut", which maybe is cognate with Woden and Odin. I am not saying this is true, becuase it is most likely a coincidence. It is just a possible connection that I noticed and thought might be interesting to the people here and if I am lucky Dr. Crawford as well.
I suggest fountains may refer to springs which have long been associated with holy places allegedly of pre Christian origin. The number of places called Holywell or something similar is staggering.
The mention of a ceremony involving cut or torn clothes reminds me that Morris dancers in earlier times in England could also wear tattered clothes. Obviously that was almost a thousand years later than this early text, but it may have endured as a practice and transformed itself into the wearing of ribbons in the present day, especially among Northern Morris dancers. I may be wrong, but could the British practice of dressing up to go "guising" at Hallowe'en/Samhain (which later encompassed the Protestant feast of Guy Fawkes' Night) also involve "dressing down" in rags?
Tacitus writes about divination by Germans through snorting and neighing of a horse if I recall correctly. So I suppose that was still ongoing. Sounds 'very indo-european' if you ask me.
'Simulacrum' in Latin means an image or effigy. They mean making a god's image in flour or bread, in addition to carrying it in a ritual procession, I believe. 'De petendo quod boni vocant sanctae Mariae' I believe also means 'Of proselytising that good (Christians) (should) pray to Saint Mary', ie, engaging in a Christian heresy, but Dr. Crawford's assessment of calling on Mary in lieu of a non-Christian goddess may be correct. 'De incertis locis' in this case likely means 'hidden places' rather than 'uncertain places', so 'hidden places worshipped for their holiness' is how I would interpret the line.
Nimidas looks related to Gaulish nemeton (which, appropriately enough are sacred groves), although getting a d from the t is a little odd. An early enough borrowing (or I suppose cognate) in Old Saxon could get it from Verner's Law, or it could potentially be a Vulgar Latin word already showing the voicing of intervocalic t to d. In the final line I'm also not sure how to interpret the Latin. I suspect "quia" here just means "that" rather than "because", in which case feminae is probably a dative singular "to a woman". "Junam" would be an accusative of "Juna" which could be a mistaken for "Junonem" (the accusative of Juno) although who this would be an interprtatio for is unclear, as Frigg would typically be Venus. Assuming comendet is a mistake for/variant of commendat, this could be interpretted as "from that which they believe commends/entrusts/commits Juna to a woman". "Juna" could potentially be a Germanic word. If I really stretch a connection to *jungaz "young" doesn't seem impossible. The obvious interpretation then would be Juna as "a young girl" with this being a superstition for selecting the sex of a baby, but selecting for a girl seems unlikely given what we know of the society of that era. A sense of "youth" may be possible, but the morphology looks really weird if that is it.
The line is misreported, it's actually longer: 'De eo, quod credunt, quia feminae lunam commendent, quod possint corda hominum tollere juxta paganos.' Meaning 'Of that, which they believe, that women may command the moon, (such) that they can steal the hearts of men according to the pagans.' Fairly obviously referring to a love spell. Nimidas is unlikely to be a loan of 'Nemeton', because 'nemeton' is actually 'neméton' with a long second e, which would become a long 'a' if it were loaned into Proto-Germanic > Old Saxon. Also doesn't explain the transposition of -on for -as. Nimidas is far more likely to be a native word, possibly related to Old English 'niman' (to take).
@@therat1117 ah that does make much more sense about the last line! With nimidas you're right about the long ē. This plausibly makes a derivation via a vulgar latin where this has raised to ɪ more plausible than a simple borrowing from Gaulish into Old Saxon. This raised ɪ could then possibly trigger i-mutation within Old Saxon The exchange of the ending is no problem. The -as is just a rendering of the usual Old Saxon masculine strong (nominative-accusative) plural, whilst -on is the Gaulish neuter nominative-vocative-accusative singular. The shift in number is expected from the rest of the sentence, and shifts in gender are pretty common A double plural within Vulgar Latin would also be possible, where the old neuter plural in -a was interpreted as a feminine in singular and so extended to -as. I believe similar neuters are attested in Romanian and some Italian dialects A native Old Saxon word related to OE niman would be a cognate of nemeton, a possibility I also acknowledged, seeing as that verb is from the same PIE root It's also worth noting that the gloss given is pretty much a textbook definition of a nemeton, so a completely independent development seems unlikely, given the different senses the root has developed in Germanic and Celtic more generally
@@tristanholderness4223 The evidence of neuter loans into Proto-Germanic we have (ex. iron, thematic from a Celtic language; ore, athematic from Latin or another Italic language via a Celtic language; copper, thematic from Latin directly) all produced a strong neuter noun in the languages of the 1st millenium CE. There is no reason for something that should be more like 'nimata' if the loan were plural to suddenly become masculine, no matter whether it was loaned in from Latin or Gaulish. If it were a Late Latin loan from (probably) northern France, then the expected Late Latin word (~400 CE) would be pronounced approximately like nimétu ~ niméty which would look about the same if loaned directly into Proto-West-Germanic. If plural, we would expect nimétas, (which would fit I guess) as the neuter is being lost as a gender by this time and the accusative is merging with the nominative in feminine nouns. If the neuter plural was still present, it would be nimétə. This will eventually produce *nante in Old French, per the placename Nanterre (from Nemétodúrum). The gloss being the same and having a similar-looking derivation in separate Indo-European languages? Shocking! 'Axle', 'axis', and 'aksa' are also cognates and look very similar, but one is Proto-Germanic, the other is Latin, and the last is Sanskrit, and none of them share a PIE stem (*h₂eḱs-l-eh₂, h₂eḱs-is, h₂eḱs-os). The word 'nimidas' looks far more like a native Germanic word than a loan, particularly if that is truly a masculine plural ending and the base form is *nimid, making it likely from PGer *nimidaz.
@@therat1117 change of gender is really common even within native Germanic words. For a borrowing a change in gender requires no real explanation Other Celtic borrowings generally reflect Proto-Celtic ē as ī (cf *gīslaz "hostage" < *gēstlos "hostage", & *Rīnaz "Rhine" < *rēnos "river"), definitely not as a so nimada would be completely off. If the borrowing occurred before Grimm's & Verner's Laws this would give us exactly the némēton (noting Old Celtic's initial stress) > nemīdaz with spontaneous shift to a masculine With i-mutation (so outside East Germanic) that would then become nimīdaz. The accusative plural then would be nimīdōs outside East Germanic, which gets us basically to the form in the indiculus For a borrowing from Late Latin, we'd be looking at a pre-borrowing form like /nɛˈmedɔ/. Germanic seems generally to have had low mid vowels (cf *Rūmō < Latin Rōma "Rome", *pundą "pound" < pondō, *tigulǭ "tile" < tēgula "brick"), so this could easily have been interpreted by an Old Germanic speaker as nemida-, then converted to a masculine and i-mutated to nimida- Proto-Celtic *nemēton would suggest a PIE form like *nemeytom (likely with initial stress), this would also give a Germanic form like *nemīdą and (with spontaneous shift to the masculine) would give the right form, same as the borrowing. The reason I doubt this is that the PIE root *nem is only clearly attested in Germanic in the sense of "to take", whereas Celtic has it in the sense of "to give" (cf Old Irish neim "poison" alongside Gaulish nemēton), and only the latter sense makes sense for what we know of nemetons This is the point I was making about similarity of cognates. Nothing about the phonology, but about the semantics, where this being a native Germanic word would require a convergent development of the sense of the root but only in this one word. Something not required from assuming a borrowing Phonologically I've shown it can be native Germanic, an early borrowing directly from Gaulish before Grimm's & Verner's Laws, or a later borrowing from whatever Latin vernacular was being spoken Morphologically we have a masculine & neuter whichever derivation we accept, but this isn't a major problem. As said above, even within branches of Germanic there are often disagreements on the gender of nouns. This is no significant concern either way Semantically however the evidence points against a native origin Overall then, the only derivation we have clera evidence against is the native one, with a slight edge given to a later borrowing rather than an earlier one due to the fact this borrowing is not otherwise attested in Germanic, as we might expect for a borrowing as early as the early one would have to be
@@tristanholderness4223 No, gender changes *do* require explanation in cases where the apparent gender of the word is phonologically restricted, as would be the case in Proto-Germanic. Latin didn't randomly switch -us out for -a whenever it felt like it, only phonologically ambiguous cases like res or dies got this treatment. Modern German can do this because gender isn't often phonologically explicit in German. Yes, other borrowings do change i to e *when the long e is in the stressed position in a language with strong initial stress* and it is not a good idea to discount this. Also the 'if' on a potential nemeton loan prior to Grimm's is a very big if, as that puts it prior to around 700 BCE. That is not a casual assumption. You have just assumed the gender spontaneously changed again for no reason. You're also assuming that the Celtic word had initial stress, which is in error. Only Irish after the Primitive Irish period had initial stress, no other Celtic language has this feature and it is not a feature of Proto-Celtic. If this word was loaned in, in a more realistic time frame, ca. 250 BCE, then the long e not in an initial position might not render long i. Plus, the Celtic form for the loan of *gīslaz is not *gēstlos - the attested Gaulish word is geistlus, with Old Welsh *guistl making a Proto-Celtic long e an impossibility. Gaulish ei > PGer ī is all well and probable. My contention was also that PGer *ē renders Old Saxon ā. So for PGer *nemētą with i-mutation and normal sound changes you get Old Saxon *nimāt. PGer *Rūmō was mediated by (likely) Gaulish *Rūmā, probably ditto for *pundą, so that's an issue. You're just assuming again that a Proto-West-Germanic speaker would see an /e/ and convert it to an /i/ spontaneously because you want that to happen, even though /e/ is present in their phonology. Indeed, in many cases non-stressed Late Latin /e/ remains /e/ in West Germanic loans, such as Old English læfel from Latin lābellum, or becomes /o/, as in scamol from scabellum (which is /e/ for all other West Germanic languages except Old High Germanic where it became /a/ regularly). Spontaneously attempting a PIE reconstruction out of what is obviously a compound word in Gaulish is not good practice. Its hypothetical PIE composition is not known. *nem- refers to something which is allotted, and in the Gaulish case it refers to an enclosure, like in Greek νομός (pasture, subdivision). This is why it has senses referring to giving and taking in various languages. Semantics are not an actual issue. Latin and Greek nemus/νέμος refer to a wooded grove which is not clear as to how this occurred, and nimidas could easily be from similar semantic derivation. Basically the only phonology here that doesn't rely on a very early loan of complex religious vocabulary into Proto-Germanic to work alongside an assumption that for some reason a thematic neuter in Proto-Germanic spontaneously changed gender in a highly abnormal fashion, is that this is a native word. We also have not established what case nimidas is in. If this is the nominative, then it is impossible to be related to nemeton at all. Basically, we don't know where this word comes from, or really what it means, and it is highly unlikely to be a loanword if it is religious vocabulary. Let us leave it there.
