Norse Mythology Family Tree

[Desdichado]

I can't remember where I heard that, and the book I read it in is in a library far, far away from where I am now. And your description may be more accurate, as I'm going on almost 20 year old memories of a book I read long ago.

However, there are precedents. Thor is arguably the same Indo-European god that emerges as Indra, for instance or even Jupiter.

Of course, if you buy into Georges Dumezil's tripartate social structure, Thor/Indra/etc. would never be the "king" of the gods, as he represents the wrong function. He could, however (and clearly is) the war leader of the pantheon.

 

[Sharraunna]

I think perhaps I was misunderstood. I wasn't calling the veracity of the statement into question. I was actually looking for the reference.

As I said, I've been studying the Norse/Germanic mythology a lot lately. The changes from telling to telling are sociologically fascinating. For example, Loki seems to have become more and more malevolent as Christianity spread throughout the Germanic areas.

Thus, I was just hoping to figure out what sort of society would best support a cult of Tyr, so to speak, and what sort of social changes would warrant a switch to Odin-worship.

~~Sharraunna

 

[AFGNCAAP]

The Norse mythology is an odd thing, since there is a concern about how "original" the current material is. There is a concern of the impact of Christianity on the myths, whether in their later development or in their recording. In a way, myth and belief is just as malleable and dynamic as language.

Here's an interesting thing about Norse myth--lingusitically, "Tyr" is related to "Indra" and "Zeus," all of which can be traced back to the Indo-European word "Dyaus-Pitar" (IIRC): basically "Sky Father" or "Divine Father," IIRC. However, what we have today is the figure of Thor being more of a sky-father figure rather than Tyr--it is Thor who wields the thunderbolt and slays the serpent, and is a god with a wild demeanor.

Along the same lines, the days of the week reflect the relationships between the gods (at 1 time), and how those deities were compared to their Roman equivalents. Thor was equivalent to Jupiter/Jove; Woden/Odin was equal to Mercury; Tyr was equal to Mars; and Freya/Frigga was equal to Venus.

IIRC, Tyr originally was the supreme god, whose role (and maybe aspects) were taken over by Thor. Thor was then ousted as the main god by Odin. Coincidentally, Odin had virtues (and dealt with domains) that were valued by the noble classes--he was a king's god. Thor remained the common man's god, controlling the aspects and possessing virutes valued by the folk. Tyr became a war god, and seems to have vanished from the tales altogether (just a the Fenris myth and a mention in Ragnarok, IIRC). I think the ascendence of Odin had to do with the changes in Scandinavia from a land of many small nations(tribes, if youy will), to large nations united under a single, powerful king. While there probably were a vast multitude of Thor-tales amongst the folk, only many of the Odin-tales were recorded, since those were told to those who could ensure and afford them to be written down.

As mentioned before, Loki slowly transforms from a Trickster to the Adversary--since he has oft been linked with fire, then this can be somewhat understandable (flames flicker and change shape, thus Loki is a shapeshifter; fire can be beneficial by providing warmth and light, but uncontrolled it can be destructive; thus Loki is a treacherous/dangerous ally). Also, Loki's relationship to the gods seems to vary--at one point, he is 1 of the gods responsible for creating life (alongside Odin; as Lodur, IIRC), whereas in other cases, he is more of an oathsworn ally/brother to Odin (and not a son of Odin, as Loki is depicted in the Thor comic).

If anything, the best guess about Tyr is that many of his stories were usurped by other gods. His role as a primary storm/sky-god was taken by Thor. Odin probably took the role of chief of the gods and creator with his ascendence (possibly aspects that Thor took from Tyr, which Odin took from Thor).

It's sad that the Norse myths weren't captured/recorded at an earlier time, when they would have been in their heyday (or in a more original/uninfluenced form). It would have been interesting to see what they once were like.

 

[Desdichado]

Here's an interesting thing about Norse myth--lingusitically, "Tyr" is related to "Indra" and "Zeus," all of which can be traced back to the Indo-European word "Dyaus-Pitar" (IIRC): basically "Sky Father" or "Divine Father," IIRC. However, what we have today is the figure of Thor being more of a sky-father figure rather than Tyr--it is Thor who wields the thunderbolt and slays the serpent, and is a god with a wild demeanor.

