/asatru/ - Asatru / Heathenry / Paganism

>implying ancient wars fought between two clans of gods isn't an ancient indo European theme

your post is like a something pleasant taste at first with a shit aftertaste, your stuff about frigga is interesting at least. One thing is that friggs is said to have prophetic powers, something normally only vanir possess like freyja. A similar problem comes where heimdall is described in the eddas as have "senses like vanir" implying he has prophetic powers and is of vanir origin, but the description is vague and in most sources heimdall is specifically called aesir

>>8032

put Christnigger flag in on accident loool

>>8032

I wasn't saying anything about the Vanir. The one thing I was saying was that Freyja and Frigg seem like they might be the same. About the Vanir I was only asking if this would mean anything regarding them. I just wanted your opinions and mentioned one theory I heard tied in with the theory that Freyja and Frigg are the same.

>>8035

Well it would make sense because, as we have discussed before in other threads, a common archetype among the European peoples is the sky father and earth mother pairing

Wotan is the sky father, a role once played by Tiwaz whose name literally means "sky father", and the Earth mother would appear to be Frigga. However Thor is mentioned as the son of Odin and "the earth" but this figure if very vague, its possible its just a kenning for Frigga. Before Frigga it was Nerthus who took the Earth mother role with Tiwaz (presumably, we know Nerthus was the earth mother from Tactitus and that her name is connected to "erth"

Keep in mind our mythology is a blend of exaggerated historical retellings, bland religious filler, and insightful allegories.

Try not to read too much into any particulars. Look at the myriad of names Odin has. The gods, much like ourselves, are a dynamic representation of a myriad of archetypes put forward in the form of stories.

Sometimes it helps to make cross cultural comparisons; Tiwaz is etymologically linked to Zeus and Deus. The Aesir-Vanir war has parallels to the war of the Titans where the Olympic gods overthrew an older set of gods.

Back to your question: Freyja and Frigg may be more like two sides of the same coin, as with Odr and Odin. I think the Vanir are generally symbolic of primal, cyclical forces and the Aesir symbolize higher aspects of the mind. There probably is some historicity to ancient tribal invasions. And sometimes stories are just stories.

http://norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/the-aesir-gods-and-goddesses/frigg/

Rolled 1 (1d1)

>>8045

this

>>8030

Personally, I believe that Frigg and Freya are simply two aspects of the same goddess. Worthy of note: In Norse mythology, the Aesir-Vanir distinction is a thing, and we have both Frigg and Freya, whereas in Anglo-Saxon and continental sources, we see only Frigg/Frige/Frija and no mention of the Vanir as a group (though we do have gods and goddesses which the Norse considered Vanir, they're just mentioned as "gods" rather than "gods of the Vanir").

I think there might be something in the Aesir/Vanir split, I think it might relate to the religions of the R1a and R1b carrying Indo-European migrants (represented by the Aesir) and that of the I1 carrying indigenous northern European people (represented by the Vanir) but it's hard to know for sure.

>>8037

>>8045

Some good insight here; Tiwaz was once the chief god, somehow seemingly "usurped" by Wodanaz. We don't know much about Nerthuz unless I'm mistaken, something I'd read about her (I think having groves on sacred islands?) made me consider her as a goddess relating to water. I know some say that she might be Njörð, and that a change in perceived gender happened whenever for whatever reason, but some source mentions Njord having a wife who remains un-named - perhaps Nerthuz is Njörð's wife. If so, she could well be a goddess with a strong land or sea association; or both, given her island deal.

>I think the Vanir are generally symbolic of primal, cyclical forces and the Aesir symbolize higher aspects of the mind.

I like this, definitely agree. Interesting that the Vanir are associated with prophetic foresight and with the practice of seiðr, but still, the Vanir tend to have very "earthy" spheres, a lot of relation to fertility and bounty and "landedness", with Ingwia-Fraujaz being a good example in being a god of fertility of the land to be given offerings for good harvest, a god of sacral kingship, and a god possibly associated with the elves and ancestral life force - fertility of humans rather than of fields.

>There probably is some historicity to ancient tribal invasions. And sometimes stories are just stories.

It's pretty certainly true that northern Europe was originally inhabited by a group of people, possibly fairly Cro-Magniform, with men bearing mostly I1 and maybe a bit of I2 Y-chromosome haplogroups, and that the Nordic bronze age (the beginnings of Germanic culture) came about after these people mixed with two Indo-European migrating groups, first proto-Balto-Slavic R1a carrying people migrating westwards from north-eastern Europe, and then proto-Celtic R1b carrying people migrating northwards from central Europe. The resulting genetic makeup of Scandinavia reflects this very well today. I won't tell people what to make of this regarding relating it to the mythos, however, just that this is almost certainly how the biological, linguistic and cultural makeup of the Nordic bronze age was come to.

>>8045

I would take this in a more pragmatic position by saying we need to bear in mind that the gods and spirits we know the most about are "late" era. post agricultural evolutions of something far older.

Earlier people personified the forces of nature as gods as they were so thoroughly at the mercy of a temperamental climate, rivers, animals, decays, disease, etc. As greater Germanic Europe became less nomadic/hunter gatherer, agricultural lifestyles retired or at least blunted many of these threats.

But the gods didn't go away. Mankind just reframed their definitions of the gods as something more in line with their changed world view. The gods were sometimes still associated with natural forces but were not the forces themselves anymore.

Given a very large view of historic behaviors it is very likely many of the gods are in fact the "same" as the primal forces earlier ancestors worshipped. That personas split or were combined by people in later eras is not surprising. You're not the first to suggest that Frigg and Freyja were probably the same deity in an earlier time.

This is what leads people like me to see the "god characters" more as archetypes than literal personas. There are hints of truth in there, but probably shouldn't be taken too literally. And it's always worth mentioning that we moderns' preoccupation with the gods is out of line with our ancestral world view. To the ancient heathens, the landvaettir and house wights, alfar, disir, and ancestral spirits would have been their day to day focus of practical worship. Even shamanic ritual, which did often base some of its validity in the cosmology surrounidng the actions of various deities, was just as often divorced from them entirely. Outside of shamanistic warrior god cults, the gods were more or less still distant forces that were above mankind the way we are above ants. They don't typically take notice of us and it's often for the best that they don't.

What I'm trying to say is preoccupation with specifics about deity is probably misplaced energy. The god characters are there to fill in the big picture issues like beginnings and endings, why droughts and storms happen, where disease and discord comes from; in short, why the world is so damn unfair. And the characterization of these forces changes all the time as society changes, even though it still "sequelizes" the characterization of the gods that previous peoples held to some degree.

Indeed, if we're truly to rebirth this thing, we're going to have to make the characterizations our own, as well. Sacrificing livestock is of little value in a culture so distant from the land. Cattle are not a symbol of wealth and their blood spilled probably means next to nothing to the gods coming from us. Context matters.

The gods aren't their stories. The stories are just there to "humanize" beings which are ultimately beyond intuitive comprehension. And they don't really care about you all that much anyway. Focus on your ancestors. They live within your blood and the ancients believed could be reborn back into their blood line. It is for this reason their tradition of naming children after parents and grandparents came into being.