Vikings - Best Of Legends

Fuente:

http://bestoflegends.org/sagas/viking.html

Información:

Sagas & Sea-Kings

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Sigurd the Volsung · The Northern World · Vikings

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The Vikings, like other sea-rovers, are not as romantic as nineteenth-century fiction would make them out to be; neither are they exclusively the blood-thirsty ravishers depicted in the chronicles of the monks of England and Ireland who were (or feared to be) the victims of their depredations. They may not have worn horned helmets, but they did sail ships carved with dragons' heads and they ventured far out into the western sea in search of new lands and adventure.

The Viking World

The Vikings, an introduction by Dr. Arne Emil Christensen of the University Museum of National Antiquities in Oslo.

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Scandanavia and the Northern Seas: Vikings, an essay by Tamsin Hekala at ORB, the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies.

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The World of the Vikings, "the definitive educational guide to viking resources on the internet".

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Viking Heritage, a network for Viking-related knowledge at Gotland College of Higher Education, Sweden.

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The Jorvik Viking Centre in York, England. New URL.

Viking Art and Ornamentation

Viking Art surveys the styles that of ornamentation that are labeled Oseberg, Borre, Jellinge, Mammen, Ringerike, and Urnes.

Ships and Explorations

The Lapuri Find, a Viking Age ship excavation in southern Finland.

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L'Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland may be the site of the Vinland settlement. New URL.

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The Viking Ship Home Page, by D. L. Ashliman at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Vikings in the New World by William Bakken includes an Overview.

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The Vikings in Vinland, an article from The Athena Review.

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The Vinland Map has been the subject of controversy for decades; here's an illustrated chronology of the debate to date by J. Huston McCulloch. There are photoreproductions of the map at Jim Siebold's Cartographic Images page.

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Top · Home · Colophon · Notes on the Illustrations · Site Map

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26 August 2005

Sagas & Sea-Kings - Best Of Legends

Fuente:

http://bestoflegends.org/sagas/index.html

Información:

Sagas & Sea-Kings

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Sigurd the Volsung · The Northern World · Vikings

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Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer is the hero of the anonymous thirteenth-century Icelandic prose epic Völsungasaga, based on legends of Old Scandinavian folk culture that survive in the Elder Edda (or Poetic Edda) and the Younger Edda (or Prose Edda). The story of Sigurd the Volsung in turn served as a source for authors from Richard Wagner to William Morris to J.R.R. Tolkien.

Contemporary with Völsungasaga is another version of the tale, the Middle High German epic the Nibelungenlied. Here the story of the hero (called Siegfried) takes on a High Gothic gloss of knighthood, where Völsungasaga retains the primitive and pagan force of its Eddic precursors.

The nineteenth century saw a real vogue for the saga tales, and the English William Morris and the German Richard Wagner represent the most important resurgence of the Eddic material and spirit ... [Robert W. Gutman, in the Introduction to Volsunga Saga, Collier Books, 1962]

William Morris's 1870 translation of the Volsunga Saga was the crowning achievement of his translations from the Norse sagas, and in turn fathered his lyric poem Sigurd (1877), a retelling of the Saga with elements from the Nibelungenlied contemporaneous with Wagner's Ring cycle. Morris's saga translations also influenced his Tale of the House of the Wolfings, and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse (1889).

When the young J.R.R. Tolkien won the Skeat Prize for English in the spring of 1914, he used the proceeds to purchase copies of Morris's Volsunga Saga and The House of the Wolfings:

In this book Morris had tried to recreate the excitement he himself had found in the pages of early English and Icelandic narratives. The House of the Wolfings is set in a land which is threatened by an invading force of Romans. Written partly in prose and partly in verse, it centres on a House or family-tribe that dwells by a great river in a clearing of the forest named Mirkwood, a name taken from ancient German geography and legend.... Its style is highly idiosyncratic, heavily laden with archaisms and poetic inversions in an attempt to recreate the aura of ancient legend. Clearly Tolkien took note of this, and it would seem that he also appreciated another facet of the writing: Morris's aptitude, despite the vagueness of time and place in which the story is set, for describing with great precision the details of his imagined landscape. [Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien: A Biography, 1977, p. 70]

The Tale

The tale of Sigurd Fafnirsbane is repleat with dragon-treasure, a broken sword reforged, shield-maidens, and a dwarf-ring that brings a curse on its wearers. The Story of Sigurd, from Andrew Lang's Red Fairy Book, at the University of Virginia.

