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I'm no expert but I recall reading somewhere that Valhalla was for warriors who died in battle, but normal people who died of old age or disease went to Helheim, which is much more like the Greco-Roman Hades, where it's kinda gloomy. Also I think Freya got half of all warriors that died in battle, and Odin got the other half. Odin's half went to Valhalla and Freya's half went to some fields or something. Valhalla seems to be a uniquely Norse concept. I don't think the pagan Anglo-Saxons had a concept of it, or the older pre-Roman Germanic people.
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Apr 13, 2015 22:49
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Blue Star posted:I'm no expert but I recall reading somewhere that Valhalla was for warriors who died in battle, but normal people who died of old age or disease went to Helheim, which is much more like the Greco-Roman Hades, where it's kinda gloomy. Also I think Freya got half of all warriors that died in battle, and Odin got the other half. Odin's half went to Valhalla and Freya's half went to some fields or something. Valhalla was only for warriors and according to this reddit AMA with a Norse mythology expert, it was literally a coin flip if you got in with Odin or had to go hang out with Freya in a vast field. If you were a legendary warrior or a legendary king you'd go to Odin no matter what. Hel is the place where people who die of old age or sickness go, including warriors. Helheim is just the home of Hel I suppose but yeah. It's not necessarily a bad place but it's like having to go hang out in Delaware for all eternity.
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Apr 13, 2015 22:57
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Blue Star posted:I'm no expert but I recall reading somewhere that Valhalla was for warriors who died in battle, but normal people who died of old age or disease went to Helheim, which is much more like the Greco-Roman Hades, where it's kinda gloomy. Also I think Freya got half of all warriors that died in battle, and Odin got the other half. Odin's half went to Valhalla and Freya's half went to some fields or something. If I remember right, my Old English professor in college said that Anglo-Saxon pagans had basically no afterlife except being remembered (hence the focus on fame in stuff like Beowulf), which was one reason they converted to Christianity so easily: it was way less depressing.
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Apr 14, 2015 02:24
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I still miss Leif... as far as I'm concerned that Christian should have given his blood to Odin looong ago.
Hardawn fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 05:26
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Doltos posted:Hel is the place where people who die of old age or sickness go, including warriors. Helheim is just the home of Hel I suppose but yeah. It's not necessarily a bad place but it's like having to go hang out in Delaware for all eternity.
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Apr 14, 2015 05:58
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Genetic success isn't how many babies you make, more how many babies your (and your siblings') babies make. Another quirk of viking culture that'd be tough for us to stomach is they practiced infanticide via exposure. If a baby had a deformity or seemed otherwise weak and unhealthy, it was kosher to just leave it out in the woods and let nature deal with it. They had laws regarding other uses of this practice, very poor people who could not afford another mouth were allowed to practice this on healthy infants but the rich could not. Occasionally it comes up in sagas that a man of importance just does it anyway but gets his comeuppance when wolves and bears sense the child's potential and raise the child themselves. Of course the kid returns as a man to claim his birthright in a very viking way later on. That was another reason why I was against Ivar being born with health issues but whatevs, Ragnar did seem very detatched and ambivalent to Ivar so you still get the sense that defects are very frowned upon in this culture.
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Apr 14, 2015 05:59
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hard counter posted:That was another reason why I was against Ivar being born with health issues but whatevs, Ragnar did seem very detatched and ambivalent to Ivar so you still get the sense that defects are very frowned upon in this culture.
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Apr 14, 2015 06:12
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Hel is eating stale bread in a leaky house under a perpetually overcast sky, forever. Yeah, so... Delaware
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Apr 14, 2015 07:39
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hard counter posted:Another quirk of viking culture that'd be tough for us to stomach is they practiced infanticide via exposure. Up until the twentieth century (or late 19th, depends on where you're at), that was standard practice in all of the western world.
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Apr 14, 2015 08:21
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Volkerball posted:I thought Bjorn was dead and I was so mad because he's supposed to lead the Great Heathen Army. I saw him climbing the wall and said "well, I know for sure he's not dying." Then he's laying there with his eyes wide open all dead like. drat good episode. Was nice to see Floki crying like a baby in freezing cold water after all the annoying bullshit he's been on lately. Ecbert whooped them almost as bad last season...they should have scouted better. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 10:02
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Hardawn posted:I still miss Kanute... as far as I'm concerned that Christian should have given his blood to Odin looong ago. It's Knut. 
