/asatru/ - Asatru / Heathenry / Paganism

I read somewhere that Tyr was mostly the good of the lower folk (craftsmen, farmers, etc), while Odin was worshipped by the noble folk (jarls, kings, etc).
Not sure if it is related to this topic though.

>>1996
You are thinking about Thor. He is the god of farmers and workers. Whereas Odin is the god of Nobles.

>>1996
>>1997
The second anon is correct. Thor was god of farmers and craftsmen, the logic being that his slaying of frost giants kept cold spells away from the crops and the hammer for obvious reasons relating to blacksmithing. Odin was worshiped more by warriors and the kings they served, who were often versed in poetry.

Evidence of this is numerous, but the most telling is of a Lay in the Poetic Edda where Odin and Thor engage in a flyting, and Odin taunts Thor by saying his realm is filled with thralls and slaves (the little known hall of Thor in Asgard) while Odin gets heroes and kings (the more famous Valhalla).

Its unknown which category Tyr would fall into since very little is known of him, but if the theory of him being replaced by Odin is true its reasonable to assume he was also worshiped by kings and Jarls.

There is a god that was worshiped by the Saxons who was likely their main god given his name is related to theirs, Saxneat. His name means "sword friend" but nothing is known beyond that. Grimm believed that it was without doubt Tyr but he doesnt give any evidence to support this so its hard to tell if it was a title of Tyr, another aspect of him or another god entirely. In my opinion I think he was a god unique to the Saxons and was their tribal god.

Funny how this thread appeared at just this time.
I have been wondering about Tyr over the last few weeks too, wondering about his past role.

>>2004
Its something that Ive wondered about since I first became a Heathen. For a long time I thought that Tyr was my patron God but it became obvious to me that Thor was instead.

You should really look into him, hes a very interesting god and what little we know of him is puzzling to say the least.

>>2011
There's like no information about him though, the only myth i know with him in it was the binding of Fenrir.
Tyr as a god of war, justice, and oaths seems like it makes sense, but i know he was once more than that.

>>2024
Theres one other myth in the Poetic Edda, but it doesnt really seem quite right and the editor even says that "Tyr" might actually be Loki. In the myth Tyr and Thor go to find a giant kettle to brew mead in for a feast, and Tyr's foster father is a giant. His grandmother is a giant with 900 heads.

Most of what I know of Tyr can be found in archaeological and linguistic evidence. I know theres a monument in England somewhere that was made by Frisiian mercenaries working for the Romans. Although the monument is mostly Romanesque, they honor a god they call "Mars-Thingi" which means "Mars of the Thing". Since its well known that Mars is what the Romans called Tyr in their little Romanocentric idea that all cultures were copies of them, this gives valuable information; that Tyr was connected with the Thing, the council of the Germanic tribes. This makes sense as to why the councils were treated religiously and the high priests decided punishments.

>>2026
And the fact that he was connected with the Thing probably meant that he was the god of Justice aswell.
In Sigrdrífumál, it is said that to achieve victory in battle, one must carve "victory runes" into your blade and the name Tyr twice, this sortof implies that Tyr was once more so the god of war than Odin was.

>>2027
I remember readding that. I have a wooden charm I carry around with 3 "gagaga" runes and 2 Tiwaz Runes.

>>2065
Do you know what GAGAGA meant? I can't seem to wrap my head around it.

>>2207
Its a Gibo Rune crossed with a Anzus rune. The best explantion Ive heard is that it was a warcry that means "Gift from the Gods" which would make sense considering Gibo means gift and Anzus means Aesir or God. Why its repeated thrice and why it was a warcry is something I dont know

>>2207
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kragehul_I

this might help

>>2026
>Mars is what the Romans called Tyr in their little Romanocentric idea that all cultures were copies of them

that's not really what interpretatio romana is about though

>>2213
>>2212
A lot of the scholars that researched http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kragehul_I came up with a bunch of weird ass explanations, but >>2212 's explanation makes a lot of sense, thanks.
Does anyone mean what was meant with ALU btw? I don't think it could be something simple like Ale, I mean the word ALU is plastered over pretty much everything Germanic for a big period of time.