Very interesting as a Christian, because it shows some of Christianity's own priorities within a pagan people. Some Christians allow for pagan rituals, as long as the meaning is taken out of the ritual, but I think those people would be hard-pressed to allow the majority of these things (forbidding making fire in the Norse way is really weird though, I wonder what is going on there.)
As a "very much not christian" it makes me sad to think of the forced conversions, the loss of life, culture, art and spirituality our part of the world had to suffer to the violence of a foreign middle eastern religion. It is of cause only speculation, but I think the world would have been much more interesting if we would have been left to our own traditions and beliefs.
@Akkolon 💯 agree. It's kind of like how sad it makes me to see Mexico and South America lose all of its Incan, Mayan, and Aztek culture and spirituality. Especially now that they're not under foreign control any more.
@@casthedemon On the "Fall of Civilizations" podcast my favorite episodes are on the the Aztec, Mayan and Inca civilisations. All so full of life, wonder, spirituality, beauty and long history. All of that lost to the greed of men and to the intolerance of christianity. Truly a sad story.
@@Akkolon yeah for sure. People always say Ghenghis Khan was terrible, but he made it a point to allow people to keep their cultures, religions, and traditions as long as they just adopted his laws. Compare that to Charlemagne the Tyrant lol.
"Making fire in the Norse way" may well have included some kind of incantation or a prayer to a pagan deity for assistance. Missionaries would have looked askance at that. Other ordinary activities may have involved rituals or incantations which the new priests would have felt the need to ban or replace.
The last one doesn't make sense. Googling it gives something more grammatical: "De eo, quod credunt, quia feminae lunam commendent, quod possint corda hominum tollere juxta paganos". So, "about that which the women believe, because they entrust the Moon, in that they could lift the hearts of men next to pagans". Whatever that means.
It could be an awkward literal translation of a local colloquialism that was translated into Latin. Maybe it's romance spells to bewitch men into marriage.
This is Late Latin rather than Classical Latin. What it says is 'Of that, which they believe, that women may command the moon, such that they (the women) can steal the hearts of men according to the pagans'. Basically he's talking about a love spell involving the moon.
@@casthedemon 'Witches' and witch burning were a conceit of the Early Modern period. The Catholic Church of the 700s regarded Witchery as pagan superstition, and therefore not real. The only concern at that time regarding a 'witch' was that the people believing her a witch (or the witch herself were she engaged in 'magic') were engaged in pagan superstitions, which required religious correction.
@therat1117 This is speculation but I believe the last sanction is about seidr. Seems to me its an injunction against believing the words of witches/seers. In other words not to listen to fortunes and prophecy from pagan preistesses.
I'd love that, we love our bread^^ but he is right in the video, I have 2 German translations one uses "pieces of cloth" and the other "rags" also found an old book with interpretations, some older interpretations which are probably not true: some thought it to be girls dolls used in a similar fashion as by the old Romans, when girls would sacrifice a doll to Venus at the end of their childhood another idea was that it could mean figures made using mandragora and the most likely interpretation: just simple, personally crafted, idols made of cheap cloth
With all the usual caveats inserted, Google Translate suggests "made of cloths," apparently treating "pannis" as the ablative form of pannus "cloth, rag, garment;" the equivalent ablative form for panis "bread" would be "panibus."
pānis is bread, while pannus (pannīs in the plural ablative as it appears here) is cloth. While they have a similar spelling, pānis and pannus are different words.
@@anthonyrogers7977 Yeah, I knew that. I just jumped to panis (which would be, what, panem, here?) because of the context of fields and grain. But, yeah, dative or ablative plural -- "patches, rags, scraps of cloth."
In regards to Charlemagne, I think it's important to note the context of the culture that Frankish Christians and pagans shared, which was war as a means to gain resources. Part of warfare involved the slaughter of everyone in the enemy settlement. It did get especially brutal, and escalated beyond the cultural norms of either religious group, which is what drove the pagan king to ask for terms of peace. Since Charlemagne couldn't war against Christians by Church Law, his response was to demand conversion from paganism to Christianity. It wasn't a missionary activity, it was traditional practice. Kings had no reason for being other than to wage war.
I think you're over-interpreting Charlemagne as a pagan warlord in Christian clothing. The Franks had been Christianised for hundreds of years by the time Charlemagne took power, and whilst they did keep the customary Frankish Salic law as their legal code, they relied very heavily on Roman civil structures to uphold their legitimacy. Charlemagne was declared 'Emperor of the Romans', after all, and was an important legal reformer. Frankish kings, in as much as they were at war near-constantly, had to function as administrators and jurists as much as warlords. People were not killed wholesale in settlements in Early Mediaeval warfare, that is silly fantasy-movie nonsense. Forced conversion or death is also simply the Abrahamic norm in warfare, going back to the kings of Israel and forward to the Muslim conquests and the Crusades. The Saxon wars got so brutal precisely because forced conversions, an edict mandating death for all those who refused conversion, and massacres of those refusing to convert because of said edict, inflamed the religious sentiments of the Saxons and meant that the Saxon tribes were almost continuously in revolt against the Franks for 20 years until finally the attrition of constant war in combination with clemency offered for converts led to the Saxons nobility giving in and agreeing to convert and promulgate Christianity in their lands.
I find it kinda funny that some missionary in the 800s had to explicitly write all of this down otherwise the Saxons wouldn't know they shouldn't be doing all this. "No, you can't worship the old gods with wooden hands and feet."
Old Saxon and Old English were mostly closer, but I‘d think that late Old English (after Viking influence started) became also more similar to Old Norse.
Really interesting that they seem almost as concerned about keeping the newfound Christianity of converts in line with orthodoxy as stopping their old pagan rituals. It's like vowing not to syncretize the two religions.
Plattdeutsch doesn't have much of a future, the language itself is dying out in the North of Germany and the Netherlands, only old people speak Saxon now.
Look up Burchard of Worms, book 19. I can't find much of English translations for the points. But we're talking 11th century heathenism in Germany here. This time, with full explanations of what they're doing. I have an article in Dutch though, here's an example: 91. Heb jij deelgenomen aan dodenwakes, dit is, ben jij aanwezig geweest bij de wake over de lijken van de doden, waar de lichamen van christenen volgens een heidens ritueel bewaakt worden; heb jij daar diabolische liederen gezongen en dansen uitgevoerd, die de heidenen hebben uitgevonden op influistering van de duivel?; heb jij daar gedronken en is jouw gelaat door lachen ontspannen, en heb jij alle medelijden en de emotie van liefdadigheid overboord gegooid, alsof jij je verheugt in de dood van een broeder? My translation of this Dutch, the original I assume is Latin. 91. Have you taken part in 'dodenwakes' (deadwakings?), meaning, have you been present at a waking over the bodies of the dead, where the bodies of christians are guarded by means of a heathen ritual; have you partaken in devilish songs and dances, that the heathens have invented through council from the devil?; have you drunken there and is your face relaxed from laughter, and have you thrown overboard all compassion and emotion, as if you took joy from the death of a brother? As you can tell by the points, there's a lot there. It also lists the exact same divination through lot that Tacitus mentions nearly a thousand years earlier. As well as all the full moon stuff and that sort of thing.
