[gothic-l] Re: "Eruli", "Goths", "Danes" and wherefrom the runes

[bobbusam <bobbusam@yahoo.com>]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Troels Brandt <trbrandt at p...>" 
<trbrandt at p...> wrote:
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "konrad_oddsson 
> <konrad_oddsson at y...>" <konrad_oddsson at y...> wrote:
> 
> Hi Konrad
> 
> I have no objections against the first part of your mail which 
George 
> have not mentioned except for some unimportant comments about the 
> runes. The runes have primarily been used in the earlier 
discussion 
> as an indication of Scandinavians in the Gothic regions. But:
> 
> > One thing that is for certain is that there never was
> > a "man" named "Odin", regardless 
> > of what Heyerdahl or Snorri Sturluson or any old kingly 
geneology might say. It´s simply a folk story that some important 
chieftains  availed themselves of at the point in their ancestral 
lineage where memory failed and no older names could be remembered. 
The "children of Abraham" did the same where memory failed....and 
who was before Adam? Well....uh....you know. Food for thought for 
what its worth.

Troels writes:
> As far as I can see you have just argued that Odin could easily be 
a king/chieftain/ancestor like Abraham. You forgot by the way to 
> mention, that "ansu" beside "god" also could mean "ancestor" 
(notice the English word for it). Maybe Wothan's name in Norse 
spelling later covered or replaced the original name of the first 
remembered king in the lineage - he became a god or a kind of a 
divine ancestor - an Augustus. Maybe that is why you can find Wothan 
both in Scandinavia and in England as the first at some of the lists 
of kings. Maybe authors like Saxo and Thorolf later due to political 
reasons filled up some of the lists in order to make the dynasties 
older than their competitors.  

It seems to me that Konrad is quite right in concluding that Odin is 
linguistically a Germanic variant of a known wind god also found in 
other sources. As far as the anthropology question is concerned, all 
I can say is that Germanic royals probably took him as their patron 
god from long ago, probably from when there was only one Germanic 
Germanic tribe to speak of. I´m not an anthropologist, however, and 
it seems more like a question for anthropologists. As to the name - 
I researched the name and came to basically the same conclusion as 
Konrad and others have: an attested Asian wind god. In other words, 
he´s more likely to have become a man in people´s minds than to have 
ever been one. I do agree, though, that authors like Saxo could have 
filled up their lists for competition. Wouldn´t the ultimate form of 
competitive advantage be divine descent though? It´s not to hard to 
see why competing kings would claim descent from a god. I seriously 
doubt if any of them could substantiate descent from an otherwise 
attested Asian wind god. I´ll look into the "ansu-" connection. 

Bob Busam



You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>. 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/