>>2256
Very interesting Things being brought up, Ive read the whole thing but Ill think of a better response tomorrow. The only thing I can think of to say is that I think Odin being an older God than we assume might have validity, as I remember reading somewhere about a very early myth regarding a naked man who stands on a mountain top with an iron staff and uses it cause strife and chaos among men. Aesthetically it seems more jotun-like, but the behavior is much more like Odin and could be his earliest, harshest form.

>>2256
Well reasoned and intelligent insights.

>>2256 here

My mind keeps going back to OP's remarks on Tyr and the binding of Fenris, so here are a few corollary thoughts on its meaning:

Both Odin and Tyr have a tragic relationship with wolves

Odin is the pack leader of Geri and Freki, and feeds them at his table. During Ragnarok, the other wolf, Fenris, finally breaks free and kills Odin.

I see Odin as representing the soul of the European peoples, and obviously we've had a close relationship with wolves and their descendants, a much deeper one than the other peoples of the world. A feeling of kinship and camaraderie with the animals must've been central to ancient Europeans, but it came with a big caveat: the wild nature of the beasts was probably never far away. I deem it possible that, just like a young clansmen would sooner or later usurp his elder's status, young wolves might've tried to do the same thing (Man, Wolf and Raven were a seen as a single pack).

Tyr is a bit more lucky, and only loses his hand.

The binding of Fenris might represent a symbolic victory of Indo-Europeans over indigenous hunter tribes, one where both sides got something out of the conflict.

OP's remark that Tyr's missing hand is the one used to swear oaths is very interesting. If we draw a parallel with Odin, and interpret Tyr as the soul of the Indo-Europeans of that time, this suggests that by the time Tyr merged with the (proto-)germanic pantheon, the Indo-Europeans had somehow fallen from grace. Did their nobles grow soft, and got overpowered by new warlords?

I'm not really sold on either of these two hypotheses re:Tyr. I'm just putting them forward here. I'm more inclined to think of the meaning behind the severed hand as purely esoteric rather than mytho-historic.

Notice that Tyr did remain the god of heroic deeds, justice and single combat. Justice is particularly odd because he would certainly not be 'even-handed', right? Perhaps this entire myth represents a sense respect for past glory, one that implies that the truly noble-in-spirit ("Aryans") are not sullied by physical setbacks?

Now, what does Odin/Tyr/the Soul of a people being devoured by a wolf mean? It means that when one's time under the sun is waning, one should expect to be struck at a vulnerable spot, one you hold dear in your heart. And from which angles is European Man being attacked today? Feminism, open borders and social pyramid schemes: ""The Wolf turning against God is our own sense of respect for the Other that is being turned against us.""

>>2261
>I remember reading somewhere about a very early myth regarding a naked man who stands on a mountain top with an iron staff and uses it cause strife and chaos among men
Yes, there is this ever-so-slightly unnerving part about Odin, threatening even. Remember King Heidrek's lines to Odin's last riddle? "Only you know that, Monster!" Quite a different attitude towards the All-father than the Romans or the Jews. The Greeks might be the most similar culture in this regard, often depicting Zeus as a trickster.

There is one aspect of Odin that I want to connect to the naked man with the iron staff: his blood-oath with Loki. Loki is a giant - a force of nature - that causes strife and chaos. Why would an Aesir, representing much more subtle, abstract and human phenomena of Being, forge a bond with a brute aspect of nature? And one that is hostile to the world of Man to boot? Odin, being born from the soul of European Man, rejects anthropocentrism. It's one of those "wildcard" elements of the god: just like sacrificing an eye to gain insight, Odin accepts Loki's chaos, manipulation and eventually betrayal to further the Fate of the world: death and rebirth.

The man with the iron staff reminds me of a trope in Celtic fantasy: that iron symbolises progress and the brutalising of the spiritual (fairies' powers waning when iron is near etc.). I know nothing of celtic mythology, so I'm curious whether this is canon or some modern invention. Either way, the connection between strife and the disruption of the spiritual is not too far off.

all this talk is very very interesting and gave me a new found respect and curiosity over the northern religion. hope to see you fellows continue this discussion

>>2255
>>2256
What people lived in Europe before the Aryans invaded? I have searched for answers but have never found them, what did they look like? Did they resemble the Aryans?

