Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deities

[Guest]

Through my studies of both history and linguistics I have come to find out the Odin/Woden/Wotan Wodanaz or however you wish to pronounce his name was not originally the chief god of the germanic pantheon especially before the viking age during the Roman Iron Age we know some tribes in Germani worhsipped him as the supreme god however otjhers may have worshipped Tyr/Tiw or Tiwaz in proto-germanic. reasoning is that all Indo european gods have the same origin linguistially Dyeus Pitar (proto- indo european) literally translates to Sky father which in turn spawned: Iuppiter (Jupiter), Zeu Pater (Zeus), Tiwaz (Tyr) etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion

Im curious how do heathens germanic/norse pagans view this or if they even know about it at all ? I for one actually feel tyr or tiwaz is more appealing to worship also it was believed he had a wife named Zisa or Cisa and she could have been the mysterious goddess referred to by tacitus in Germania as the "Isis of the Suebi" (a Germanic tribe bordering the Roman Empire).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Isis%22_of_the_Suebi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zisa_%28goddess%29

Your opinions as heathens ?

[Thorbjorn]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

I for one actually feel tyr or tiwaz is more appealing to worship ...

Your opinions as heathens ?

http://www.northernpaganism.org/shri...offerings.html

It wouldn't be the first time in history one God was supplanted by another. Krishna told the people of Govardhan they didn't need to perform Vedic sacrifices to Indra. That pissed Indra off so much that he threatened to flood the countryside. Krishna poo-pooed him and saved the people and the countryside. After that Indra was relegated to a lower status, but people still worship him. The Olympians replaced the Titans, and so on...

[Guest]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

I don't actually believe in the supernatural , but I'm asking from a historical standpoint whatis your opinion of there once being a different "father" god or "chief" god of the norse pantheon ? I personally feel if I were to worship something the more ancient the better the less corrupted by modern man. More unknown is good in this case that way you can connect with what the deity truly represents.

[thalassa]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

I personally feel if I were to worship something the more ancient the better the less corrupted by modern man. More unknown is good in this case that way you can connect with what the deity truly represents.

I don't think this holds true as a statement. 1) Man is no more or less corrupted or corruptable now than 100, 1000, or 2000 years ago. The technology is just different. 2) If its unknown, you have no verifyable way to know what the deity truly represents anyhow...its unknown, more lore has been lost. Heck, in some cases, you have no way of knowing if its a god or not.

[Guest]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

Those are all good points perhaps it is my subconscious desire to control even the gods if I know less then I would be able to insert more of myself over what I thought the deities were about.

[Norse_Angel]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

While I do not have a altar of Tyr, I do of Odin. In my mind, these are tied together in worship almost to the hilt. But Odin, being the father of our kind, is one to be thought of as the supreme God, the master of all in a sense. He breathed life into the elm and ash that would become man and woman; creating Midgard out of the bones and blood of Ymir, and being the creator of knowledge through self sacrifice (runes) I worship him as a master deity. Tyr sacraficed his hand in the binding of Fenrir, and thus, he brings the order of self sacrafice for the betterment of all. While many folk say that his oaths are serious, and must be followed, coming from the context of the same story of the binding of fenrir, I do say that this is highly false. He went against his own word in binding Fenrir, that word of setting free the beast. Wouldn't a God who most know as very serious on oaths follow his own preaching? This is my own opinion. Every oath and path I choose to follow has been executed properly, I do say, above all, Odin is the most serious in his, while Tyr is not.
This is my own knowledge on the topic.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

Through my studies of both history and linguistics I have come to find out the Odin/Woden/Wotan Wodanaz or however you wish to pronounce his name was not originally the chief god of the germanic pantheon especially before the viking age during the Roman Iron Age we know some tribes in Germani worhsipped him as the supreme god however otjhers may have worshipped Tyr/Tiw or Tiwaz in proto-germanic. reasoning is that all Indo european gods have the same origin linguistially Dyeus Pitar (proto- indo european) literally translates to Sky father which in turn spawned: Iuppiter (Jupiter), Zeu Pater (Zeus), Tiwaz (Tyr) etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion

Im curious how do heathens germanic/norse pagans view this or if they even know about it at all ? I for one actually feel tyr or tiwaz is more appealing to worship also it was believed he had a wife named Zisa or Cisa and she could have been the mysterious goddess referred to by tacitus in Germania as the "Isis of the Suebi" (a Germanic tribe bordering the Roman Empire).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Isis%22_of_the_Suebi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zisa_%28goddess%29

Your opinions as heathens ?