Imagine that... a medieval Saxon complaining that people are too interested in saints, especially St. Mary. I know that there is a lot more that was probably going on here than just asking saints for intercession etc., but it's easy to draw a parallel between the author of the Indiculus and a certain Saxon writer from 700 years later at the very end of the Middle Ages. I guess really, I wouldn't be all that surprised to find out that Christianity in northern Germany already had some proto-Protestant ideas floating around in it long before Martin Luther, but I've never seen any signs of it. I read a medieval English sermon once that had some very Calvinist ideas about the Eucharist, though, so who really knows?
There are recurring waves of misogyny among the male priesthood. The Jewish priests cast out their goddesses, such as Asherah, before they wrote down their Bible. The Christians kept Jove but threw out the Roman goddesses, until Diana (Artemis, the Mother of Gods) was enthroned as the Mother of God by the Council of Ephesus. The Protestants did away with her again.
I thought the text says not to deify saints. That's not the same as being "too interested" in them. I think it's a stretch to assign a later Protestant view to the views of a people that predates Protestantism. One might even reverse the order to say that pagan views carried into the Christian era through exaggerated devotions to the saints, in such a way that the protests of those who followed Luther in developing separate religions (during his lifetime) equated worship of saints with Catholic practice. Luther himself maintained a special devotion to St. Mary, as do many present day Lutherans.
That's not a proto-Protestant tendency, that's replying to what is known as a 'Marian heresy', or implying that the Virgin Mary is deific in some manner because she gave birth to Jesus, and that she can be prayed to in the same manner as Jesus. It is still Catholic/Orthodox canon that you *do not* pray to a saint, but ask them to ask big G to intercede on your behalf. It's also not surprising that Mediaeval English sermons might sound a bit Calvinist given Lollard heresies were common in England in the high to late Middle Ages. People put too much credit in the canonical unity of Mediaeval Christianity, in reality heresies and doctrinal disputes were frequent and wide-ranging until Protestantism and the Counter-Reformation made the inquisition come knocking in Catholicism, and in Protestantism they would just split off yet another church.
@@kimfleury "Too interested" is actually a vague enough statement that yes, it can cover deification, but a wide variety of other practices as well. It is intentionally vague because mostly, I'm just sort of amused that one could draw these parallels at all, not that I think that there's much of a serious scholarly point to be made here. That being said, I don't think that it's entirely off-base to think that throughout the history of Christianity, various people have come to similar conclusions by reading the Bible. I mean, since we're talking about Luther, he and the other Lutheran reformers were of the opinion that Augustine, Jerome and many others made points that they themselves were making centuries later. Jan Hus also held many of the same views a century earlier, as Eck pointed out in Luther's trial early on in the Reformation. Really, though, I wouldn't expect that one could find much of a historical record of any one figure holding to the entire suite of doctrines of any particular Protestant group. Again, it's just sort of funny to me that one could imagine a situation where history produced something like an Asterix and Obelix comic, in that someone from a particular geographic area was anachronistically similar to someone else from that same area later in history. Finally, because I'm extremely pedantic (as you have probably noticed already), I want to caution you about thinking that Luther or very many modern Lutherans were or are overly attached to Marian doctrines. Yes, Luther was more heavily Marian in his earlier writings, and yes, he apparently held to views like semper virgo his whole life. Yes, there are "Augsburg catholics" who try to be as Roman Catholic as they can possibly justify while still holding a Lutheran identity. On the other hand, Luther was less attached to Marian doctrines later in his life, and even signed off on the Augsburg Confession wherein Melancthon wrote "Those who pray to Mary are jackasses." Along those same lines, the Augsburg catholics tend to be viewed with skepticism at best by most other Lutherans, especially those of a more Pietistic bent.
@@therat1117 See my previous comment for more information, but I was kind of kidding, mostly, with my comment. I guess the joke didn't land for a number of reasons. I get that one could easily read much into these very brief sentences. Although, again, they're brief hints at what the author really meant, so it's also possible that at least a few of these actually do represent thinking somewhat along the lines of later Protestants (again, see previous comment). We just don't know, because of how little information we have. Either way, though, it's kind of funny to imagine an angry monk showing up 700 years early to the party. Well, it's funny to me, anyway. I'm starting to think that other people don't find as much humor in it. Anyway, interesting you bring up the Lollards, because in all seriousness, I kind of have a feeling that considering how many Lollards ended up in Switzerland (with a lot of the Waldenses and other Medieval dissenters) I think that there may have been an actual connection between Lollardry and the origins of the Reformed tradition. Again, I don't know how much solid evidence there is, or even if there is a connection for certain, but it seems possible. Mostly, though, I just think it's kind of funny.
I disagree with the conclusion. Obviously things will vary, I agree. But I can easily see parallels or links where you may not (want to). And in fact you pointed the wagon out, which is a tradition that spans, from what we know, at least over a thousand years and from the continental German parts all the way to Sweden. But drawing such conclusions is apparently in the nature of a lot of 'scholars'. Because they're scared of claiming things that aren't actually there, so instead they wrongly claim that things aren't there when they most likely or quite possibly are. I guess this marks the difference between someone who is actively looking to reconstruct cultural heritage for practice and someone who is only academically interested.
"Nodfyr" sounds like a cognate for needfire, which is a Scottish Highland tradition of a fire made by friction of wood-on-wood or rope-on-wood when the signs of sickness hit a herd; the livestock are forced to jump over the fire to purify and drive away illness. Similar traditions are found in number of cultures that have a long tradition of sheepherding or cattle-herding in the same way.
Fire by friction is also used for ritual purposes, like during mid-winter festivals, all over northern europe. In some cases it is done by several people using ropes that drills a pole horisontally into walls etc where an ember is created the used to start the ritual fire. The exact details of tge ritual/process differ widely but the principle is supossedly pretty much the same. The channel Nordic Animism has done a video in which Rune state siurces etc if someone would want to dig deeper into the subject.
The Scots Dialect Dictionary (Warrack, 1911) has for need-fire: a fire caused by friction of two pieces of wood, used as a charm for murrain &c; a beacon fire; spontaneous ignition.
The Concise Scots Dictionary (Robinson, 1985) has for needfire: fire produced by the friction of dry wood, having reputed magical or prophylactic properties (17 - 20th centuries). Tak needfyre = take fire spontaneously.
Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (Macdonald, 1972) says of need-fire: fire produced by friction, to which a certain virtue is superstitiously attached.
Even today, some wild campers esteem that way of making fire over the use of a cigarette lighter.
I'm studying the Old Saxon language for a half of a year now, and finally someone (more or less) known in youtube talked about it! Thancon!
Nodfyr HAS to be a reference to the practice of Needfires, ie ritual fires kindled via friction all over Northern Europe
9:32 I would translate this as "concerning doubtful places which they revere as pertaining to saints." There are several accounts in the early middle ages of tombs being revered locally as if they belonged to a saint but they are later discovered to just belong to some regular person. There's a famous instance of this in the life of Saint Martin where this happens and it turns out it was a demon who convinced the locals that it was a saint's tomb.
On another note, the Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum is a great source which leaves so many questions, but also one which needs to be approached with reservations, as you pointed out. Not only could traditions have changed in the centuries and physical space separating it from the vikings, but there is also a tendency for medieval Christians to impose their own ideas about magic and paganism, largely obtained from patristic interpretations of Classical sources, onto the traditions they encounter. For example, augury from birds is often mentioned in these discussion when it was a distinctly Roman practice. That being said, the Indiculus is far less guilty of this than other sources, which is part of the reason why it's such a fascinating glimpse into potential pre-Christian religious practice.
Incertus can also mean 'hidden' (ie, hidden from others knowing about them as opposed to physically hidden as is the case with occultus, which implies being covered with something), so I think this just means 'hidden shrines worshipped for their holiness', as sanctis here could be adjectival.
@@therat1117 Also possible, though I would expect "pro sanctitate" in that case. Of course that doesn't necessarily invalidate your interpretation.
@@studiumhistoriae Yeah, this is an issue with Mediaeval Latin, wherein authors often play fast and loose with Latin grammar and vocabulary.
What I like the most about this video is number one how informative it is. Number two is It’s a reminder that even though each area and each tribe is different, there’s many same continuing themes. It helps people like me to not be too hung up on honing in on one specific god or gods. When tapping into ancient spirituality.
So, that is fascinating. The traditional Latin rite of baptism in the Catholic church is largely unchanged-- question and answers about renouncing Satan and his works remains the same. The fact that the Saxon version of it is specific to the renouncement of their traditional beliefs is intriguing. I didn't know that that was a thing.