>>2277
Well the Neanderthals for one, but I would think they wouldve been wiped out long before the Aryan invasion.

>2277
The details are still fuzzy. What is more or less understood is that we're admixed (oh no!), and that our 'typical' phenotypes - pale skin, blonde/red hair, blue/green eyes - came with different founding stock. Red hair might have been brought here by Indo-Europeans, since there are Turkic/Mongolian populations on the other side of the steppes that have it too (Genghis Khan being one of them). The oldest known inhabitants of Europe were probably dark-haired and dark-eyed. It's complicated.

>http://www.unz.com/gnxp/prehistoric-europeans-did-not-look-like-ayla/
>http://www.unz.com/gnxp/plows-of-the-gods/
>http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2013/12/23/001552
>http://www.unz.com/gnxp/men-of-bronze-men-of-iron/

Isn't Odin most often equated with Mercury/Hermes? He is the wanderer, he leads the dead to the afterlife, he is the apex of wit and banter, patron of poets, his horse can walk upon air, and he is very often a trickster for his own amusement.

>>2281
Yes, Odin is Hermes/Mercury, which makes him the odd one out in the (Indo-)European pantheons. Tyr, Indra, Zeus, Jupiter, Taranis all more or less line up together as Sky Gods, but Odin is syncretised as a Merchant/Travelling God. Which lead me to believe his genealogy is not Indo-European.

>he leads the dead to the afterlife
This is depicted as the Wild Hunt, if I'm not mistaken.

Varg Vikernes connects the Wild Hunt (which took place in the Dark Season) to the initiation/reincarnation rite in Yuletide. The idea is that the to-be-initiated 'mantle' their deceased forebears, in order to learn the traditions and secrets ('runes') of the tribe. Odin, in his capacity as Seeker of Knowledge (played by a presumed tribe elder who in turn 'mantles' the Allfather) gathers these 'dead' and leads them on a journey (perhaps to kill a totem animal, hence Wild Hunt). Somewhere during this journey, knowledge was passed on from the 'dead' via 'Odin' to the newly initiated.

By the way, OP, Collin Cleary wrote an article about Odin having a dual nature, which may or may not tie in with an Indo-European connection and, through it, the role of Tyr in the Indo-European tradition. It's called "Which God did Odin worship?", very interesting read.

>http://www.counter-currents.com/2011/04/what-god-did-odin-worship/

It draws parallels between Odin and Shiva, suggesting that the Indo-Europeans absorbed elements of Shivaism into their main deity, and did a similar thing with the Germanic religion, with the following caveat, quote:
>There is no reason, however, to believe that a religious evolution took place in northern Europe equivalent to that in India. There is no evidence that there was a “Germanic Shiva.”

If my line of thinking has a trace of truth in it, this objection is nullified, because the Germanic Shiva would be Odin. This would also clear the way for a deeper understanding of Tyr. If Cleary is correct, then we can isolate the Shaivite and Odinist elements, and the remaining aspects explained in the article would refer to the 'distilled' Indo-European All-Father, i.e. Tyr!

>>2280
Hmm, does this mean we're more Aryan than we are native-european? And if the native-europeans were not "white" then does that mean that per >>2256 's analysis Odin is not a "white" god? This really confuses me, I actually thought (and secretly hoped) that northern Europe was pretty much uninhabited and the Aryans just moved in, carrying their genes until today.
And if this thread's recent posts are right (Odin has a dual nature, one of which is crazy, unpredictable, and wild) does that mean Odin is an "evil" god?

>>2285
That was so bloody complex that it actually gave me a headache.
What am i supposed to get from that? Do you think any of that is true? All the occulty-magicky things with the obliteration of the ego and all that, seems awful fucking complicated.

