[gothic-l] Re: Snorri and skaldskaparmal

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hej Anders,
No, I am serious. But maybe it is because we here in West
Norway see a much bigger gap of Ocean between ourselves
and "the Continent" than you do with the many narrow sounds
that connect everything. We are also much closer to England.
But there is more Ocean separating Norway from the Continent
than England.

I also mean the vikings and Ottar must have known "Bothnia"
was closed. Otherwise they could have had a much shorter route
to the Bjarmi and the White Sea.

>I find it hard to really believe this. Do the norweigans really
>seriously (not just because of EU-discussion) consider themselves
>not  living in Europe?

Most Norwegians have learned in school that we live in "Europe".
But it is only after EU came up that people use the term as the name
of a place you can travel to. Before we always said: "I went to France",
"We visited Germany", etc.. We always mentioned the specific countries.
I think the concept of "Europe" was created by the Americans, because
over there you could always say "I am from Europe", and they'd accept
it as the name of a country. Now we often say" "ta en tur til Europa"
and that does not mean Scandinavia.

I think Snorri calls it Aenas btw.


>In any case we swedes are taught in schools how the map of Europe
>looks like and I have never felt that I don't live in Europe. I
>certainly see the British Islands as Europe too. Apparently Snorre
>also had a fairly good idea of how Europe looked like, as it appears
>of Edda and Ynlingasaga. Snorre himself lived on an Island and in the
>referred chapter he is specifially taktin about mainland as opposed
>to islands He also spent time with the lawman in Västergötland.
>Should not he know what he was talking about?

Yes and no. But there are 3 problems. The first one is if we undersatnd
Snorri the way he intended. The second is what kinds of geographical
ideas Snorri had. And the third is how well he understood ancient history.

>Herman Lindqvist has written an exellent chapter about this
>in "Caramba, so they never say" According to him the feel
>of "kontinenten" a little bit starts in Lund in Skåne(Scania).( do
>you agree Bertil?:-)e are a little friendlier and the atmosphere is a
>little bit hotter. Then in Copenhagen "Kontinenten" starts for real,
>but the feel could be more "kontinental"... In Paris it's even
>more "continental" but something is still missing. Madrid must be the
>ultimate "Kontinent", but isn't something missing still... or
>something like that( from my memory).

>I find this statment, in general, to be illogical.
>Why would a serious historian or a geographer describe a peninsula as
>an island, if he knew better?

My question is how he could be so sure if he hadn't been there.
And he cannot have circumnavigated it either, because that
is impossible !


>Would Snorre deliberately spread desinfromation?

All I know is that this is what he wrote, and that it makes
sense to me:

« Í þann tíma var kallat allt meginland, þat er hann átti,
Reiðgotaland, enn eyjar allar Eygotaland ; þat er nú kallat
Danaveldi ok Svíaveldi. »

Eygotaland = Danaveldi + Sviaveldi.
Reidgotaland = the rest of Odin's lands.

(for a definition of "the rest of Odin's lands" also read Ynglingasaga,
where you will see that it included Saxland.)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Forgive me for being ignorant, but I really don't know what goths you
>mean.

Okay - here is a brief recapitulation :

We were spaking about the Rök stone.
On the Rök stone a king Theodoric is mentioned,
as well as something about 9 generations.
Also a people called "Reidgoths" is mentioned on the Rök stone.

Now take a jump to Snorri:
who explains where the country Reiðgotaland is situated.

>Perhaps I'm on the wrong list but I don't believe that the
>Edda's "goths" are the same as the ostrogoths and visigoths in
>historical central Europe.

I thought it was common knowledge that many of the Edda's heroic
lays ultimately derive from Gothic/Burgundian/Frankish legend.

Best regards
Keth



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