Yes, but that's probably primarily a linguistic shift. Although Thor doesn't match up linguistically against his counterparts as Tyr does, in every other aspect he's almost exactly the same guy, and the figure is clearly descended from the same prototype. There are other difficulties: Zeus/Jupiter seem to be descended linguistically from Dyaus-pitar, as you say, but conceptually seem to be a combination of the sky-father and the thunderer-champion of the gods.

There's lots of other such shifts in Indo-European linguistics if you look at it. I'm particularly familiar with the names of many of the trees, in which a certain word can be traced to a common root word, but actually mean various different trees in the various daughter languages.

Still, again, assuming Dumezilian tripartate functions, which I personally consider interesting but dubious, Tyr is the "king" of the gods, representing the need to maintain cosmic order and balance (the traditional role of the first societal class, the rulers/priests) while Thor definately maintains the role of the "champion", which is the traditional function of the second class.

So, to answer the "original" question, this is all fairly speculative reconstruction of the development of Norse myth into something resembling what we can actually read today, but it's a bit more difficult to piece together.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

http://www.pantheon.org/areas/genealogy/zeus_offspring.html
Zues was the pimp!

 

[Mark]

It's important to keep in mind that "Norse" mythology isn't necessarily really Norse -- it's Germanic in a broader sense.

Or perhaps better to say "Teutonic"..?

From Teutonic Mythology (1887) by Viktor Rydberg as translated by Rasmus B. Anderson:

THE WORDS GERMAN AND GERMANIC.


ALREADY at the beginning of the Christian era the name Germans was applied by the Romans and Gauls to the many clans of people whose main habitation was the extensive territory east of the Rhine, and north of the forest-clad Hercynian Mountains. That these clans constituted one race was evident to the Romans, for they all had a striking similarity in type of body; moreover, a closer acquaintance revealed that their numerous dialects were all variations of the same parent language, and finally, they resembled each other in customs, traditions, and religion. The characteristic features of the physical type of the Germans were light hair, blue eyes, light complexion, and tallness of stature as compared with the Romans.


Even the saga-men, from whom the Roman historian Tacitus gathered the facts for his German ia—an invaluable work for the history of civilisation—knew that in the so-called Svevian Sea, north of the German continent, lay another important part of Germany, inhabited by Sviones, a people divided into several clans. Their kinsmen on the continent described them as rich in weapons and fleets, and in warriors on land and sea (Tac., Germ., 44). This northern sea-girt portion of Germany is called Scandinavia—Scandeia by other writers of the Roman Empire; and there can be no doubt that this name referred to the peninsula


which, as far back as historical monuments can be found, has been inhabited by the ancestors of the Swedes and the Norwegians. I therefore include in the term Germans the ancestors of both the Scandinavian and Gothic and German (tyske) peoples. Science needs a sharply - defined collective noun for all these kindred branches sprung from one and the same root, and the name by which they make their first appearance in history would doubtless long since have been selected for this purpose had not some of the German writers applied the terms German and Deutsch as synonymous. This is doubtless the reason why Danish authors have adopted the word "Goths" to describe the Germanic nations. But there is an important objection to this in the fact that the name Goths historically is claimed by a particular branch of the family—that branch, namely, to which the East and West Goths belonged, and in order to avoid ambiguity, the term should be applied solely to them. It is therefore necessary to re-adopt the old collective name, even though it is not of Germanic origin, the more so as there is a prospect that a more correct use of the words German and Germanic is about to prevail in Germany itself, for the German scholars also feel the weight of the demand which science makes on a precise and rational terminology.*


* Viktor Rydberg styles his work Researches in Germanic Mythology, but after consultation with the Publishers, the Translator decided to use the word Teutonic instead of Germanic both in the title and in the body of the work. In English, the words German, Germany, and Germanic are ambiguous.. The Scandivanians and Germans have the words Tyskland, tysh, Deutschland deutsch, when they wish to refer to the present Germany, and thus it is easy for them to adopt the words Germnan and Germanisk to describe the Germanic or Teutonic peoples collectively. The English language applies the above word Dutch not to Germany, but to Holland, and it is necessary to use the words German and Germany in translating deutsch, Deutschland, tysk, and Tyskland. Teutonic has already been adopted by Max Müller and other scholars in England and America as a designation of all the kindred branches sprung from one and the same root, and speaking dialects of the same original tongue. The words Teuton, Teutonic, and Teutondom also have the advantage over German and Germanic that they are of native growth and not borrowed from a foreign language. In the following pages, therefore, the word Teutonic will be used to describe Scandivanians, Germans, Anglo-Saxons, &c., collectively, while German will line used exclusively in regard to Germany proper.— TRANSLATOR.