>>2286
>does this mean we're more Aryan than we are native-european?
I don't know the exact degrees of admixture between European Hunter-Gatherers, Early European Farmers, and Indo-Europeans. I don't think it really matters either because:

- those groups were all racially close relatives; pale-skinned caucasians that weren't too different from each other, particular mutations aside
- all of them contributed in their own way to the heavily K-selected qualities that make us unique
- the current European populations are homogenous enough to qualify as a single distinct group (I read somewhere that, from Ireland to the Black Sea, a good chunk of our most recent common ancestors only go back a 1000 years. We're all pretty much family)

If you're anxious about where those archetypical chiseled Aryan features come from: Early European Farmers probably looked like Swedes today (not Rape Swedes, Ethnic Swedes).

>does that mean Odin is an "evil" god?
I don't think so. I believe it means Odin is Faustian and not Promethean. His trickery and brotherhood with Loki implies that knowledge is, besides precious, also amoral, and comes at a price. I'll write another post about that tomorrow.

>>2287
>Do you think any of that is true?
I have my doubts. The way that the passage of Odin as the Hanged Man is written is more easily explained by Varg Vikernes: that the Gods were understood as being impersonated or 'mantled' by their worshipers. So, an Initiate who re-enacts hanging on the World Tree while fasting for nine days would almost literally be sacrificing himself to Odin while being Odin.

So perhaps the article is wrong in that it gives a complex explanation of a simple problem, namely a wrongly perceived duality of Odin. On the other hand, the explanation is so esoteric that it might touch upon a deeper meaning of European paganism anyway. Let me clarify: what Cleary writes about the 'slow disintegration of reality' together with the 'fierce creative destruction', to me, rings similar to the tragic worldview that's also apparent in Greek drama, in the Kali Yuga, in the Berserker mentality,… this sense of the world being a chaotic wheel that tumbles along with Man being a hamster caught in the middle, trying to catch up.

>>2288
Thanks for your answers, and may I compliment you on your contribution to this thread and overall, this board. You've cleared up a lot of things to me, and seeing the views of other asatruars is always a good thing.
Germanic paganism to me always had a chaotic base, the same base that frightened the romans, the fact that war, instead of being dreaded, is accepted and glorified as a part of human nature, that destruction and chaos are accepted as a part of nature. I feel drawn to it by instinct, as if my spirit calls out to it, it feels natural.

>>2295
That is funny too because my friend (who is also asatru) one time had a dream where I had white hair and beard and was saying how "I have become Odin". I always played it off as something insignificant BUT since then I had learn from Varg of Burzum's videos how people would dress up as deities and ritualistically reenact some of their deeds to gain some of their qualities.

>>2289
>may I compliment you on your contribution
Thanks.

I'd like to encourage posters to write down their own theories and observations. If we're serious about restoring the Old religions, we have to 'discover the runes' ourselves first. Otherwise, we have no chance of drawing a larger demographic to our ways of thinking. LARPing with poems and jewellery won't cut it.

Therefore, we have to become Odin by ourselves, with no guidance other than ourselves (sacrificing Odin to Odin), so that we can be the guidance for a new line of initiations.

>>2286
>does that mean Odin is an "evil" god?

Like I foreshadowed in the other post, I think Odin isn't evil, but amoral. It's tempting to look at the Gods as 'on our side', but I believe that is a mistake - at least in the (Indo-)European traditions. The pre-Christian Gods are not theist Gods like the Hebrew God, constantly looking after Man's business, protecting and punishing where needed. They exist as part of the world as perceived by Man, but also exist through Man's actions.

In Germanic religion, we see a distinction in the way the numinous world is described: intangible-but-easily-perceptible forces like frost, hunger, time, natural disaster, wilderness,… are called Giants. In Greek mythology, the Titans occupy a similar place. The Gods (Aesir) are a step up from giants; they are also intangible, but much more abstract than something like 'hunger'.

For instance, Tyr/Mars/Ares represents 'war'. This includes battle, strategy, strife etc, but also the emergent principles surrounding the phenomenon war: 'be prepared or perish', the prisoner's dilemma of competing tribes, 'us or them',… all of these truths exist in the world, they are abstract things, but they have an effect upon our way of life, so we have to acknowledge them. This perception of emergent laws, of a certain order ('logos') behind the phenomenon of war is called the God of War.

I see Odin, then, as a Faustian God. I use 'Faustian' because Odin represents all the attributes of Europeans that Oswald Spengler identified by that name. You could say that the legend of Faust itself is a religious myth explaining the 'Odinian' spirit of the Germans.