@mariadelallo1297 YES by order of Charlemagne who converted to Catholic
It's disgusting
Funny you mention that. Many of the specific denunciations are different but this would have been almost word for word of my own baptism for the 1st half.
The "race" mentioned made me think of the "Staffansritt", an old Swedish horse-racing tradition on Boxing Day. In Scandinavian Christianity the martyr Saint Stephen became strongly connected to horses and stables, referred to as a "stalledräng" (stablehand). From what I've read, apparently there used to be an older tradition of racing horses around Yuletide, with the winner of the race possibly bringing the first ray of new year's sunlight to the world. There was a strong horse-cult in ancient Scandinavia and other Germanic areas, so by making St Stephen patron of horses, a literal Stablehand in Scandinavia, the old racing tradition was kept alive around Boxing Day, to smooth out the transition from paganism to Christianity. Horse-races were for a long time a staple of Medieval Christmas-celebration and even later, gradually morphing into becoming sled-races, with people racing home from church, to be the first to bring home Christmas to the household.
Holding named horse-races on Boxing Day is also an English tradition, though if it falls on a weekend the race may be held during the week on the ensuing Bank Holiday.
I'd never heard of this text before today but it is really interesting. I'm glad you read and explained it. Great video, as always.
Hi I grew up reasonably close to Fulda. It's where the aforementioned St Boniface is burried :)
Love to hear these connections between Saxon tribes and the Norse.
The translation of the Baptismal Vow into High German is quite straightforward : "Und ich entsage allen Teufeln. Und aller Teufel Werke? Und ich entsage aller Teufel Werke und Worte, Thonar und Wodan und Saxnot und all den Unholden, die ihre Genossen sind." ("diaboles" eq. "Teufel")
divination by horse sneezing sounds awesome but potentially messy:)
It could just refer to their whinnying: the horse language which Jonathan Swift gave to his Houyhnhnms (horse people) in Gulliver's Travels.
Great stuff, thank you. "De petendo quod boni vocant sanctae Mariae" = "From asking for things that the good ones attribute to Holy Mary". The Latin seems a bit obscure, but my guess is that the context might help: the reference can be to certain things that Christians (as the good ones) should rather ask from Mary and not from the old pagan gods...
Seaxneat was the originator of the kings of Essex (now a county in England not a kingdom), all the other kings came from Woden. And that - again - is all we know about another Old English heathen god. Excellent video again.
There’s also an early Saxon story that has Woden creating ‘Ents’ from trees (seven of them, I think), a similar story to Odin along with Hodur and Lodur, breathing nine divine elements into the Likmof Ashk and Embla (qu. spelling but Ash and Elm). One of these ‘Ents’ is named Seaxnot and I suspect that the others are, in story terms, the progenitors of the other six main lines of Saxon kings.
@@petersmedley459 Blimey, are you sure? Do you hav3 a link or reference or something?
@@AllotmentFox my original response seems to have disappeared, I’ll try again, this time having emailed it to myself so I can copy the text and have a record of it!
@@AllotmentFox I was aware of the Saxon Baptismal Oath and wondered about the trinity of Woden, Thunnor and Seaxneat with two being very familiar and the other being a mystery. Likewise I could only find the name mentioned elsewhere as an origin for a line of Saxon Kings, as you said. It struck me that it was important, both for the very fact of its mention in the oath and its sharing a root part of the word with Seax and Saxon. This seemed like someone important.
After asking around and finding nothing, I gave up. Then I ordered and read Brice Stratford’s beautifully written and eminently readable Anglo Saxon Myths. Reading the story of Frig And The King Of The Elves, my jaw dropped.
Woden travelled round the Middle Earth, then, spurned by Erce, until he found the perfect tree, and this he carved to the shape of a man, and clothed it, and sang life into it.
This he did again, and then again, and then again.
He named them many names, his tree-men-Sceafa, Seaxneat, Geat, and more; Wecta, Baldag, Withelgeat; Withlag, Casser, Uinta. When each was made and fresh he placed it in the waters of Middle Earth, to the middengoddess Geofon’s embrace, and he joined with her there, and their union gave the tree-men life, and thereafter they did breath and live as other men, and did roam mighty around the Middle Earth, and do just as they must.
In this way, then, we’re the tribes born, and the lines of the Seven Kings established, who all today descend from Woden, as many elves descend from Frig.
To me this is very similar to the Norse tale of Ashk and Embla (Ash and Elm), their Lik given nine immortal gifts from Odin and Hodur and Lodur to become the first humans. Familiar with elements of wood and water and the creation of life and yet also strikingly different. It was the same of other stories (such and the fighting of Wearg (Fenrir) and Wyrm (Jormungandr). It could be that the author was extrapolating and writing good stories, but it doesn’t feel like it. Whilst there is no bibliography and list of sources with the work, it feels that that was where he was working from, I just haven’t been able to chase down those sources yet.
However…I recently asked about King Rædwald of East Anglia and Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo. I am now wondering about his genealogy descending through Caesar (he does have strong links to Byzantium and some to Imperial Rome-his people, the Wuffingas, were originally Alemanni Saxons invited to Britain by Rome to defend the Saxon Shore in exchange for land, eventually mixing with migrating Angles after the Roman withdrawal). I am wondering if Caesar was a misspelling of Casser…? Another possibility would be Geat, as some have drawn links between Rædwald and the poem Beowulf, both in the name of the peoples, Wuffingas and Wulfingas (People of the Wolf, I believe), the ship burial at the beginning of Beowulf and Mound 1 itself as well as Heorot Hall and the long hall at Rendlesham. There is a mingling of people’s in Beowulf, with aid being given by incoming Geats. I’m probably stretching a point here.
The other part which did grab me, however, was reading Brice Stratford’s story of Woden fighting Wyrm. He searches for nine herbs upon the World Tree, fashions them into nine runes and places those runes upon nine spears which he is able to use to defeat the previously undefeatable Wyrm. I wanted to know what the nine herbs were (I could recognise Mugwort, but that was it). A friend sent me a version of the tale from Hullwebs History of Hull, Lay of the Nine Twigs of Woden, which has a translation of the herb names as well as recounting the same tale.
What really got me excited was the link between these tales and the grave goods in Mound 1. The magnificent helm is a Woden/Odin mask. The shield mounts may represent Erne, the Sea Eagle, searching the seas for Wyrm (possibly even carrying Woden’s will with him). There were also weapons, which link me back to the herbs/runes. A spear is a common, almost ubiquitous part of a man’s grave goods if he is of sufficient status. Mound 1 is unique, as far as I am aware, however. Next to the where the body would have lain were found spears, all different. Nine spears.
As I mentioned, don’t have the author’s source for the stories he has told, but it does feel like he has used original source material. Thus I came to the further piece of information about Seaxneat/Seaxnot, originator of one of the Seven lines of Kings in Britain. Perhaps this divine heritage is why he is important enough to be referenced in the Baptismal Oath.
Apologies for the long and wordy reply!
@@petersmedley459 I am going to buy Brice Stratford’s book, I enjoyed reading the sample on the internet. But I can’t see where he got it from apart from (1) reconstructing Indo-European myths and jumping those myths forward 3,500 years (ie, Tyr being the chief god at some point which he isn’t even in Norse mythology, in my opinion) substituting Norse mythology for English mythology (yes, the Franks casket confirms some shared culture with the Norse in a very significant way) but we have very, very little authentic evidence in English about English beliefs; (3) comparative mythology and (4) some folk lore, the vast majority of English folk customs today made up by Georgian and Victorian vicars, our authentic customs abandoned (unlike the French and Italians) on the altar of the Industrial Revolution. We keep looking nonetheless but we have to make sure it is evidence-based and where we hav3 a hypothesis to make it clear how tentative that may be. I was both interested and shocked when I was reading it.
The poem Deor and the Nine Herbs Charm is (unfortunately and to my knowledge) the only really good source material on English heathenism that we have, which is a tiny amount to say anything at all.
I want to believe, but I can’t. It’s not going to stop me going to one of the Mayday Morris events but I sceptic I will remain.
I really appreciate your sidetracks into other Germanic languages. I for one would be stoked if you were able to get more scholars or knowledgeable enthusiasts in these languages on your channel
The text is also known as the 'Oud Utrechtse doopgelofte' and it is probably one of the oldest known written texts in Dutch/Frisian, (or at least one of its direct forbearers, the old Saxon)
Its fascinating that a text of this age is stil quite readable and recognisable, from a Dutch perspective. But to read it is one thing, to understand it its something else.
Thanks for pointing this text out and putting things into perspective.
Dutch didn't descend from Old Saxon - AFAICT Old Saxon was a sister language to Old Dutch.
Dutch descended from Old Low Franconian, a variety of the Frankish language.
The point about the lunar eclipse suddenly reminded me of the 'wargs' (bad wolves) that eat the sun and the moon, Sköll and Hati.