I have read this hypothesis several times, but as a hard polytheist Northern Tradition person, I'm not convinced that equating earlier Indo-European deities with later deities is an accurate thing to be doing. If we take that line of thinking back far enough, you'll end up with Norse deities being the same beings as Hindu deities (and yes, I have read this hypothesis somewhere... though I can't provide you a link).

Historically, Othinn was not worshipped as a primary deity in all of Northern Europe... Thorr, Freyr, Tyr and several combinations of the four were considered 'primary' deities in some communities. But you have to remember that our ancestors did not necessarily hold the same concept of hierarchy within the pantheons that we did... Othinn may have been the All-Father and the leader of the Aesir, but that did not mean that he was the most important god to the humans who believed in him.

I think that modern humanity's desire to categorise and form strict hierarchies within other societies (we do this with many animal species, too) is a symptom of our tendency to anthropomorphise everything. Unfortunately, that leads us to make some erroneous assumptions, and to fill gaps in the data with hypotheses that support our own relatively flawed modern-human-centric worldview. I do think that tracking the evolution of human societies through their migrations and cultural changes can be an interesting and valuable topic, but there reaches a point where we seem to stop valuing each stage of that evolution for itself, and I don't think that's useful.

When you value cultures and societies for what they were, rather than skipping through them to reach as far back as possible, it's clear that Othinn and Tyr are not the same beings as their Proto-Indo-European 'counterparts'. The extant historical records that we have do not equate them, nor categorically support the equating of them. Our linguistic 'evidence' is hypothetical reconstruction that cannot be proven. Our anthropological 'evidence' is similarly that... hypotheses.

Moving away from academic hypothesis, this topic does come up in Heathen and NT groups every now and then. Was Tyr supplanted by Othinn? Was Tyr once the leader of the Aesir? Honestly, I doubt it. The Lore and UPG suggests that Tyr is mostly of Jotunn stock, and that the Aesir came into being through the mechinations of Othinn and his brothers (who could be considered the first Aesir). Now that doesn't mean that Tyr wasn't once a supreme sky god... there is certainly plenty of compelling Lore, opinion, hypothesis and anthropological 'evidence' to suggest that the Aesir were not always the primary gods of Northern Europe. So was Tyr part of the pantheon that was worshipped before the Aesir? I do think that is possible. And if that's the case, then it's probable that he was a 'Sky Father'. I think it's also probable that this is why he was integrated into the Aesir pantheon so easily despite his heritage... because he is one of the few Jotunn deities of that period who represents similar concepts to the Aesir (order, civilisation, and justice and honor through the lens of a 'civilised' system rather than a primal or feudal one). That would support the idea that he was a kind of bridging deity... a precurser to the Aesir in that his importance in the mind of the cultures who may have worshipped him was directly related to how important the ideas of civilisation and order were to them. Then along came an entire pantheon who represented just those things, and so Tyr and his more primal contemporaries were supplanted by an entire pantheon who suited the evolving social climate of the time much more.

Most UPG that I've seen on the topic indicates that both Tyr and Othinn are tight lipped on the matter. Tyr seems to have supported the idea that both his parents were Jotnar, and that he was around at the time that Othinn and his brothers were carving out their own pantheon. But I've not seen much in the way of explicit comments about the idea of him having been The Supreme Sky Father before Othinn was. Othinn himself has evolved away from that identity over the ages, to the point that many people forget that before he was the wandering, one-eyed shamanistic king and keeper of dead warriors, he was a sky and weather god.

Personally, I don't think that older is inherently 'better' or more genuine. That's the sort of thinking that leads neo-pagans to claim that their particular flavour of paganism has an unbroken line of descent to some hypothetical goddess-worshipping utopian neolithic pagan society. And that line of thinking does exist in Heathenry and the Northern Traditions. But I disagree. What is 'better' for you is different to what is 'better' for me, or for the guy down the street. We value what is more relevant and relatable to our present social, mental and spiritual context. If that's a Proto-Indo-European Dyeus Pitar (or more accurately, *Dyeus Pitar seeing as it's a purely reconstructed 'name' that only exists in hypothetical linguistics) then so be it. But I think that it's important to understand the differences between theoretical academic hypotheses, concepts that are actually attested to in historical record (which we can further break up into primary vs secondary historical sources), and UPG.

- - - Updated - - -

Tyr sacraficed his hand in the binding of Fenrir, and thus, he brings the order of self sacrafice for the betterment of all. While many folk say that his oaths are serious, and must be followed, coming from the context of the same story of the binding of fenrir, I do say that this is highly false. He went against his own word in binding Fenrir, that word of setting free the beast. Wouldn't a God who most know as very serious on oaths follow his own preaching? This is my own opinion. Every oath and path I choose to follow has been executed properly, I do say, above all, Odin is the most serious in his, while Tyr is not.
This is my own knowledge on the topic.

