Norse and Germanic · Edda, rune poems, seiðr in the sagas

Norse-Germanic: what the sources say

This path describes what the sources say about the gods and customs of the Germanic peoples and the North. It does not teach practice.

Full text with access in the app

Sources:Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, Germania, 98 · Anonymous, Lieder-Edda (Codex Regius), darin Hávamál, 1270 · Anonym, The Poetic Edda (englisch, Übersetzung: Henry Adams Bellows, 1923), 1923 · Anonym, Merseburger Zaubersprüche (Handschrift 9. oder 10. Jahrhundert) · Grimm, Jacob, Teutonic Mythology, Band 1 (englisch, Übersetzung: James Steven Stallybrass, 1882), George Bell and Sons 1882 · Stefanie von Schnurbein, Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism (Studies in Critical Research on Religion 5), Brill 2016

Sources and transmission

The texts of this path have different authors from different centuries. The Poetic Edda survives in an Icelandic manuscript, Snorri Sturluson died in 1241, and Adam of Bremen wrote around 1075.

Full text with access in the app

Sources:Anonymous, Lieder-Edda (Codex Regius), darin Hávamál, 1270 · Anonym, The Poetic Edda (englisch, Übersetzung: Henry Adams Bellows, 1923), 1923 · Snorri Sturluson, The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway (englisch, Übersetzung: Samuel Laing, 1844), Longman 1844 · Saxo Grammaticus, The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus (englisch, Übersetzung: Oliver Elton, 1894), David Nutt 1894 · Adam von Bremen, Hamburgische Kirchengeschichte (deutsch, Übersetzung: J. C. M. Laurent, Bearbeitung: Wilhelm Wattenbach, 2. Auflage 1893), Dyk 1893

Seiðr and Völva

“Seiðr” is the Old Norse word of the original texts for a magical art. Simrock translates it as “Sudkunst” (“art of seething”), Laing as “magic” and “witchcraft”.

Full text with access in the app

Sources:Anonymous, Lieder-Edda (Codex Regius), darin Hávamál, 1270 · Anonym, The Poetic Edda (englisch, Übersetzung: Henry Adams Bellows, 1923), 1923 · Snorri Sturluson, The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway (englisch, Übersetzung: Samuel Laing, 1844), Longman 1844 · Anonym, Eirik the Red's Saga: A Translation (englisch, Übersetzung: John Sephton, 1880), D. Marples 1880 · Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, Germania, 98 · Neil Price, The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (2. Auflage), Oxbow Books 2019 · Clive Tolley, Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic, 2 Bände (Folklore Fellows' Communications 296 und 297), Academia Scientiarum Fennica 2009

Runes in the sources

The sources tell of runes as writing that is carved, and they transmit rune names with mnemonic verses. A doctrine of what a rune answers to a question put to it is not found there.

Full text with access in the app

Boundaries

The blank rune comes from Ralph Blum's The Book of Runes of 1982. The Old English Rune Poem knows no empty sign.
The 18 “Armanen runes” are not an old series. They come from Guido von List (Das Geheimnis der Runen, published 1908, preface dated Vienna 1907). List derives them from the Hávamál. There are 18 songs there, not 18 signs.
Runes were co-opted in a völkisch sense (that of a racially defined German nationalism). List presented his signs as an expression of an “urarischen Weltanschauung” (“primordial Aryan worldview”). The racist interpretation thus begins before National Socialism: according to Stefanie von Schnurbein, the rune esotericists themselves spread it. The National Socialists took over individual rune signs, for example for the collar patches of SS uniforms. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the signs are of Germanic origin and were deliberately instrumentalised for right-wing extremist symbolism. Whether a use is punishable in Germany depends on the sign and on the context.

Sources:Anonymous, Lieder-Edda (Codex Regius), darin Hávamál, 1270 · Anonym, The Poetic Edda (englisch, Übersetzung: Henry Adams Bellows, 1923), 1923 · Anonym, The Story of Egil Skallagrimsson (englisch, Übersetzung: William Charles Green, 1893), Elliot Stock 1893 · Anonymous, Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem (8./9. Jh., Handschrift 10. Jh.) · Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, Germania, 98 · Michael P. Barnes, Runes: A Handbook, Boydell Press 2012 · Stefanie von Schnurbein, Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism (Studies in Critical Research on Religion 5), Brill 2016

Festivals and gods in the sources

2 authors report on festivals here: Snorri in the 13th century and Adam of Bremen around 1075, who writes from hearsay. Snorri describes the gods in the Gylfaginning.

Full text with access in the app

Sources:Snorri Sturluson, The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway (englisch, Übersetzung: Samuel Laing, 1844), Longman 1844 · Snorri Sturluson, Snorra-Edda, Gylfaginning (deutsch, Übersetzung: Karl Simrock, 6. Auflage 1876), Cotta 1876 · Adam von Bremen, Hamburgische Kirchengeschichte (deutsch, Übersetzung: J. C. M. Laurent, Bearbeitung: Wilhelm Wattenbach, 2. Auflage 1893), Dyk 1893 · Grimm, Jacob, Teutonic Mythology, Band 1 (englisch, Übersetzung: James Steven Stallybrass, 1882), George Bell and Sons 1882