Little bit of a revelation to be honest, don't know why I didn't realize this earlier.
I only realized it was snowing (in late April) until you said: "hot and cold Colorado".
Im writing a novel based on the germanic people and your videos are very helpful. Really appreciated!
You mentioned continental Germanic culture, this is something I'm very interested in.
Friction fire actually plays a significant part in finnish traditions too, for certain ceremonial bonfires (kokko) were started with friction fire even up to the 1950's in the rural regions. And Yeah we still have a ton of old traditions that are directly related to pagan traditions eventhough they are not thought of as pagan, and the entirety of Finland has been christianised for 800 years. The church at my home municipality had to actually intervene in the 1950's because hundreds of people would gather every spring and autumn in to an ancient holy grove (hiisi) to give food offerings to finnish equivalent of vættír (väki) and to celebrate some traditional holyday that had roots in pagan tradition. All of the participants were devout christians and none would ever dare to admit being anything other than christian in any way, but those celebrations had gone on for aeons and they would be darned if they would give up those ancient traditions.
The beginning of this Baptismal vow sounds very similar to some Orthodox baptismal prayers for adults.
It's the same in the Latin Church
This is fascinating.
10:27 This sounds like “the moon winking,” which sounds like a lovely description of a lunar eclipse.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge
Several of the things that the Saxons are admonished to refrain from sound like stuff that the Frisians were doing in the History with Hilbert lecture about per-Christian religion among the Frisians. That part about the "sacred fonts" or whatever it was sounded a lot like his speculation about wells being places of sacrifice.
Also, I want to say that the simulacra of flour and bread strike me as being similar to symbolic offerings that many cultures make for either spirits or gods or the dead.
There are many holy wells and springs in England, some of which are attached to churches but may be older than them and of pre-Christian origin.
Needfire is also a word in English.
Thank you so much Dr. Crawford. I was not aware of this. Amazing. Thank you.
Thank you!
I must've read an article about this in Dutch some time.
I think the filthy things in february supposedly still happened in the Netherlands in the 16th century. Namely debauchery during a certain 'christian' festival, although I don't recall which.
Perhaps they had something corresponding to the Scottish/Irish/Manx festival of Imbolc or St Brigid's Day, only recently made an official Bank Holiday In Ireland. This was at the beginning of February and marked the lambing season and perhaps also the spring sowing. Brigid was an Irish goddess before she became a Christian saint. Her connection to fertility may have entailed practices that the Christian monks considered debauched.
Thank you, Dr Crawford 😊 Greetings from England 🎩
6:56 "nimidas" could be related to "nemeton" for sacred grove - and refer to a Celtic practise.
Nimidas could very well be a Gaulic loan word , related to their word for Sacred Grove Nemeton
That's not very convincing because there's little reason for the -on to have fallen off of the end and been replaced with an -as there, as well as both a long medial 'e' and short initial 'e' to have both turned into 'i'. It's not impossible, but it would be very unlikely, as you would expect something closer to 'nimate' in Old Saxon. Perhaps something from similar origin to Old English 'niman', meaning 'to take'?
@@therat1117 Well, -on is a grammatical ending (Nominative singular neuter) in Gaulish and so is -as in Old Saxon (Nominative plural masculine? - in which case the question would be why did it change gender, but that does happen in loanwords). Both e's were short in nemeton, in fact - would they have become "i" in Germanic? The change t > d could be explained by Verner's Law.
@@davidmandic3417 Neuter nouns do not tend to switch gender as loanwords in Proto-Germanic > Old English/Old Norse, including 'iron' and 'copper' (isern and copor in Old English) unless there is some kind of large phonological pressure to reanalyse them as a different gender, which there isn't for 'neméton'. As you can tell from that spelling, both of the 'e' vowels were *not* short, one was short and one was long, the long vowel was where the emphasis was placed which would make Verner's Law unproductive, and on top of that, this loan is only possible after Verner's Law, which occurred very early in Proto-Germanic (ie, before ~400 BCE), before the few Celtic loans into Proto-Germanic that we have occurred.
I would also add, that we cannot realistically assume that the people the Indiculus was written about, were a monolithically pure Saxon population.
This was written at the tail end of the Migration era, and people of various cultures were tossed together like a salad from all over Europe in many ways for centuries. These cultures then formed new mixed cultural identities , in the various ways mixed culture Foederati settled, and or intermarried with whomever they settled next to.
For example, how Lombardy was settled by a mixed group of Langobardi, and Saxons who then settled and intermarried into that region of Italy,
These mixed groups would almost certainly be practicing some sort of syncretic religion, or at least have rolled in elements from the other cultures they had been in close contact with.
Thus, this Nimidas and other words we cannot quite translate could be coming from surviving Romano Gaulic pagan practices vs just a simple loan word, or from any number of sources,and all of that would have happened very messily from a linguistic perspective
@@therat1117 That makes sense, but I'm not sure how relevant that spelling really is. Both e's were short originally, cf. Greek δρυνέμετον or the Welsh and Breton reflexes of nemeton - all point to short e in both syllables. As for spelling, e.g. the Vaison-la-Romaine inscription does have νεμητον (neméton), but also βηλησαμι (bélésami), with two long e's, so that might have nothing to do with stress and vowel length. We know (next to) nothing about Gaulish prosody. As for Germanic, I must admit I don't know much, so you could be right. But then, aren't the precursors of 'town' and Ger. 'Reich' Celtic loans, and they've even undergone Grimm's Law, which pre-dates Verner's Law?
I primarily watch these videos for the nice scenic backrounds with the scholarly early scandinavian research theme, I don't pay much attention to what's actually being said, I may be in the minority in having these videos be backround ambience, but they really enhance my day.
Dasdisas , some have hypothesized is related to the BaltoSlavic Dzadzys, which is "Grandfathers" in the context of Ancestor worship
Very interesting documents here!
From a danish point of view the Old Saxon is relatively easy to understand. The "church" language in Dk seems quite archaic sometimes so a word like "forsager" - in this saxon tekst "forsacho" - is mainly if not only used in baptisms and such but is still very understandable.
Forsage, like many words in Scandinavia, is borrowed from Middle Saxon. (Swedish: Försaka, Norwegian: Forsake/Forsage)
@@Hwyadylaw I am sure it is - I was mainly commenting on the ease of understanding the language.
@@Akkolon I am not sure it is.
@@christopherstein2024 All the Scandinavian words beginning with an unstressed for-/för- are either borrowings or calques from Middle Saxon/Middle Low German.
@@troelspeterroland6998 Okay I might have been a bit confused with the terms here.
Given the context, and given the ancient location of the Nemetes tribe, could not nimidas be related to or cognate with nemeton or the Latin nemus / nemora?
6:37 A theory about "spurcalia" - it refers to Lupercalia.
A theory about Sigurd and Brynhild invoking Sun and Moon for healing powers - they invoked Apollon the Healer and Diana Puerpera.
The point about the hearth reminds me of all the cinderella fairytales. Child tending to the fire, to the ashes. Rebirth from the ashes and so on.
Saxnote is the Saxon god of swords. Blacksmiths would pray to Saxnote....it's new to me and I'd have to look it up again to learn more.
Fascinating albeit depressing historical nugget there! It’s sad that their culture was lost to the “new thing.”
Your listing of the items in the second txt I think are spot on for Germany and Austria. Not so much maybe for later Nordic culture
Great segment! Great channel!
It's crazy how much of this I can understand by reading it when I only know English lmao.
Snow on April 21st? 😯
I wonder if this vinceluna is actually referring to the summer solstice. The eclipse is pretty likely, but I’ve always wondered about solstice festivals in Germanic paganism
Could nimidas be a cognate for gaulish nemeton, the sacred forest which latin authors write about??
That old vow isn't in use anymore, but it was Confirmation Sunday today (05.05.) Thursday will be a day off, because it's Ascension Day, more popular called Fathers' Day. If the weather is nice, that's a day for bicycle tours, and of course quite a lot of maibock is usually involved. Two weeks from now, the Pingstbööm will be erected in old Haduloha and vicinity, since the maypole tradition differs here from elsewhere in Germany. I'm afraid, they must be "watered" heavily, again. Have a nice time everybody!
Saxnot is mysterious, but Sax- ginota’ or ‘Friend of the Saxons’, could well be be the old lord of the tribe we know as InguZ or Freyr (in OldNorse). A questionable friend of the Saxons, Saint Boniface was punished according the Ewa Frisionum, the ancient Frisian law in 754 common era. People here, including an old friend of mine, with a darker patch of hair on the scalp, were/ are considered as descendants of the warriors responsible for his fatal headwound.
One can also speculate that if the Saxons really are related to the seax (short sword) that then Saxnot may be the sword fellow / tyr.
What makes the era "common"?
@@christopherstein2024 That’s the fun with speculating, it could be Tiwaz as well.
