Great to hear him refer to Carol Clover. Taking her class in Swedish Cinema 40 years ago resulted in my learning Swedish and studying cinematography in Stockholm, where I also rediscovered my grandfather’s long lost relatives. Now I’m here enjoying your conversation.
This was very interesting, indeed. On a long linguistic note: I love the fact that Gísli has a classic Mac in his office. Looks like a really early model too. Like the 128k or 512k.
wow! i think this will be quite the fascinating topic. shops are closing in an hour here in bavaria. so i'll go grab something to eat and then watch. this will be a productive friday night. thank you sir! your work is outstanding!
This interview was amazing! I watched the whole thing in one sitting, very exciting topics and information. A big thank you to Professor Sigurðsson for giving his time and insight.
I cannot put into words how much I love these ideas! Very similar to the way my own father used the sky to teach me things that he wanted me to remember. It is so much like the Egyptian elite knowledge captured in pictographs! My life perspective has changed because I heard this! Love it!!!!
I really like the comparison to anthropolagy as it leads straight into fairytales. If you go in an area and collect fairytales and then analyze them, you will realize they are all different variation on the same song, or sometimes even combinations of songs. But in the end likely deriving from the same riddle with the same meaning. I think the myths are no different, except that the poetry makes for a more rigid system than just themes. Fairytales are in fact the mythology of our time. This also ties into many people saying "wE dOnT KnOw If GeRmaNy HaD ThE SaMe ReLigIoN aS ScanDinaVia". We do know, in fact some of the most prominent stories of the Poetic Edda take place in Germany. However, of course you will find local variations on the same theme. That doesn't mean they're inherently different though, they've just branched out. For, will you claim that the branch of a tree is inherently different than its trunk? (That should address the redditors) P.S. Honestly if you reason it out it makes total sense. A common culture, that kept in touch with each other by means of travel, word of mouth and so forth, you will not find the exact same wording everywhere. But the same stories told in different shapes. It just makes sense.
Pre-emptive joyous happy noises! I was there for this interview and can't wait to watch it again this evening. Professor Sigurðsson was fascinating to talk to, I could have listen to him talk for hours.
Just finished watching and yep, I'm just as excited about the ideas he brought forward. Now I have the ability to stop the video, write down the references and go look them up myself!
Curious as this is exactly the path I've been walking when it comes to Norse myth. Going to be an interesting hout and a half for me! P.S. It's almost as if I knew this video was coming. Read all about stars, the constellations, the zodiac, the seasons, the eclipses, the calendar and the phases of the moon for the past month. Would really recommend stellarium to anyone, great tool to learn with.
Excellent talk! I’d read a bit about star lore and thought Yggdrasil as the Milky Way was a beautiful, evocative and plausible image. I love the idea of rewriting the sagas as courtroom drama. As a 21st century paralegal, I’d probably enjoy that viewpoint and get a lot more out of them.
Thank you for interviewing Gisli.....Long time coming...this idea....I have for decades thought the 3 stars of the belt of Orion are the 3 Norns....or the 3 Marys and so on...Mercury is the fastest mover. Of course , Odin. Hermes , the Good Shepard...who knows the way. This is worth watching twice. Interestingly the Brehon of Ireland pronounced judicial judgements in Poetic form, THE most beloved form of justice on record as least if the general public were asked - it took 1000 years for the Crown to stamp it out.
Absolutely fascinating talk. I’ve yet to read Professor Sigurdsson’s article on the subject. But one question that comes to mind is whether it was believed-as in Mesopotamian and ancient Indian cultures-that the stars enacted any “ influence” on the world and people, directing their fates and steering the course of worldly events, i.e. astrological influence. Was this the case? Also, regarding dramatization, I believe Neil Price (in More Than Mythology) has argued that some of the myths were performed in the context of funerary rituals, almost like plays. He refers to the kinds of “scene directions” and such found in some of the manuscript margins referred to briefly here by Sigurdsson.
I study Hermetic Kabbalah and I found Norse mythology invaluable in understanding The Tree of Life I would even go so far as to say that I don’t know if I would have been able to understand without the Norse Gods
There is the indiculus superstitionem, or whatever it's called. The index of a book on pagan superstitions. However only the index is left, so we get an idea, but not a thorough description. Also of course this is from the perspective of the church and in Latin. However maybe it's good to remember that time plays parts here. The contintinent was overwhelmed by christianity hundreds of years before Iceland was. That means the chance of documents on heathenism surviving becomes increasingly smaller, especially since it was the church itself who initially wrote these documents and perhaps later realized they should no conserve writings on heathenism.
Sir can you do one relating to any insultive words or curse words style video, ive been following beginning and along with my brother and would love to incoporate it so we can joke with each other
We should not confuse the constellations with the zodiac. Ancient people would be seeing the constellations, not the "signs". The tropical zodiac is a completely different system than the sidereal system. Tropical astrology is internally consistent, but is based on the ecliptic, not the fixed stars and constellations (except Vedic which is sidereal and lunar based). Astrological zodiac signs (both Tropical and Vedic) are different than the positions of the constellations in the astronomical system. BOTH systems make sense internally, but if mixed, do nothing but confuse the research. I love astrology as a psychological tool, but to study what ancient people SAW, I would use the actual astroNOMICAL positions of the stars (unless that ancient society had already adopted an astrological culture).
Per: saturday origin , doesnt sunnunótt mean "sun's night"? And its another Loki name for saturday or "sataere" = as if a "kenning" of "sun's night" as "The thief in ambush"? Its like a homophone with saturn?
I think the funniest thing about the zodiac is that well... You can't see it. The zodiac sign is the one the sun is in. And well.. If the sun shines, you can't see the stars. However, of course you can see which sign is in the west after the sun sets and before the sun rises in the east. So that requires at least some basic knowledge and observation of the zodiac itself. I don't know if that would the method they used or if there's something more obvious I'm missing here.
