Thor, thunder god to the Norse,
heard a rhyme about him and a horse.
"I don't so much blame
for the pun on my name,
but a filly? I use goats, of course!"
(Alternative version:
Thor, god of thunder up north,
heard a rhyme about him and a horthe ...)
:-)
Excuse the intrusion. I'm a recent lurker on the list, and a lay participant in
both senses, being neither a religious nor an academic -- I don't expect to
contribute much in general, but have been having trouble resisting the
limericks. I found your list while searching on the web for information on St.
Erkenwald (I'm involved in planning a small performance of the Erkenwald poem,
in middle English and with medieval music, near Boston this spring -- May 13 at
the Somerville Library, if any of you are in the area and want to support
amateur early music performance) ...
Since I'm introducing myself after all, I'll mention another topic I've been
curious about for some time, which I've been hoping would come up in the
discussion sooner or later -- late European paganism and the period of
conversion to Christianity. I'd like to have a clearer picture of what was
going on than the standard "well, they were all converted by the sword, weren't
they?" A few years ago I read through Bede with this in mind, but while he's
happy to wax eloquent about those pesky Irish Christians with their funny
tonsures and outlandish views on the correct date of Easter, he does pretty much
take the conversion of the pagans for granted and only mentions them when
there's a good miracle/martyrdom story to tell. I know there were lots of
missionary trips into the German areas, etc. and there were supposed to have
been debates staged by kings, to decide what religion to tell their subjects to
all adopt; has anyone taken a look at all this from, say, a social history
standpoint?
Among the discussions of the Erkenwald poem in the list archives I did notice
that "The search for Anglo-saxon paganism" by E. G. Stanley came up, and I
looked for it but libraries don't seem to have circulating copies. I'd be
interested if anyone could recommend a book that might be more readily
available.
Like I say, I'm not a serious scholar on this subject, and there's no urgency at
all to my question; I'm only curious.
Jonathan Gilbert, returning to lurking ...
[log in to unmask] on 03/24/2000 01:43:32 PM
Please respond to [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
cc: (bcc: Jonathan Gilbert/Dragon Systems USA)
Subject: Re: non-Christian poetry
Dear Oriens,
Thor's favored means of transport was a goat-cart,
not horseback. Odin, on the other hand, had a great horse
(male) with 8 legs.
meg
> In fairness, we should also have a competition for the best
> non-christian medieval religion poem. Here's one for starters:
> Thor, the god of thunder
> Was riding on his filly.
> "I'm Thor!" he cried.
> His horse replied,
> "Well, use your thaddle, thilly."
> Oriens.
> ____________________________________________________________
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Margaret Cormack [log in to unmask]
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion fax: 843-953-6388
College of Charleston tel: 843-953-8033
Charleston, SC 29424-0001
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