@@kimfleury As in generally agreed upon, for practical, non religious convenience.
The Saxons are descendants of the Ingvaeones (one of the main tribes in Germania mentioned by Tacitus) and therefore, the god Ing is known to them. Me too, I think that Saxnot is related to Ing / Yng or Freyr in Scandinavia
Very interesting when you expand your study also to the germanic areas adjacent to Scandinavia!
I don't know much about Latin, but wouldn't the capital letter in Junam indicate a proper noun and could it be that it refers to Juno/Frigg?
It is a misprint. The manuscript reads "Lunam" (moon) not "Iunam" or "Junam". Which definitely fits also with Tacitus' description in Germania
Also there is no capitalization in the manuscript
Fascinating.
Wild Hypothesis: This word "yrias", which might be connected to englisch "to race", might also be cognate with modern high German "rasen" (vor Wut), meaning being mad or furious. Could this have been connected to a decendent Idea of Wodnaz in some manner?
A pagan practice (or at least something that pagams did), where they got themselves into a state of madness sounds a bit like something that would be associated with an old man, with a wide brimmed hat and one eye.
Also the expression "rasen vor Wut" contains the German word "Wut", which maybe is cognate with Woden and Odin.
I am not saying this is true, becuase it is most likely a coincidence. It is just a possible connection that I noticed and thought might be interesting to the people here and if I am lucky Dr. Crawford as well.
"Wood" was used by Chaucer to mean "mad," but has not survived into Modern English except in Scotland, where it is now obsolete or perhaps dialectal.
I suggest fountains may refer to springs which have long been associated with holy places allegedly of pre Christian origin. The number of places called Holywell or something similar is staggering.
The description of the yrias made me think of "the wild hunt"
Many thanks
The mention of a ceremony involving cut or torn clothes reminds me that Morris dancers in earlier times in England could also wear tattered clothes. Obviously that was almost a thousand years later than this early text, but it may have endured as a practice and transformed itself into the wearing of ribbons in the present day, especially among Northern Morris dancers.
I may be wrong, but could the British practice of dressing up to go "guising" at Hallowe'en/Samhain (which later encompassed the Protestant feast of Guy Fawkes' Night) also involve "dressing down" in rags?
7:53 Yeah, exactly, early version of Santeria is targetted.
Not uniqueley "Norse" practises.
I tend to give hope to Faddens movement being somewhat Eco-friendly.
Tacitus writes about divination by Germans through snorting and neighing of a horse if I recall correctly. So I suppose that was still ongoing. Sounds 'very indo-european' if you ask me.
'Simulacrum' in Latin means an image or effigy. They mean making a god's image in flour or bread, in addition to carrying it in a ritual procession, I believe. 'De petendo quod boni vocant sanctae Mariae' I believe also means 'Of proselytising that good (Christians) (should) pray to Saint Mary', ie, engaging in a Christian heresy, but Dr. Crawford's assessment of calling on Mary in lieu of a non-Christian goddess may be correct. 'De incertis locis' in this case likely means 'hidden places' rather than 'uncertain places', so 'hidden places worshipped for their holiness' is how I would interpret the line.
How very sad. Amused though as the old Gods still endure despite all the xtian effort.
Nimidas looks related to Gaulish nemeton (which, appropriately enough are sacred groves), although getting a d from the t is a little odd. An early enough borrowing (or I suppose cognate) in Old Saxon could get it from Verner's Law, or it could potentially be a Vulgar Latin word already showing the voicing of intervocalic t to d.
In the final line I'm also not sure how to interpret the Latin. I suspect "quia" here just means "that" rather than "because", in which case feminae is probably a dative singular "to a woman". "Junam" would be an accusative of "Juna" which could be a mistaken for "Junonem" (the accusative of Juno) although who this would be an interprtatio for is unclear, as Frigg would typically be Venus. Assuming comendet is a mistake for/variant of commendat, this could be interpretted as "from that which they believe commends/entrusts/commits Juna to a woman".
"Juna" could potentially be a Germanic word. If I really stretch a connection to *jungaz "young" doesn't seem impossible. The obvious interpretation then would be Juna as "a young girl" with this being a superstition for selecting the sex of a baby, but selecting for a girl seems unlikely given what we know of the society of that era. A sense of "youth" may be possible, but the morphology looks really weird if that is it.
The line is misreported, it's actually longer: 'De eo, quod credunt, quia feminae lunam commendent, quod possint corda hominum tollere juxta paganos.' Meaning 'Of that, which they believe, that women may command the moon, (such) that they can steal the hearts of men according to the pagans.' Fairly obviously referring to a love spell.
Nimidas is unlikely to be a loan of 'Nemeton', because 'nemeton' is actually 'neméton' with a long second e, which would become a long 'a' if it were loaned into Proto-Germanic > Old Saxon. Also doesn't explain the transposition of -on for -as. Nimidas is far more likely to be a native word, possibly related to Old English 'niman' (to take).
@@therat1117 ah that does make much more sense about the last line!
With nimidas you're right about the long ē. This plausibly makes a derivation via a vulgar latin where this has raised to ɪ more plausible than a simple borrowing from Gaulish into Old Saxon. This raised ɪ could then possibly trigger i-mutation within Old Saxon
The exchange of the ending is no problem. The -as is just a rendering of the usual Old Saxon masculine strong (nominative-accusative) plural, whilst -on is the Gaulish neuter nominative-vocative-accusative singular. The shift in number is expected from the rest of the sentence, and shifts in gender are pretty common
A double plural within Vulgar Latin would also be possible, where the old neuter plural in -a was interpreted as a feminine in singular and so extended to -as. I believe similar neuters are attested in Romanian and some Italian dialects
A native Old Saxon word related to OE niman would be a cognate of nemeton, a possibility I also acknowledged, seeing as that verb is from the same PIE root
It's also worth noting that the gloss given is pretty much a textbook definition of a nemeton, so a completely independent development seems unlikely, given the different senses the root has developed in Germanic and Celtic more generally
@@tristanholderness4223 The evidence of neuter loans into Proto-Germanic we have (ex. iron, thematic from a Celtic language; ore, athematic from Latin or another Italic language via a Celtic language; copper, thematic from Latin directly) all produced a strong neuter noun in the languages of the 1st millenium CE. There is no reason for something that should be more like 'nimata' if the loan were plural to suddenly become masculine, no matter whether it was loaned in from Latin or Gaulish.
If it were a Late Latin loan from (probably) northern France, then the expected Late Latin word (~400 CE) would be pronounced approximately like nimétu ~ niméty which would look about the same if loaned directly into Proto-West-Germanic. If plural, we would expect nimétas, (which would fit I guess) as the neuter is being lost as a gender by this time and the accusative is merging with the nominative in feminine nouns. If the neuter plural was still present, it would be nimétə. This will eventually produce *nante in Old French, per the placename Nanterre (from Nemétodúrum).
The gloss being the same and having a similar-looking derivation in separate Indo-European languages? Shocking! 'Axle', 'axis', and 'aksa' are also cognates and look very similar, but one is Proto-Germanic, the other is Latin, and the last is Sanskrit, and none of them share a PIE stem (*h₂eḱs-l-eh₂, h₂eḱs-is, h₂eḱs-os). The word 'nimidas' looks far more like a native Germanic word than a loan, particularly if that is truly a masculine plural ending and the base form is *nimid, making it likely from PGer *nimidaz.
@@therat1117 change of gender is really common even within native Germanic words. For a borrowing a change in gender requires no real explanation
Other Celtic borrowings generally reflect Proto-Celtic ē as ī (cf *gīslaz "hostage" < *gēstlos "hostage", & *Rīnaz "Rhine" < *rēnos "river"), definitely not as a so nimada would be completely off. If the borrowing occurred before Grimm's & Verner's Laws this would give us exactly the némēton (noting Old Celtic's initial stress) > nemīdaz with spontaneous shift to a masculine
With i-mutation (so outside East Germanic) that would then become nimīdaz. The accusative plural then would be nimīdōs outside East Germanic, which gets us basically to the form in the indiculus
For a borrowing from Late Latin, we'd be looking at a pre-borrowing form like /nɛˈmedɔ/. Germanic seems generally to have had low mid vowels (cf *Rūmō < Latin Rōma "Rome", *pundą "pound" < pondō, *tigulǭ "tile" < tēgula "brick"), so this could easily have been interpreted by an Old Germanic speaker as nemida-, then converted to a masculine and i-mutated to nimida-
Proto-Celtic *nemēton would suggest a PIE form like *nemeytom (likely with initial stress), this would also give a Germanic form like *nemīdą and (with spontaneous shift to the masculine) would give the right form, same as the borrowing. The reason I doubt this is that the PIE root *nem is only clearly attested in Germanic in the sense of "to take", whereas Celtic has it in the sense of "to give" (cf Old Irish neim "poison" alongside Gaulish nemēton), and only the latter sense makes sense for what we know of nemetons
This is the point I was making about similarity of cognates. Nothing about the phonology, but about the semantics, where this being a native Germanic word would require a convergent development of the sense of the root but only in this one word. Something not required from assuming a borrowing
Phonologically I've shown it can be native Germanic, an early borrowing directly from Gaulish before Grimm's & Verner's Laws, or a later borrowing from whatever Latin vernacular was being spoken
Morphologically we have a masculine & neuter whichever derivation we accept, but this isn't a major problem. As said above, even within branches of Germanic there are often disagreements on the gender of nouns. This is no significant concern either way
Semantically however the evidence points against a native origin
Overall then, the only derivation we have clera evidence against is the native one, with a slight edge given to a later borrowing rather than an earlier one due to the fact this borrowing is not otherwise attested in Germanic, as we might expect for a borrowing as early as the early one would have to be
@@tristanholderness4223 No, gender changes *do* require explanation in cases where the apparent gender of the word is phonologically restricted, as would be the case in Proto-Germanic. Latin didn't randomly switch -us out for -a whenever it felt like it, only phonologically ambiguous cases like res or dies got this treatment. Modern German can do this because gender isn't often phonologically explicit in German.