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Apr 14, 2015 13:10
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Doltos posted:The scene at the gate got me thinking how lovely it must have been to be a warrior back then. You basically live your entire life up until that moment just to get shot by an arrow or a ballista bolt. There was a girl at the front of that scene who lowered her shield for half a second to see what the hell just destroyed nine people around her and immediately gets shot right in the forehead by a crossbolt. That would suck so loving much, I'd be so pissed if I was looking down at my dead body in ghost form being like, "Really,, that's how I loving die? I lowered my shield for a loving second dude, this poo poo ain't fair at all." There's a book about the invasion of Normandy, the name of which I can't remember, where the author spends about three pages talking about this one airborne soldier. He talks about the guy's three years of intense training, learning to jump from an aircraft, shoot, conditioning, leadership training, his background everything. He's highly motivated, well equipped, incredibly well trained, exactly the kind of soldier you want in a fight. As he jumps out of the plane over Normandy his parachute fails to deploy and he's killed on impact. War sucks.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:23
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Volkerball posted:It's Knut. Thanks, I was actually thinking of Lief
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Apr 14, 2015 16:17
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Kemper Boyd posted:Up until the twentieth century (or late 19th, depends on where you're at), that was standard practice in all of the western world. While I don't doubt that it occurred in the west (poo poo like that still occurs in modern times after all), I doubt that it occurred to a similiar extent for similar reasons. Judiasm, Christianity and Islam all gravely oppose infanticide whereas norse beliefs held fewer prohibitions. Western medieval art does feature adults, some even lower class, with clubfoot, harelip, congenital lameness, dysmelia, etc meaning an appreciable number survived into adulthood. The use of orphanages/churches for unwanted children was already the most popular method for the disposing of children by the end of the middle ages and dumping a child at a monastery was a valid approach after Benedict of Nursia, though individuals like prostitutes rarely used these options. You're right though, it wasn't totally an unknown, alien thing in the west. I should have just said it wasn't so taboo in norse culture compared to elsewhere.
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Apr 14, 2015 19:02
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I always find it morbidly funny that because of my Tourette's if I had been born during the medieval period I probably would have been burned at the stake as possessed.
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Apr 14, 2015 19:52
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Kemper Boyd posted:Up until the twentieth century (or late 19th, depends on where you're at), that was standard practice in all of the western world. Up until the present you mean. You still have women attempting to leave children in dumpsters and toilets.
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Apr 14, 2015 22:21
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Hel is eating stale bread in a leaky house under a perpetually overcast sky, forever. Until ragnarok. Their is no forever.
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Apr 14, 2015 22:25
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darthzeta88 posted:Until ragnarok. Their is no forever. Ragnarok is cycle, so you probably get another chance at Valhalla but you'll gently caress it up and you're back to eating stale bread inside leaky house 2.0. This time the sky is smoggy instead of overcast.
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Apr 14, 2015 23:10
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YouTuber posted:Up until the present you mean. You still have women attempting to leave children in dumpsters and toilets. I... I don't think that's standard practice anymore bro
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Apr 14, 2015 23:18
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Demon Of The Fall posted:I always find it morbidly funny that because of my Tourette's if I had been born during the medieval period I probably would have been burned at the stake as possessed. Just wait a few years for the collapse of western civilization. We'll burn you then.  hard counter posted:I... I don't think that's standard practice anymore bro It may not be a standard practice anymore, but it still happens often enough that it is still a problem.
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Apr 15, 2015 03:42
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Dalael posted:
It's a social pressure/stress thing more than a conscious practice. Just about any mammal will abandon (...or eat, yuck) its young in an adequately stressful situation.
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Apr 15, 2015 07:02
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Is this a subject that really belongs in the Vikings TV show thread? Lol
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Apr 15, 2015 17:35
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The Duggler posted:Is this a subject that really belongs in the Vikings TV show thread? Lol I mean it started as something vaguely pertinent and then just derailed
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Apr 16, 2015 04:19
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Gyges posted:Ragnarok is cycle, so you probably get another chance at Valhalla but you'll gently caress it up and you're back to eating stale bread inside leaky house 2.0. This time the sky is smoggy instead of overcast.
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Apr 16, 2015 05:13
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darthzeta88 posted:Lol Wtf are you smoking Probably the same thing that Rollo is on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR8mNkLl_g0
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Apr 17, 2015 00:48
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Gyges posted:Ragnarok is cycle, so you probably get another chance at Valhalla but you'll gently caress it up and you're back to eating stale bread inside leaky house 2.0. This time the sky is smoggy instead of overcast. darthzeta88 posted:Lol Wtf are you smoking Lowtechs posted:Probably the same thing that Rollo is on. Yeah, Ragnarok is not a cycle thing where there's going to be a new world created again afterward, rinse repeat. Edit: there are a couple sources that talk about two humans surviving to repopulate the world and the surviving gods returning, but Ragnarok is the end of the world and it is Bad poo poo. Natural disasters, a bunch of gods die, etc. That account (of people surviving and repopulating the world) is from Snorri Sturluson who is very unabashedly Christian and recording Norse legends and poetry to preserve the poetic and literary tradition. He paints a lot of Christian motifs onto the Norse mythology, so take that with a grain of salt. We have pretty much dick all about what everyday Norse religion and beliefs look like. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Apr 17, 2015 |
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Apr 17, 2015 01:24
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Everything I've ever read is that Ragnarok is cyclical. Creation is destroyed, then at the end creation is reborn. It's not literally the same world, no. Baldur returns, humans return, and then everything starts up again. Trying to make it the Norse version of Christian style end times is trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
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Apr 17, 2015 01:32
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Gyges posted:Trying to make it the Norse version of Christian style end times is trying to force a square peg into a round hole. That's really the issue, though. Almost all of what little we know about Norse religion and mythology is coming from Christian writers late in the period (1000-1100 and after). I dunno that I'd call Norse cosmology "cyclical" but I really would need to go back to my books to put forward a good academic argument to that point. I'll concede the point and settle for "we don't really know for sure or much at all about Norse religion."