 

[Desdichado]

Although ironically it's not certain that the Teutons were Germanic; they may have been Celtic.

 

[Mark]

Although ironically it's not certain that the Teutons were Germanic; they may have been Celtic.

Please clarify as I believe that you might be leading some folks to a false conclusion about the terminology, albeit unintentionally and in jest.

 

[Desdichado]

No, everything I've read about the Teutons as a named, historically attested group who contended with the Romans is clear that we don't actually know that they were Germanic (or more accurately, proto-Germanic, since they would predate any known and attested Germanic group) or not. Applying the term Teutonic and making it equivalent to Germanic is a later development, and as I stated, ironically may not even be accurate from a historical point of view. At the time they appeared, they were associated with what was much more likely a Celtic group, the Cimbri, and fought the Romans on land that was later demonstrably Celtic in Gaul.

It's entirely possible that the "Teutons" were Celtic rather than Germanic in language and/or culture. Of course, that's why I don't use the term Teutonic, or consider it superior to Germanic. The book you quoted is considerably dated in terms of what specialists in these fields actually believe today.

 

[Mark]

No, everything I've read about the Teutons as a named, historically attested group who contended with the Romans is clear that we don't actually know that they were Germanic (or more accurately, proto-Germanic, since they would predate any known and attested Germanic group) or not. Applying the term Teutonic and making it equivalent to Germanic is a later development, and as I stated, ironically may not even be accurate from a historical point of view. At the time they appeared, they were associated with what was much more likely a Celtic group, the Cimbri, and fought the Romans on land that was later demonstrably Celtic in Gaul.

It's entirely possible that the "Teutons" were Celtic rather than Germanic in language and/or culture. Of course, that's why I don't use the term Teutonic, or consider it superior to Germanic. The book you quoted is considerably dated in terms of what specialists in these fields actually believe today.

"Teutonic" in lieu of "Germanic", (precise, rather than superior) as the proper replacement for your term when discussing the origins of what is commonly referered to as "Norse Mythology" being my point. Here's a link (for some others following this discussion) to a page that is cache by Google and no longer exists (unfortunately)-

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cach...ngdom.net/Teutons.html+teutons&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

-which details early tribal timelines. IMO, "Germanic" is not a precise term to use when discussing "Norse Mythology and it's origins and proliferation" southward into the tribal lands of, shall we say, proto-Europe, and beyond. Most of the tribes that I believe you would term as "Germanic" that influenced what is now considered "Norse Mythology" were most likely influenced in their mythologies by the Tuetons whose history predates them by a couple of millenia, if my understanding is correct.

Some tribes that fall under what you term as "Germanic" that were not influenced by the earlier Teutons, such as those to the far south of the regions the Romans sweepingly labeled "Germania" and did not embrace Teutonic Mythology don't factor in and thus make using "Germanic" further imprecise.

Some maps to help illustrate the origins of the term "Germania"

http://www.dalton.org/groups/Rome/RMap.html

http://www.ku.edu/history/index/eur...s/Periods/Roman/Places/Europe/Germania/1.html

I'm not questioning your calling some tribes of early Europe as Germanic but rather your applying that term to the influence of "Norse Mythology". It's seems to me that would be like saying that cars as we know them today are influenced primarily by the "Chryslers" when it might be better to say the "Fords", so to speak.

So when you say -

It's important to keep in mind that "Norse" mythology isn't necessarily really Norse -- it's Germanic in a broader sense.

I contend that it is too broad a term since the term encompasses far too much that had little or nothing to do with what is now considered "Norse Mythology" and would suggest that "Teutonic" is consequently more precise. Only those "Germanic" tribes influenced by the Teutons (and others) could be said to represent the influence on what is now considered "Norse" mythology, no?