Yes, other borrowings do change i to e *when the long e is in the stressed position in a language with strong initial stress* and it is not a good idea to discount this. Also the 'if' on a potential nemeton loan prior to Grimm's is a very big if, as that puts it prior to around 700 BCE. That is not a casual assumption. You have just assumed the gender spontaneously changed again for no reason. You're also assuming that the Celtic word had initial stress, which is in error. Only Irish after the Primitive Irish period had initial stress, no other Celtic language has this feature and it is not a feature of Proto-Celtic.
If this word was loaned in, in a more realistic time frame, ca. 250 BCE, then the long e not in an initial position might not render long i. Plus, the Celtic form for the loan of *gīslaz is not *gēstlos - the attested Gaulish word is geistlus, with Old Welsh *guistl making a Proto-Celtic long e an impossibility. Gaulish ei > PGer ī is all well and probable. My contention was also that PGer *ē renders Old Saxon ā. So for PGer *nemētą with i-mutation and normal sound changes you get Old Saxon *nimāt.
PGer *Rūmō was mediated by (likely) Gaulish *Rūmā, probably ditto for *pundą, so that's an issue. You're just assuming again that a Proto-West-Germanic speaker would see an /e/ and convert it to an /i/ spontaneously because you want that to happen, even though /e/ is present in their phonology. Indeed, in many cases non-stressed Late Latin /e/ remains /e/ in West Germanic loans, such as Old English læfel from Latin lābellum, or becomes /o/, as in scamol from scabellum (which is /e/ for all other West Germanic languages except Old High Germanic where it became /a/ regularly).
Spontaneously attempting a PIE reconstruction out of what is obviously a compound word in Gaulish is not good practice. Its hypothetical PIE composition is not known. *nem- refers to something which is allotted, and in the Gaulish case it refers to an enclosure, like in Greek νομός (pasture, subdivision). This is why it has senses referring to giving and taking in various languages. Semantics are not an actual issue. Latin and Greek nemus/νέμος refer to a wooded grove which is not clear as to how this occurred, and nimidas could easily be from similar semantic derivation.
Basically the only phonology here that doesn't rely on a very early loan of complex religious vocabulary into Proto-Germanic to work alongside an assumption that for some reason a thematic neuter in Proto-Germanic spontaneously changed gender in a highly abnormal fashion, is that this is a native word.
We also have not established what case nimidas is in. If this is the nominative, then it is impossible to be related to nemeton at all.
Basically, we don't know where this word comes from, or really what it means, and it is highly unlikely to be a loanword if it is religious vocabulary. Let us leave it there.
Dadsisas means magic song for the dead. From ‚dead‘ and sisu, a -wa stem
Very interesting as a Christian, because it shows some of Christianity's own priorities within a pagan people. Some Christians allow for pagan rituals, as long as the meaning is taken out of the ritual, but I think those people would be hard-pressed to allow the majority of these things (forbidding making fire in the Norse way is really weird though, I wonder what is going on there.)
As a "very much not christian" it makes me sad to think of the forced conversions, the loss of life, culture, art and spirituality our part of the world had to suffer to the violence of a foreign middle eastern religion. It is of cause only speculation, but I think the world would have been much more interesting if we would have been left to our own traditions and beliefs.
@Akkolon 💯 agree. It's kind of like how sad it makes me to see Mexico and South America lose all of its Incan, Mayan, and Aztek culture and spirituality. Especially now that they're not under foreign control any more.
@@casthedemon On the "Fall of Civilizations" podcast my favorite episodes are on the the Aztec, Mayan and Inca civilisations. All so full of life, wonder, spirituality, beauty and long history. All of that lost to the greed of men and to the intolerance of christianity. Truly a sad story.
@@Akkolon yeah for sure. People always say Ghenghis Khan was terrible, but he made it a point to allow people to keep their cultures, religions, and traditions as long as they just adopted his laws. Compare that to Charlemagne the Tyrant lol.
"Making fire in the Norse way" may well have included some kind of incantation or a prayer to a pagan deity for assistance. Missionaries would have looked askance at that. Other ordinary activities may have involved rituals or incantations which the new priests would have felt the need to ban or replace.
The last one doesn't make sense. Googling it gives something more grammatical: "De eo, quod credunt, quia feminae lunam commendent, quod possint corda hominum tollere juxta paganos". So, "about that which the women believe, because they entrust the Moon, in that they could lift the hearts of men next to pagans". Whatever that means.
They didn't like women. (See, witch burning.)
It could be an awkward literal translation of a local colloquialism that was translated into Latin. Maybe it's romance spells to bewitch men into marriage.
This is Late Latin rather than Classical Latin. What it says is 'Of that, which they believe, that women may command the moon, such that they (the women) can steal the hearts of men according to the pagans'. Basically he's talking about a love spell involving the moon.
@@casthedemon 'Witches' and witch burning were a conceit of the Early Modern period. The Catholic Church of the 700s regarded Witchery as pagan superstition, and therefore not real. The only concern at that time regarding a 'witch' was that the people believing her a witch (or the witch herself were she engaged in 'magic') were engaged in pagan superstitions, which required religious correction.
@therat1117 This is speculation but I believe the last sanction is about seidr. Seems to me its an injunction against believing the words of witches/seers. In other words not to listen to fortunes and prophecy from pagan preistesses.
Could simulacrum de pannis factis mean "idols made of bread?"
I was going to suggest the same myself. Making shapes and figures out of bread has been known in other cultures.
I'd love that, we love our bread^^
but he is right in the video, I have 2 German translations one uses "pieces of cloth" and the other "rags"
also found an old book with interpretations, some older interpretations which are probably not true:
some thought it to be girls dolls used in a similar fashion as by the old Romans, when girls would sacrifice a doll to Venus at the end of their childhood
another idea was that it could mean figures made using mandragora
and the most likely interpretation: just simple, personally crafted, idols made of cheap cloth
With all the usual caveats inserted, Google Translate suggests "made of cloths," apparently treating "pannis" as the ablative form of pannus "cloth, rag, garment;" the equivalent ablative form for panis "bread" would be "panibus."
pānis is bread, while pannus (pannīs in the plural ablative as it appears here) is cloth. While they have a similar spelling, pānis and pannus are different words.
@@anthonyrogers7977 Yeah, I knew that. I just jumped to panis (which would be, what, panem, here?) because of the context of fields and grain. But, yeah, dative or ablative plural -- "patches, rags, scraps of cloth."
The fires may get be using them for purification in fire festivals
I just renewed these vows at Easter. Amazing how unchanged they are.
… you know I can understand some of Latin even though I am not trained in it. I can speak some Spanish so it I can understand it some what.
The Old Saxon Whistle Test
Great subject
In regards to Charlemagne, I think it's important to note the context of the culture that Frankish Christians and pagans shared, which was war as a means to gain resources. Part of warfare involved the slaughter of everyone in the enemy settlement. It did get especially brutal, and escalated beyond the cultural norms of either religious group, which is what drove the pagan king to ask for terms of peace. Since Charlemagne couldn't war against Christians by Church Law, his response was to demand conversion from paganism to Christianity. It wasn't a missionary activity, it was traditional practice. Kings had no reason for being other than to wage war.
