Woah, I love this! I really want to get more into ancient poetry of Norse and Irish origins, getting into druids and bards and poets of long ago, and words of power.
Thank you for this inspiration and insight, truely fascinating <3
Woah, I love this! I really want to get more into ancient poetry of Norse and Irish origins, getting into druids and bards and poets of long ago, and words of power.
Thank you for this inspiration and insight, truely fascinating <3
Sadly we know almost nothing about the druids - but the Norse mythology has many sources. For a quality introduction in fictive form I have heard that Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman should be good
If you are interested in the philological aspects or want the original texts I am not sure what to propose but your local library might help you with that.
Good reading :)
There is actually a pretty good collection of information for the Irish cycles, other places not so much. I have a few books of my own, one of Goddess' and the brief history of the druids by Peter Berresford Ellis. It seems to be a strong introduction.
I also use the website BardMythologies for the Irish stuff. I have read that bards, druids and poets, although not entirely the same are quite similar, so you can infer a lot of stuff about the poetic schools is also similar to the druidic schools.
Is there a Norse equivalent to the druids? I know I have read about Scandinavian shamans at least.
Thank you for your time!
The druids play a big role in Irish mediaeval mythology, that is true, what I meant was that almost nothing remains of their religion and myth. The Romans eradicated them rather thoroughly, and the best sources we have are Roman. But as with the Slavic mythology a lot can of course be gathered from folklore.
In Scandinavia you had heathen priests, probably very much like the druids, called godi. They are named on many runestones. You also had female sorceress, called seid-women or vølva just like the one that is supposed talk in the poem I wrote about above.
No problem with using my time! I am just glad people will write some real comments instead of great post, sir. I will see if I can find Peter Berresford Ellis' book about the druids.
Have you ever studied the Tuatha de Danaan of Ireland?
It is a shame that the Romans basically did cultural genocide, like all over the place. What they didn't eradicate Christianity twisted to fit their own stories. Most of the ancient Irish stories were written by medieval monks.
I really would love to get into studying Norse and Scandinavian myth and old religion, I find it entirely fascinating. I have scottish and dutch anscestors, do you know if Scandanavian old religion reached as far south as to Holland?
I think that comments add quality and insight into posts, so I try to make them relevent and interesting haha. Its a good way to make friends too.
No, I only have a superficial knowledge of the Irish mythology; I never read any of the original texts, but it is something that I would like to study more especially because my comic is about England and sports three forgotten Celtic Gods (of my own invention). So it is very much on my todo-list.
There's a lot of literature about Norse Myth and you can also find translations of the original texts in English, which is what I find most fascinating. Even on the internet I think. I have a special Nordic website with all the original texts I use, but it is in the West Scandinavian languages only.
Holland was as far as I know a bit of a borderland between the Celtic and the Germanic world and as the Rhine, that became the frontier of the Roman empire after they gave up on conquering the wild Germanic people, runs south of Holland there is a good chance that they shared the same Gods and myths. Scotland is even more connected to the Northern cultures, even today. If you take your boat and go straight west from Denmark you will end in Scotland, and many Danes did exactly that back in the time of the Viking invasions. You have many places in SCotland with old Danish names.
In this post for example the most interesting things is in the comments :)
Irish myth is entirely fascinating. Bard Mythologies has audio recordings of myths you can listen to for easy learning too! I want to make update posts about the Tuatha, I have written a really long essay on them haha.
I did not know that Holland was on the border between them all, very interesting indeed. I really want to get deeper into my own ansestry and history, its very fascinating stuff! I couldnt learn enough about ancient history in a single lifetime haha.
Also, sounds like a cool comic!
Thanks I will try to check them out. When making not too complicated work I sometimes listen to podcasts.
I post my comic here on Steemit every Thursday and you can also read it here: http://phillfromgchq.co.uk/
sweet will check it out!