Shortly summarised, what I understand as Odin/Faustian Man is
1) The Wanderer; the insatiable urge to push further, to discover something new (example: European Man discovering the New World, twice, then going to the Moon, looking for the edge of the universe, etc)
2) Seeker of Knowledge; wanderlust applied to the intellect, the desire to know and understand the Other (example: European Man splitting the atom, peering inside DNA to see how other races relate to him, etc)
3) The Hanged Man; the realisation that 1) and 2) come at a price, that knowledge can blind (and lose perception of depth, i.e. intellectualisation destroys spirituality), that Death is an inherent part of the lesson. Odin is at once an exhortation to give in to these urges, and at the same time a warning. (example: European Man conquers the world, and unleashes a 'rising tide of colour' upon his homeland, possibly dooming him forever)

Odin does not share the runes with Man, like a Promethean God would. Odin only shows us the map, and does not bother to rescue those lost in the territory. Odin shows us that knowledge is dangerous, and once you open the box, it's up to you to deal with it. Odin swore a blood-oath with Loki, meaning that knowledge and deceit go hand in hand (example: every intelligence operation ever).

This interpretation again links up with the tragic, fatalistic character of the (Indo-)European religions. I think the Faustian character is best symbolised by the Raven, as a darker, more ominous counterweight to the Promethean Owl. The Owl, with its huge eyes, 'catches the light', 'is illumined', and represents the Luciferian ideal that Man can transcend himself through knowledge. The Raven rejects such delusions, and goes on to eat carrion.

>>2296
This idea also makes more sense when you compare it to the purpose of ancient greek theatre

While we are on the subject of imitating the Gods to be enlightened by them, would I be too extreme or fanatical if I were to suspend myself from a tree in some way and cut myself across the stomach with a spear, just enough to draw blood, and hang there for 9 hours?

I have thought about this for many years

>>2337
I think it's a good idea, if you're serious about it.

The only reservation I have about the ritual of the Hanged Man is the purpose of the spear-wound.

I suspect this part of the story could've been syncretised from Christianity. The reverse could also be true, that the Evangelics syncretised a European motif via the Greek tradition, but I can't recall any other myths involving sacrifice by spear.

Another way to re-enact the ritual would be fasting for nine days. Seems very tough, though.

>>2350
Actually there are a few myths that relate to it. When Gullveig, an early Vanir, goes to the Aesir's land, they sacrifice her by stabbing her with spears and burning her alive.

Also, the Germanic tribes would sacrifice their victims to Wotan in the manner that he sacrificed himself, by hanging and stabbing with spears. The myth is much older than Christ and it was likely spread to Judea by Roman soldiers who told horror stories of the Germanics.

>>2389
There are many myths where Odin goes down to Earth and mates with mortal women, chooses champions or sends his Valkyries down to give wisdom to his chosen. The most glaring myth is the myth of Rig, which is about Heimdall but seems very Odin-like. Heimdall goes down to Earth, breeds with mortals and eventually produces a shining example who becomes the ancestor of all jarls. Rig approaches him from the woods when he grows older and teaches him runes and convinces him to ride to war and win glory.

>>2394
How is Rigsthula "Odin-like"?
I think Rigsthula is amazing though, the first the human offspring is black, dumb, yet strong, and it eventually leads up to a blond haired wise warrior.
Leads me to think that that was how the Germanic tribes thought of themselves.

>>2395
A God birthing a mortal being and instructing him on runes and warfare doesnt sound Odinic?

>>2405
To me it doesn't. It sounds like a Promethean act. This is personal interpretation, but the little that is known about Heimdall - a watchman, creator of social classes, kills Loki - seems to point towards him being some sort of God of Civilisation. One difference, instead of Prometheus, who brings progress and originates civilisation, Heimdall seems to be protecting, organising and avenging what already existed.

>>2405
>>2418
Nevermind, you were talking about Rig, not Heimdall.

Rig does have Odinic traits, esp. the 'approaching from the woods' part. Teaching the runes seems a little 'out of character' to me, but it might prove my interpretation faulty just as well.