I think you're over-interpreting Charlemagne as a pagan warlord in Christian clothing. The Franks had been Christianised for hundreds of years by the time Charlemagne took power, and whilst they did keep the customary Frankish Salic law as their legal code, they relied very heavily on Roman civil structures to uphold their legitimacy. Charlemagne was declared 'Emperor of the Romans', after all, and was an important legal reformer. Frankish kings, in as much as they were at war near-constantly, had to function as administrators and jurists as much as warlords. People were not killed wholesale in settlements in Early Mediaeval warfare, that is silly fantasy-movie nonsense. Forced conversion or death is also simply the Abrahamic norm in warfare, going back to the kings of Israel and forward to the Muslim conquests and the Crusades. The Saxon wars got so brutal precisely because forced conversions, an edict mandating death for all those who refused conversion, and massacres of those refusing to convert because of said edict, inflamed the religious sentiments of the Saxons and meant that the Saxon tribes were almost continuously in revolt against the Franks for 20 years until finally the attrition of constant war in combination with clemency offered for converts led to the Saxons nobility giving in and agreeing to convert and promulgate Christianity in their lands.
I find it kinda funny that some missionary in the 800s had to explicitly write all of this down otherwise the Saxons wouldn't know they shouldn't be doing all this.
"No, you can't worship the old gods with wooden hands and feet."
Thirty prohibited things?
Avoiding filthy things in February might be a reference to Lent.
If you mean "avoid filthy things during Lent," that's interesting, but Ash Wednesday doesn't always begin in February. Some years it's in March.
@@kimfleury Gregorian or Julian?
It certainly is distinct from Anglo-Saxon (Old English) which is very close with Old Norse by comparison.
Old Saxon and Old English were mostly closer, but I‘d think that late Old English (after Viking influence started) became also more similar to Old Norse.
9:47 desire can often mean lust so maybe this missionary was running into a lot of people that thought Mary was hot?
Thank you, old Saxon is fairly underrated compared to Anglo-Saxon
Best green screen ever!
This is my first comment, and completely unrelated, but I'm really, really curious. Aren't you cold, Dr. Crawford?
SKOL, From East Anglia 🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼
diabl(devil) gilda sounds like it could be devil's traps.
and the 'priest' went on to enrich themselves from the local people....food, housing, servants and gold ornaments....
Matthew Colville send me over here
Your Latin isn't too bad, much better than mine, though that's not saying much.
Really interesting that they seem almost as concerned about keeping the newfound Christianity of converts in line with orthodoxy as stopping their old pagan rituals. It's like vowing not to syncretize the two religions.
Very depressing. Thanks.
🙃🙃🙃🙃
There's this guy who, I think, made his channel inspired by you and this I think is his primary thing, Saxon that is.
I wish I could hear what you're saying...
Plattdeutsch doesn't have much of a future, the language itself is dying out in the North of Germany and the Netherlands, only old people speak Saxon now.
Look up Burchard of Worms, book 19. I can't find much of English translations for the points.
But we're talking 11th century heathenism in Germany here. This time, with full explanations of what they're doing.
I have an article in Dutch though, here's an example:
91. Heb jij deelgenomen aan dodenwakes, dit is, ben jij aanwezig geweest bij de wake over de lijken van de doden, waar de lichamen van christenen volgens een heidens ritueel bewaakt worden; heb jij daar diabolische liederen gezongen en dansen uitgevoerd, die de heidenen hebben uitgevonden op influistering van de duivel?; heb jij daar gedronken en is jouw gelaat door lachen ontspannen, en heb jij alle medelijden en de emotie van liefdadigheid overboord gegooid, alsof jij je verheugt in de dood van een broeder?
My translation of this Dutch, the original I assume is Latin.
91. Have you taken part in 'dodenwakes' (deadwakings?), meaning, have you been present at a waking over the bodies of the dead, where the bodies of christians are guarded by means of a heathen ritual; have you partaken in devilish songs and dances, that the heathens have invented through council from the devil?; have you drunken there and is your face relaxed from laughter, and have you thrown overboard all compassion and emotion, as if you took joy from the death of a brother?
As you can tell by the points, there's a lot there. It also lists the exact same divination through lot that Tacitus mentions nearly a thousand years earlier. As well as all the full moon stuff and that sort of thing.
Imagine that... a medieval Saxon complaining that people are too interested in saints, especially St. Mary. I know that there is a lot more that was probably going on here than just asking saints for intercession etc., but it's easy to draw a parallel between the author of the Indiculus and a certain Saxon writer from 700 years later at the very end of the Middle Ages. I guess really, I wouldn't be all that surprised to find out that Christianity in northern Germany already had some proto-Protestant ideas floating around in it long before Martin Luther, but I've never seen any signs of it. I read a medieval English sermon once that had some very Calvinist ideas about the Eucharist, though, so who really knows?
There are recurring waves of misogyny among the male priesthood. The Jewish priests cast out their goddesses, such as Asherah, before they wrote down their Bible. The Christians kept Jove but threw out the Roman goddesses, until Diana (Artemis, the Mother of Gods) was enthroned as the Mother of God by the Council of Ephesus. The Protestants did away with her again.
I thought the text says not to deify saints. That's not the same as being "too interested" in them. I think it's a stretch to assign a later Protestant view to the views of a people that predates Protestantism. One might even reverse the order to say that pagan views carried into the Christian era through exaggerated devotions to the saints, in such a way that the protests of those who followed Luther in developing separate religions (during his lifetime) equated worship of saints with Catholic practice. Luther himself maintained a special devotion to St. Mary, as do many present day Lutherans.
That's not a proto-Protestant tendency, that's replying to what is known as a 'Marian heresy', or implying that the Virgin Mary is deific in some manner because she gave birth to Jesus, and that she can be prayed to in the same manner as Jesus. It is still Catholic/Orthodox canon that you *do not* pray to a saint, but ask them to ask big G to intercede on your behalf. It's also not surprising that Mediaeval English sermons might sound a bit Calvinist given Lollard heresies were common in England in the high to late Middle Ages. People put too much credit in the canonical unity of Mediaeval Christianity, in reality heresies and doctrinal disputes were frequent and wide-ranging until Protestantism and the Counter-Reformation made the inquisition come knocking in Catholicism, and in Protestantism they would just split off yet another church.
@@kimfleury "Too interested" is actually a vague enough statement that yes, it can cover deification, but a wide variety of other practices as well. It is intentionally vague because mostly, I'm just sort of amused that one could draw these parallels at all, not that I think that there's much of a serious scholarly point to be made here. That being said, I don't think that it's entirely off-base to think that throughout the history of Christianity, various people have come to similar conclusions by reading the Bible. I mean, since we're talking about Luther, he and the other Lutheran reformers were of the opinion that Augustine, Jerome and many others made points that they themselves were making centuries later. Jan Hus also held many of the same views a century earlier, as Eck pointed out in Luther's trial early on in the Reformation. Really, though, I wouldn't expect that one could find much of a historical record of any one figure holding to the entire suite of doctrines of any particular Protestant group. Again, it's just sort of funny to me that one could imagine a situation where history produced something like an Asterix and Obelix comic, in that someone from a particular geographic area was anachronistically similar to someone else from that same area later in history.
Finally, because I'm extremely pedantic (as you have probably noticed already), I want to caution you about thinking that Luther or very many modern Lutherans were or are overly attached to Marian doctrines. Yes, Luther was more heavily Marian in his earlier writings, and yes, he apparently held to views like semper virgo his whole life. Yes, there are "Augsburg catholics" who try to be as Roman Catholic as they can possibly justify while still holding a Lutheran identity. On the other hand, Luther was less attached to Marian doctrines later in his life, and even signed off on the Augsburg Confession wherein Melancthon wrote "Those who pray to Mary are jackasses." Along those same lines, the Augsburg catholics tend to be viewed with skepticism at best by most other Lutherans, especially those of a more Pietistic bent.
@@therat1117 See my previous comment for more information, but I was kind of kidding, mostly, with my comment. I guess the joke didn't land for a number of reasons. I get that one could easily read much into these very brief sentences. Although, again, they're brief hints at what the author really meant, so it's also possible that at least a few of these actually do represent thinking somewhat along the lines of later Protestants (again, see previous comment). We just don't know, because of how little information we have. Either way, though, it's kind of funny to imagine an angry monk showing up 700 years early to the party. Well, it's funny to me, anyway. I'm starting to think that other people don't find as much humor in it.
Anyway, interesting you bring up the Lollards, because in all seriousness, I kind of have a feeling that considering how many Lollards ended up in Switzerland (with a lot of the Waldenses and other Medieval dissenters) I think that there may have been an actual connection between Lollardry and the origins of the Reformed tradition. Again, I don't know how much solid evidence there is, or even if there is a connection for certain, but it seems possible. Mostly, though, I just think it's kind of funny.
I disagree with the conclusion. Obviously things will vary, I agree. But I can easily see parallels or links where you may not (want to).
And in fact you pointed the wagon out, which is a tradition that spans, from what we know, at least over a thousand years and from the continental German parts all the way to Sweden.
But drawing such conclusions is apparently in the nature of a lot of 'scholars'. Because they're scared of claiming things that aren't actually there, so instead they wrongly claim that things aren't there when they most likely or quite possibly are.
I guess this marks the difference between someone who is actively looking to reconstruct cultural heritage for practice and someone who is only academically interested.