[Open Post] Heathen Open Post

[jprussell]

Howdy,

So, I'm looking to strengthen some connections among Ecosophia-adjacent Heathens, and an easy first step seemed to be a regular open post here on my dreamwidth.

A few ground rules:

1. The overall goal here is for folks interested in Heathenry to meet, share resources, and so forth. So, even though I won't draw a hard line on "on-topic" against "off-topic," it would be best if posts have something to do with Germanic/Northern European polytheism, whether ancient or modern.


2. Let's keep things civil. Disagreement is welcome, but insults, rudeness, and attacks are not.


3. I don't expect enough traffic to need to put a hard limit on when this post will be open, but once the next open post goes up, please post any new discussions there.

Otherwise, welcome, and kindly say hello!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

What's the Germanic equivalent of Saturn? I hope we can someday rename "Saturday" so it isn't tainted by the Roman pantheon.

[jprussell]

That's a tricky question, and the fact that the day ended up staying "Saturn's Day" suggests that the ancient Germanic folks didn't have a fully satisfactory answer. Some folks have suggested one or another of the Jotnar as an equivalent, based on mythic parallels - say, Ymir or Mimir. One complicating factor is that Saturn, as worshipped by the Romans, may or may not have had that much to do with Kronos in the Greek myths - some of the parallels the Romans accepted seem less obvious to us than others, and less justified on modern comparative mythological grounds, and even where the parallel seems pretty good, the details of the cultus to that God often differed quite a bit between the Greeks and the Romans - for example, Mars and Ares seem to have had rather different worship associated with them.

Another approach I've seen a lot of heathens take is to throw up their hands, say "there's no equivalent, so I can worship Whomever I want on Saturdays" - Galina Krasskova describes her take on this in Devotional Polytheism (she uses Saturday for Loki). My own practice veers this way - I try to do something to honor the God of the day on each day of the week, and for Saturday, I've picked Idun, as She is personally important to me, and if you squint, has some similar associations to Saturn, at least as the Romans worshipped Him.

Personally, I've mostly let go of attempts to arrive at a "pure" "untainted" Germanic practice - syncretism and incorporation of various kinds were very much the norm among historic polytheists, though it didn't end up as the kind of bland, uncareful "eclecticism" you sometimes see among modern polytheists. I haven't gone so far as to offer worship to Saturn directly, but it would be entirely historically normal to bring in worship of one God from another culture if you had a personal relationship with Him.

I'd welcome anyone else's thoughts on this, as it's something I'm not wholly satisfied with my own answer on.

Cheers,
Jeff

[(Anonymous)]

Why are the planets named after Roman deities instead of Germanic deities in English?

[jprussell]

Hmm, that's a good question and I don't know the answer for sure, but if I had to guess, it would be because writing about the planets, whether what we would now call astrological or astronomical, was almost certainly done in Latin, even in Germanic lands, since that was the language of education and literacy (Anglo-Saxon England had a stronger than usual culture of writing in the "Vernacular" (meaning, the local non-Latin language), so I wonder if they might have some instances of referring to the heavenly bodies by their Germanic names, but I would guess probably not). I'm not positive on this, but I'm pretty sure that the days of the week were introduced much earlier, likely during the initial contact of the Germans and the Romans (German soldiers need to understand their Roman officer's orders, which might include days and times!), and that the planets would have come in later, likely in a more Christian context, where the Roman names for the heavenly bodies had been accepted as "just the names of those things in the sky" rather than "non-Christian Gods" - "translating" them to Germanic God name equivalents might have been a bridge too far for Christian monks.

All of this also points up that we don't know whether or not the ancient Germanic folks equated the Gods that ended up associated with the days of the week with the heavenly bodies of the same name in the Roman system - there's some evidence that Aurvandil/Earendil, for example, was seen as the Morning Star, and so that would seem to imply that the Germans didn't think that heavenly body was Frigg/Freyja. Likewise, Tyr/Tiw, from Whom Tuesday, might have been associated with Polaris, rather than Mars, despite being given "Mars's Day."

Once again, quite tricky and messy, unfortunately, but also again, if anyone else knows more, I'd love to hear it.

Cheers,
Jeff

[borealbear]

For whatever it's worth, in the Heathen Golden Dawn system I follow, Isaac Hill associates Saturn and Saturday with Njord. He also claims some "old Icelandic translators of Latin texts made the same correspondence".