Phryne is awesome, like a vessel of Power. When she laughs, Eodan makes:
"...the sign against trolldom." (p. 82)
She reminds him of a newly initiated "...Cimbrian godwife..." (p. 80) I cannot find "godwife" anywhere else. A godwife is riven by Powers that she must rein and drive.
The word "darkling" occurs again, this time referring to an inner darkness:
"...the darkling Northern part of his soul..." (p. 82)
To disguise Phryne as a boy, Eodan cuts off her hair which she will sacrifice to Hecate. He himself dons a hat and a cloak, takes up a staff and begins to look like Odin although, as yet, this garb is a mere disguise. Phryne dyes his yellow hair black.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
"Prophetess" might more clearly bring out what Eodan meant by "godwife" in referring to Phryne?
And I immediately thought of ODIN when I red of Eodan donning a hat and cloak before taking up a staff!
Ad astra! Sean
Gggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I meant "read" not "red" in the last sentence of my first comment.
Sean
BTW, keep in mind that for thousands of years, -everyone- wore a hat. You put on a hat whenever you went outdoors; more people wore hats than wore shoes.
And for a very long time over a very wide area, a whole lot of people wore cloaks and carried walking-staffs or sticks. One reason quarterstaves were the common man's weapon was that carrying one was completely unexceptional and common as dirt.
A sword marked you as a gentleman. A staff was just... a staff.
So Odin is like a god of the people?
He's a God who's adept at disguise -- at impersonating ordinary people, and who frequently travels among humans.
Hence his name "Gangertlei" -- Wanderer.
(Gang, as in "gang oot" in Scots dialect, is from the same word rhe oot.)
Germanic pagans had a myth or belief that if you mistreated a traveler and refused him hospitality, you might be doing it to Odin in disguise, and you'd be punished for it.
(The Greeks had an identical myth about Zeus, by the way.)
One of the apostles, I think Paul, was mistaken for Zeus in disguise in a Greek city in what's now Turkey.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Oh, I knew of how hats were once worn by practically everybody in Western countries until the 1960's. In the US, it seems to have been John F. Kennedy's example in wearing hats that made it so fashionable to abandon head wear. Albeit, many wear baseball caps, a reduced, scaled down hat.
And one of the skalds of St. Olaf of Norway was famously refused hospitality for the night while on a mission for the king, because of being a Christian. This skald composed a verse on the spot indignantly protesting this breach of customary hospitality.
Correct about St. Paul, altho I don't recall offhand which pagan god he was mistaken for and where this incident happened.
Paul: No, Odin was not particularly thought of as a "god of the people." Poul Anderson thought of Odin as being esp. worshiped by aristocrats and warriors. Thor was the god favored by yeomen and crofters.
Ad astra! Sean
Odin was the warlord's god, but he was also the God of the marginal and the outcasts, of poets ands of wanderers and magicians. Full-time warriors, a lord's retainers, worshipped him; they were more cut off from the everyday life of families and households, and welcomed the battle-frenzy that Odin sent and which was the other side of the creative frenzy of the poet.
Even his worshipers thought Odin uncanny and sinister; and he always turned on his favorites in the end, reaping them for his band of einherjar in the Hall of the Slain.
Thor was more the God of respectable householders and farmers, of the solid stubborn virtues -- and a bit thick-headed, as opposed to Odin's command of dark wisdom.
Note that Tyr was originally the God of kingship and of war, and also of law. He gave his hand to bind Fenris, the wolf who would one day devour the world. Kings waged war to defend their people in his name.
Odin sort of took over some of his functions; but originally he was primarily the God of death, the one who conducted the soul to the afterlife.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I sit corrected, about the functions and aspects of Odin!
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment