I feel that a contemporary novel or play set in a Scandinavian country and a fantasy novel based on Norse mythology are indirectly connected if only because the former is about the descendants of the people that had created that mythology. In Uppsala, where there is now a cathedral, there
was a temple with idols of the Norse gods. When Stieg Larsson's Mikael Blomkvist travels north to the fictional town of Hedestad, he must pass through Uppsala. When Blomkvist investigates a series of Biblically based murders, he must consult a pastor - although about the Apocrypha, not about the Eddas. The national Church of Sweden is headquartered in Uppsala.
Odin and the Aesir are not mentioned although I sense their presence in the background. They were here in Northern Europe whereas it was a very different pantheon, the Olympians, that had held sway in Greece and Italy. This evening, I reread Poul Anderson's account of Odin appearing and intervening during the events of The Broken Sword, then returned to rereading Larsson's Trilogy. Sometimes it is a relief only to deal with human beings!
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
That pagan temple in Uppsala was also where human sacrifices were offered to the Aesir in HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA. Anderson had no illusions about Scandinavian paganism, as his prefaces to that book shows.
I don't share the admiration some have for paganism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
There was human sacrifice in the Uppsala temple and animal sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple and the Swedish Church headquartered in Uppsala celebrates an execution interpreted as the perfect and final sacrifice. There is complete conceptual continuity here.
The Buddha taught that the best sacrifice is an offering not of flesh to the gods but of fruit to the poor. That is a radically different tradition.
Paul.
In point of fact, the Norse and Greek pantheons were descended from an indentical root.
Eg., Zeus Pater -- Sky Father -- was in origin the same as Tyr.
Sure but they did become very different in their respective climates.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: The animal sacrifices offered to God in the Temple of Jerusalem were types or fore-shadowings of the once and for and infinitely sufficiently Sacrifice of the Incarnate Son of God on the Cross. That is what matters.
And the Old Testament was exhorting the Jews to show mercy and justice to the weak/poor before Buddhism existed.
Mr. Stirling: I agree, all the Indo-European peoples shared common origins for their pantheons.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We don't have to compete between Jewish and Buddhist moralities! And certainly not as to which came first. We have to recognize what is good or bad in all traditions.
I was referring to a Buddhist critique of "sacrifice." I maintain that blood sacrifice is a barbaric concept yet it is central to Christianity. God wanted His Son to be scourged and impaled? And this was necessary for our salvation? St Paul took this sacrifice idea and ran with it instead of leaving it behind.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, God chose to become Incarnate as Man and suffer on the Cross to PROVE His love for mankind and how much He would do to open the way to salvation for us. That infinitely transcends your complaint about "barbarism." And it did not start with St. Paul. And it's not going to be "left behind" because it's divine revelation.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The crucifixion only proves anything if you believe all that in the first place.
Mere dogma.
Infinitely transcends my complaint? It is a perfectly valid moral judgment that blood sacrifice is barbaric.
I think Paul played a big part in formulating Gentile Christianity.
Divine revelation? Dogma again.
Paul.
Sean: yeah, but as Paul points out, they became different. Not all -that- different, in some respects.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Noted.
Mr. Stirling: And my belief is that orthodox Christianity transcended or transmutated those similarities.
Ad astra! Sean
We don't know for sure, but the PIE's probably practiced human sacrifice. Some of their descendants dropped it, others didn't.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I am not in the least surprised, considering how imperfect human beings are! I fully expect there will be times when people will succumb to dark and barbaric practices, in the past, present, and the future. IWHBD.
Savagery and barbarism lies only an inch or two deep in any of us and any of our civilizations/societies.
Ad astra! Sean
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