Lost Gods of England
Jan. 8th, 2004 01:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hearthstoneJust put down the book for the night. In the author's view, Tiw (Tyr) was the original "head god." Makes sense enough from an Indo-European perspective, Woden (Odin) certainly isn't much of a "sky father" type, and it's hardly the first time I've heard this notion :). So he's been separating out which of Odin's stories he thinks were originally the property of Tyr. I'll have to find some other books to cross-reference, I suppose :).
Of more interest (the above is interesting but it seems to me that if they weren't Odin's stories and traits to begin with, they are now) are his thoughts on the development of Woden and of Odin. I am a hard polytheist but, honestly, I do see the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon gods as pretty much the same gods showing slightly different faces. (The mythology seems to be the same, etc.) I'll have to reread that chapter when I'm less sleepy and give it more thought, but one thing he seems to feel is that Woden in England never developed into the sort of farsighted war-god that Odin did. (Then again, part of his reasoning has to do with early comparisons of the valkyries with the erinyes.) Interesting stuff. More thought required. Sleep required first :)
Of more interest (the above is interesting but it seems to me that if they weren't Odin's stories and traits to begin with, they are now) are his thoughts on the development of Woden and of Odin. I am a hard polytheist but, honestly, I do see the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon gods as pretty much the same gods showing slightly different faces. (The mythology seems to be the same, etc.) I'll have to reread that chapter when I'm less sleepy and give it more thought, but one thing he seems to feel is that Woden in England never developed into the sort of farsighted war-god that Odin did. (Then again, part of his reasoning has to do with early comparisons of the valkyries with the erinyes.) Interesting stuff. More thought required. Sleep required first :)