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Apr 17, 2015 01:40
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Cyclical probably isn't quite the right word for it. It's not that the world is the same every time, just that it is formed, then destroyed, then formed again, and so on in different ways. Though most of my knowledge comes from loving to read mythology as a kid and then whatever insanity Kirby crammed into Thor on me.
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Apr 17, 2015 01:45
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Gyges posted:Cyclical probably isn't quite the right word for it. It's not that the world is the same every time, just that it is formed, then destroyed, then formed again, and so on in different ways. Though most of my knowledge comes from loving to read mythology as a kid and then whatever insanity Kirby crammed into Thor on me. Yeah there are like a grand total of five major sources on Norse religion and mythology, we actually know dick all. -Ibn Fadlan's accounts of his travels among the Rus (922). Describes a ship burial and Norse hygeine (this is where we get the lovely face wash and snot bowl scenes). -Adam of Bremen writes a history of the Bishops of Hamburg in the 1070s, Christian dude and mostly about the history of the region (including Viking age) and less about mythology and religion directly, though this is where the account of the temple at Uppsala and the sacrifice nine of everything every nine years comes from. -Saxo Grammaticus writes Gesta Danorum (history of the Danes) in the 12th century. Again a Christian writer, this is half history of the region and half masturbatory Norse fanfic-- the mythologized history of Denmark. Hamlet is loosely based off parts of this. -Snorri Sturluson writes the Prose or Younger Edda ca. 1220. He goes to lengths to assure readers he's totally Christian and just writing down this pagan poetry to preserve the tradition for future Icelandic poets and scholars. Probably grafts a lot of Christian motifs onto the mythology, like setting up Loki as more of a temptor/Satan figure. -Poetic Edda, also coming out of Iceland sometime in the 13th century. Probably the most "authentic" source of pre-Christian Norse mythology. The actual Icelandic sagas are mostly about familial blood feuds and goatfucking. Note that this show is set in the early Viking age which would be a couple centuries before any of those documents Edit: all that is not really meant as a criticism of the show, I think it does a pretty solid job of presenting Norse culture, religion, and mythology as we know it. Which is not really at all  For anyone interested, you can read through the Eddas in an afternoon. I'd avoid Adam of Bremen and Saxo because those are exceptionally tedious texts. Njals Saga (or the Saga of Burning Njal) is a little dry but probably the best of the Icelandic sagas for a read-through and contains a lot of blood feuding and Norse justice system both of which are pretty faithfully portrayed in the TV show. Now that I think about it, Floki's religious fatalism is one of the main themes of Njals Saga Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Apr 17, 2015 |
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Apr 17, 2015 02:03
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So what was that flag that Gisela had up there
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Apr 17, 2015 02:21
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Sash! posted:So what was that flag that Gisela had up there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriflamme
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Apr 17, 2015 02:23
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I know this show isn't super spot-on in terms of historical accuracy, but I love that they integrate stuff like this. Jehde fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Apr 17, 2015 |
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Apr 17, 2015 02:36
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I could figure out she was saying it was Saint SOMETHING but couldn't extract it from her accent. Wonder what happened to it after Agincourt.
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Apr 17, 2015 02:39
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Pellisworth posted:Yeah there are like a grand total of five major sources on Norse religion and mythology, we actually know dick all. Yeah most of it is due to how even though the Vikings did have a system of writing, they didn't do extensive record keep like other civilizations. So basically you really don't have any sort of direct primary documents to understand the inner workings of the civilization.
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Apr 17, 2015 02:49
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Sash! posted:I could figure out she was saying it was Saint SOMETHING but couldn't extract it from her accent. Wonder what happened to it after Agincourt. Considering how much of a straight-up massacre Agincourt was I'm kinda picturing Henry V wiping his rear end with it. Probably not what happened but it's fun to ponder
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Apr 17, 2015 02:54
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etalian posted:Yeah most of it is due to how even though the Vikings did have a system of writing, they didn't do extensive record keep like other civilizations. Importantly, we know almost nothing about what everyday worship looked like or what the Vikings thought about the gods, mostly we have epic poems that describe the mythology. Runes and the act of carving runes was some pretty serious Odin magic so unfortunately you don't even get things like graffiti which tells us a lot about Roman life (for example).
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Apr 17, 2015 02:56
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Shieldmaiden Frogmen. Frogmaidens? This would be a lot more thrilling if watching it through comcast's live online streaming wasn't a loving disaster tonight.
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Apr 17, 2015 03:05
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Ninja vikings
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Apr 17, 2015 03:05
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this rolling spike thing is awesome
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Apr 17, 2015 03:09
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