This is slightly off topic and may be better served in it's own conversation, but I'd like to point out that I think this opinion is not particularly well attested to in the Lore. Yes, Tyr broke his word to Fenrir, but he was the only deity involved in that situation who was willing to face up to the fact that they were all lying, and to pay the consequences. He understood that breaking his oath in that situation was important for the 'greater good' (whatever that may be) and he was willing to knowingly sacrifice his sword hand, his usefulness as a warrior, and a part of his honor in order to do what he believed was important. He accepted responsibility for his actions and accepted the consequences. Every other Aesir and Asynjur who was involved in that ran from their culpability and justified themselves through self-righteous scape-goating, including Othinn.

Which brings us to the erroneous idea of Othinn's perfect and serious record in relation to keeping oaths. How many times did Othinn make a promise, then wiggle his way out of it somehow? A read through the Poetic Edda will bring up too many examples to list. Othinn is NOT a good role model to hold up as a deity who keeps his word. He continuously broke his promises, and rather than own up to his actions, he found excuses, self-righteous justification and scape-goats to take the blame.

Personally, I think there is far more honor and integrity in Tyr's actions during the binding of Fenrir than there is an any of Othinn's escapades.

[Guest]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

I think that from a purely linguistic and historical perception Tyr or Tiwaz is the corrupted sound of Dyeus = dewas= Tewaz meaning sky honestly I don't go by any of the Norse myths because my goal is to try and reconstruct the continental religion especially during the roman and earlier period. I go with what I can learn from history and language and I go from there. All gods had common linguistic ancestors brought with them as the Indo-European people spread out across Eurasia, sometimes you just have to accept what science and analytic tell us I'm sorry Tyr was the chief god of the original pantheon for me. But then again Im a skeptical atheist so you may beleive whatever you wish to this is kind of a personal spiritual thing I'm doing.

[Rick]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

Even those with many-lettered degrees don't always agree on etymology; it is a slippery slope, at best. As an amateur, I find it interesting, but it is evidence rather than proof.

[thalassa]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

Even those with many-lettered degrees don't always agree on etymology; it is a slippery slope, at best. As an amateur, I find it interesting, but it is evidence rather than proof.

cough*theres no such thing as proof in science, its all evidence*cough



*thalassa sneaks back around the corner*

I have read this hypothesis several times, but as a hard polytheist Northern Tradition person, I'm not convinced that equating earlier Indo-European deities with later deities is an accurate thing to be doing. If we take that line of thinking back far enough, you'll end up with Norse deities being the same beings as Hindu deities (and yes, I have read this hypothesis somewhere... though I can't provide you a link).

Well, the evidence for god-name cognates in early Indo-European languages dates from before Germanic languages even existed. Language evolves and picks up its own traits with (relative) geographical and cultural isolation as the culture that has migrated interacts with its new environment (including peoples that may have existed there before and neighbors). Proto-Germanic was very likely one of the first languages to split from the Indo-European family (with a lot of borrowing from the later splitting Celtic and Baltic and Slavic languages) or was one of the later splitting languages with a lot of borrowing from the earlier splitting Celtic and sharing a common origin with the Baltic and Slavic languages)--its apparently a difficult split to date because of the heavy borrowing---somewhere between 3300-2800 BCE. Most IE languages evolved as the "tree model" basically, it looks like and biological evolutionary tree, but linguistic innovation and borrowing also occurs in a way that is something like the movement of water when dropping a stone into still pool (called the "wave model).

The idea that the gods don't evolve with the people, I think ignores the very basic facts of biological and cultural evolution. It doesn't mean that they are the same deities--obviously time, changing conditions, and changing beliefs has made them into or caused them to become something else, but rather that they share a common origin. The gods may be timeless*, but they aren't unchanging. The evolution of El, a Cannanite storm god into a triune monotheistic big G, little -od over a couple thousand years isn't much different in this regard.


*And by timeless, I mean dictionary.com definition 1 or Mirriam-Webster definition 2, but not 3; and not the OED definition at all, in which case I'd have to say that the gods are enduring but not timeless.

