Sarah
'Or where did christianity get such ideas in the first place?'
Of course - that too - we've learnt not to draw too impervious a line
between primitive christianity and classical magic/paganism. Guess the wyrd
thing is about trying to sort out the so-called 'indigenous' beliefs of
Europe -
some people are very caught up in that project - especially in some nordic
circles with the occasional taboo about the 'land of eastern promise' ; )-
'love and do what you will'
mogg
: ) .....................................: )
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Mandrake of Oxford" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 7:31 PM
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Any Germanic / Norse Studies on the
Meaning of Wyrd?
Dear All
Interesting post from which I learnt something. Although I'm not so
surprised that there are christian/classical influences on European pagan
thought - its another indication that its probably a mistake to draw too
impervious a line between christianity and 'paganism'. For some neo-pagans
its maybe a uncomfortable thing - there are lines Taliesin that some have
dismissed as christian interpolations and i've heard that some 'neo-pagan'
renderings have gone so far as to edit them out. My friend the writer Jan
Fries has always taken a different, IMO more relatistic stance to these
things. Do you think Odin on the World Tree is influenced by the accounts of
the crucifixion??
bb/93
mogg
Hello to all,
On 7/10/06, jacqueline simpson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Rudolf Simek's 'Dictionary of Northern Mythology'
> (1984 German edition, 1993 Eng transl) mentione a book
> by G.W.Weber 'Wyrd' (Bad Homburg, 1969). He writes on
> p. 374: "Weber has been able to show that the
> expression 'wyrd' (which glosses Latin 'fortuna') is
> unlikely tohand down heathen-Germanic thought, but
> rather a medieval view of the world based on late
> Classical-Christian beliefs, and therefore ought not
> to be brought as evidence for a belief in fatalism
> among Germanic peoples."
The obituary "Gerd Wolfgang Weber (1942–1998)" signed by Lars Lönnroth
and appeared on alvíssmál 9 (1999), pp. 93-94 (electronic edition
here: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~alvismal/9obitgww.pdf) had:
***
[...]
His doctoral dissertation, Wyrd: Studien zum Schicksalsbegriff der
altenglischen und
altnordischen Literatur (Bad Homburg 1969), supervised by Klaus von
See, also reveals to
some extent the influence of Turville-Petre, but it is at the same
time an independent, learned,
and far-reaching study in Germanic philology, dealing with the idea of
fate in early West Ger-
manic and Old Norse texts. Weber demonstrates that the concept of wyrd
is not genuinely or
exclusively Germanic, but rather is influenced by classical Roman and
Christian thinking,
transmitted to Anglo-Saxon writers through Latin texts such as De
consolatione philosophiae
by Boethius. The dissertation shows that Weber, even at the earliest
stage of his career, was able to deal with a variety of Germanic and
Latin sources and draw critical conclusions from many kinds of
philological and literary evidence.
[...]
***
Best regards,
Roberto
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