>>2474
So you don't actually believe?
I believe in the gods, i believe they once founded our people or contacted us in a way and that our religion developed from there on.
>Like Odin, we must discover the runes ourselves.
Very inspirational line, thanks anon.

>>2479
>So you don't actually believe?
I do, but it's not the type of metaphysical objectivism of Abrahamic religions. If I had to describe it, it would be an awareness of reality that includes higher truths that are prior to Man, and shape our existence. To the best of my knowledge this approximates the pre-Christian Tradition.

The thing about 'pagan religion' is that it has a different meaning from an Abrahamic point of view, which demands an absolute belief in Revealed Truth.

Religion in the pagan sense did not ask something so totalitarian of its followers. Instead, religion implied a set of civic duties (rituals and mores), given form through a shared canon of myths, which could be taken literally by varying degrees among the less intellectually inclined, or which would serve as a framework for serious theologians and philosophers to discuss deeper truths. In that sense, a religion glues together otherwise stratified layers of society, in a formal way (during ceremonies etc) and in a substantial way (through shared cultural background).

In a sense, it invites the religious person to dive as deep into the rabbit hole as he cares to.

I think that, in our age and our situation, pagans cannot afford to be satisfied with a superficial belief that mirrors Christianity or Islam - one where most 'pagans' would pretend to believe in Odin and Thor existing as entities in some metaphysical plane - but instead we should dig deep and unearth the esoteric truths that have been lost or obfuscated through time. Only that way can we provide our people with a superior alternative to a dying Christianity, a tyrannical Progressivism and a predatory Islam.

tl;dr don't 'believe' in the Gods like they're a Disney pantheon, but search for the runes, i.e. become a master of the teachings that the Gods communicate with us.

>>2481
So you don't believe in the gods as actual beings, but only as a sort of culture, and that the gods are simply personifications of ideas and stuff?

>>2482
Yes, but:
- the Gods are not personifications, but emergent principles, or what the Hellenes would call logos. They are portrayed as personifications because that's what Europeans do. (Compare with Hindu or Shinto portrayals of Deities)
- 'ideas and stuff' are prior to Man, meaning that they exist independently of our perception of them; if all humans died tomorrow, there'd still be Gods, there'd still be Beauty, there'd still be Death, Rebirth, War, etc etc, but they'd lose their human aspects. That's why I say the Gods appear to us, but also exists through us, with human groups and individuals acting as their medium like a whirlpool is made of water molecules.
- the Gods that we call 'Odin', 'Dyaus Pater', 'Venus', 'Mammon' etc… exist independently of individuals in a core way, but are given ephemeral characters by different groups. That is why they appear on a certain level as human constructs.

>>2484
Regarding the third bullet point, Jung's writings on archetypes are a great way to gain insight to a typically European way of thinking about gods.

>>2484
How could you possibly believe that the ancient European races thought of the gods in this way? People praying and sacrificing to the gods would be meaningless, the runestones and staves would be too.
It would simply make them atheist.
This would make pagan religions just personifications of feelings, happenings and aspects.
Instead of worshipping Odin, you would literally be worshipping his aspects (i.e. war)?

>>2494
Thanks, i will await it.

>>2496

I hope he hasn't legged it I am very keen to hear his answer.

>>2563
>That's why I argue against focusing on how the Old Gods were celebrated, on what the social mores of the Vikings were and what trinkets to wear. It's too counter-cultural and too insular to achieve what Shinto has.

Unfortunately, theological discussions at the levels in this thread are largely unintelligible to those without a solid grounding in philosophy and religious scholarship and most of the people who are drawn to any given religion are looking for something to help them get on with their lives, not to illuminate the darker corners of the psyche. Treating everyone like they're going to be receptive to this isn't a good idea because most people simply aren't. Even among the greater peoples and cultures of the world, the subset of individuals who spend their time navel-gazing over issues like these with any success were a fraction of the intellectual elite and most of the common people just took their word for the issues to a greater or lesser degree rather than puzzle them out themselves. If European paganism is to be revived then what's going to have to happen is that there HAS to be some stratification, at least rhetorically, because for better or worse most people simply do not have the wherewithal to think critically at this level on a regular basis. Of course no knowledge should be denied to those who would seek it, but there has to be a crib sheet to all of this for people who can't devote the time and energy to exploring the subbasements of the human condition or who aren't sure if this tradition is something they want to be a part of.