[Teutonicus]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

If you look at the word, Teuton, it basically means person or people of Teu, Tiw, Tyr, etc. The Teuton tribe, before their name became synonymous with all continental Germanic tribes, considered themselves descendants of Tyr. This was not an uncommon belief. Numerous Germanic tribes believed themselves to be direct descendants of various gods. Since there was never one unified pre-Christian doctrine for Germanic pagan beliefs, different regions revered some gods more than others. Even in Scandinavia there were pockets of peoples who revered Frey more than Odin. It's hard to say whether Odin took over the pantheon or if he simply "won" by default due to the spread of Christianity. The regions that revered Tyr more than Odin converted to Christianity first. Unfortunately we'll never know for sure what happened and why. There simply just isn't enough concrete evidence supporting one theory over another. But on a personal note, it was Tyr that first spoke to me and guided me back to the spiritual home of my ancestors. I consider him to be my patron deity. How I make sense of it is that Odin is the All-Father, but Tyr is MY father.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

Well, the evidence for god-name cognates in early Indo-European languages dates from before Germanic languages even existed. Language evolves and picks up its own traits with (relative) geographical and cultural isolation as the culture that has migrated interacts with its new environment (including peoples that may have existed there before and neighbors). Proto-Germanic was very likely one of the first languages to split from the Indo-European family (with a lot of borrowing from the later splitting Celtic and Baltic and Slavic languages) or was one of the later splitting languages with a lot of borrowing from the earlier splitting Celtic and sharing a common origin with the Baltic and Slavic languages)--its apparently a difficult split to date because of the heavy borrowing---somewhere between 3300-2800 BCE. Most IE languages evolved as the "tree model" basically, it looks like and biological evolutionary tree, but linguistic innovation and borrowing also occurs in a way that is something like the movement of water when dropping a stone into still pool (called the "wave model).

This is where my comment...

But I think that it's important to understand the differences between theoretical academic hypotheses, concepts that are actually attested to in historical record (which we can further break up into primary vs secondary historical sources), and UPG.

... becomes important. I understand the way that comparative linguistics works. But as I'm sure you know, linguistics and etymology are not exact, quantitative sciences. They are theoretical academic hypotheses, based on theoretical reconstructed sounds, which in some cases are not even reconstructed words, but roots. The 'evidence' that they provide is entirely hypothetical, as much as historical linguists would like us to think otherwise.

The idea that the gods don't evolve with the people, I think ignores the very basic facts of biological and cultural evolution. It doesn't mean that they are the same deities--obviously time, changing conditions, and changing beliefs has made them into or caused them to become something else, but rather that they share a common origin. The gods may be timeless*, but they aren't unchanging. The evolution of El, a Cannanite storm god into a triune monotheistic big G, little -od over a couple thousand years isn't much different in this regard.

I would argue that linguistics is not evidence that the gods themselves share a common origin, but that our human understanding of, and categorisation of, the gods shares a common origin. Many of the historical deity cognate names are not names, but titles which have become names, or are linguistic evolutions of earlier titles which have become names. El is a lovely example of that (though El as storm god is a relatively late association, tied up with the changing names of his sons and the appearance of Ba'al as a name rather than a title, which nicely illustrates the point of our understanding and interaction with gods evolving over time).

I don't believe that the gods don't evolve. I'm generally pretty vocal about the fact that I believe the gods DO change, evolve and adapt. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they have all evolved from the same beings. And this is perhaps where it comes down to hard polytheism vs pantheism. If you believe some version of the idea that gods are all manifestations of the same being, then it stands to reason that comparative linguistics points you in the direction of 'all gods from the same ancient source'. But if you believe some version of the idea that all gods are distinct individuals, then comparative linguistics is more a study of HUMAN evolution and our understanding of the gods, rather than the gods themselves.

[Ullr's Chaote]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

I don't actually believe in the supernatural , but I'm asking from a historical standpoint whatis your opinion of there once being a different "father" god or "chief" god of the norse pantheon ? I personally feel if I were to worship something the more ancient the better the less corrupted by modern man. More unknown is good in this case that way you can connect with what the deity truly represents.

Historically I think the shift in head of the pantheon results from not only a shift in age but also a shift in ideals. Tyr was a god of war but he was rigid and stern, chivalrous but not pulling out chairs or the ilk, chivalry in the sense of combat should be done certain ways with certain rules. Odin is a god of war but he is also wise, he is the god of tricky war, guerilla tactics and cunning war that knows little honour beyond fighting well and defeating the enemy. It's a shift in ideals of the people as needs dictate.

[Norse_Angel]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

Mmm, I wouldn't say Odin doesn't know humor. He was always amused with Loki's antics throughout the Eddas.
just a point of clarification. Otherwise, I agree with that theory.

[Ullr's Chaote]

Re: Just curious What do Heathens or Norse/Germanic pagans think of the shift in deit

Mmm, I wouldn't say Odin doesn't know humor. He was always amused with Loki's antics throughout the Eddas.
just a point of clarification. Otherwise, I agree with that theory.

I'm not certain whether you're referring to post or another's but in case it is mine I would like to add that I by no means think Odin is humourless. I actually think of him as that awesome Grandfather who loves jokes and little pranks. (Though since he's a god maybe not so little)