>>2570
Objection noted. This type of discussion is not supposed to be what is talked about in a Heath gathering. But it should be an important part of religious initiation - there must be a core group that carries the knowledge forth and passes it on to the new generation. Yockey calls such a group the culture-bearing stratum. There can be no pagan revival without a serious, informed culture-bearing stratum. That's partly why we need to sort out our theology.

Another part would be something I already touched upon: how are we to fill the spiritual void of Europeans? In other words, how are we to appeal to, say, the mother whose children are out of the house, the blue-collar worker in a midlife crisis, or the confused and disenchanted teenager/student who begins to reject consumer culture?

For these people, gathering in a clearing and drinking mead isn't enough. Telling stories about Freya and Baldur isn't enough. What they need is two things:

- ritual: something that builds group-cohesion and has a high marketing value (one example: sword-dances for males, scouting camps for youngsters, harvest festivals for females)
- meaning: a way to translate the truths we discover about the Gods into something that people can draw strength from, morally and intellectually. Tell a man that he's a product of evolution and he'll be unimpressed and carry on his hedonistic lifestyle. Tell a man he's an unmissable part of an endless chain of life, and the carrier of values that transcend this chain, and he might become motivated to put in effort into our cause.

>>2740
Turan is also represented by the war chariot.

It surprised me to learn how relatively young war horses are. For a long, long time, horses were not physically large and robust enough to ride a grown man into battle. That's why the war chariot was such a revolutionary invention, for it provided the first means to become as fast as a horse on a battlefield.

Horses like we know them only came later. In his podcast series about the Mongols, Dan Carlin talks about old reports from Imperial China that discuss the disturbing development where steppe nomads have started to move on horseback.

Now, Tyr is one-handed. I wonder if it's possible to ride a war chariot in battle and be able to fight. It seems difficult (and dangerous) but do-able.

If we assume that the myth of Tyr losing his hand is older than the migration and subsequent Germanization, we can conjecture about the meaning of Tyr's lost hand in the light of this other Indo-European archetype, the chariot.

Some connections that come to mind:

- hubris: a warrior god that loses his hand; a warning that even the great can fall low
- perseverance: a one-handed warrior loses his worth in single combat, but the willpower of Turan finds a way around this, the hard way - chariot warfare is born
- alchemy of matter: man in his predicament takes in his surroundings and transforms them to his benefit - the wheel becomes a weapon, the steppe chattel becomes a partner in combat.

This is all far-fetched, but consider that to the average Turan steppe warrior, a tool like the chariot would have all sorts of totally obvious connotations that are unknown to us today. Would it be too much to suggest that, in the mind of an Aryan, the first thing that comes to mind with crippled warriors is the chariot? A symbol of a second chance?

>>2743
>Would it be too much to suggest that, in the mind of an Aryan, the first thing that comes to mind with crippled warriors is the chariot? A symbol of a second chance?

I would say so; chariot warfare was generally reserved for the elite because it was difficult to learn, expensive in terms of resources and was demanding both mentally and physically to the point that virtually all chariot forces had a dedicated driver and dedicated combatant(s) in each chariot.

There's a considerable intellectual pitfall, in my opinion, associated with speculation of this nature, and in fact you mentioned it yourself; namely that we are so far removed from the physical context of the mundane associations to the divine as they were used at the time that the risk of laying a faulty foundation comes to the forefront. One would look like an ass if they gave a lecture about divine symbology based on an incorrect assumption about X and then a skeptic or opponent with specialized knowledge stood up and poked a hole in everything by saying "that's not how X worked in ancient Europe and I have proof; this guy is an idiot and you shouldn't listen to anything he says". Archaeological and anthropological knowledge is probably the single strongest pillar of the Pre-Christian Tradition and it should be employed to its full advantage.

>>2284
Odin is Iranian, and probably Alanic.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/244505366/The-Functions-Revisted-pdf