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The Story of the Volsungs with excerpts from the Poetic Edda, translated from the Icelandic (Old Norse) by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson (from the 1888 Walter Scott Press edition), at the Online Medieval and Classical Library at Berkeley.

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Völsunga saga in Old Norse.

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The Story of Sigurd the Volsung, excerpts from William Morris's epic poem, at Representative Poetry Online at the University of Toronto.

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Sigurd the Volsung, an essay on Sigurd's place in Morris's work, from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21), online at Bartleby.com.

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The Nibelungenlied, a text based the translation by Daniel B. Shumway (Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1909) at the Online Medieval and Classical Library at Berkeley.

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The Nibelungenlied, from In Parentheses, and Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Niblung: Siegfried & The Twilight of the Gods, both translated by Margaret Armour, c. 1910. New !

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The Story of the Ring has links to synopses and libretti of Wagner's Ring cycle; it's at Mike Rudolph's Walhall.

Studies

Sources in Medieval Literature of Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" and William Morris's "Sigurd the Volsung," a thesis by Jane Susanna Ennis of the University of London, excerpted by the author at the Richard Wagner Archive in Finland.

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All for the Tale: The Epic Macropoetics of Morris' Sigurd the Volsung [PDF] by Herbert F. Tucker, from Victorian Poetry Vol. 34, no. 3 (1996), a peer-reviewed scholarly journal devoted to British and colonial poetics of the Victorian age (1830-1914).

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The Sons of Odin: A Heroic Analysis of the Volsunga Saga by Devyn Christopher Gillette, at Raven Online.

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Top · Home · Colophon · Notes on the Illustrations · Site Map

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10 July 2004

Could women be Vikings?

Fuentes:

http://www.missgien.net/vikings/female.html

http://www.missgien.net/vikings/female2.html

Información:

Female vikings

Could women be Vikings?

Strictly speaking, they could not. The Old Norse word víkingar is exclusively applied to men, usually those who sailed from Scandinavia in groups to engage in the activities of raiding and trading in Britain, Europe and the East. But some Vikings stayed behind in these regions, and Scandinavian colonies were also established in the North Atlantic (Faroe, Iceland, Greenland).

Women could and did play a part in this process of settlement. Iceland, for instance, was uninhabited, and a permanent population could only be established if women also made the journey there. In regions with an established indigenous population, Viking settlers may have married local women, while some far-roving Vikings picked up female companions en route, but there is evidence that Scandinavian women reached most parts of the Viking world, from Russia in the east to Newfoundland in the west.

Most journeys from Scandinavia involved sea-crossings in small, open ships with no protection from the elements. Families heading for the North Atlantic colonies would also have to take all the livestock they would need to establish a new farm, and the journey cannot have been pleasant.

The Viking colonists settled down to the farming life in their new home, or established themselves as traders and became town-dwellers. Both farming and trading were family businesses, and women were often left in charge when their husbands were away or dead.

There is also evidence that women could make a living in commerce in the Viking Age. Merchants' scales and weights found in female graves in Scandinavia suggest an association between women and trade, while an account of a ninth-century Christian mission to Birka, a Swedish trading centre, relates the conversion of a rich widow Frideburg and her daughter Catla, who travelled to the Frisian port of Dorestad.

Women of influence

Most women's lives were bounded by hearth and home, but they had great influence within this sphere. The keys with which many were buried symbolise their responsibility for, and control over the distribution of food and clothing to the household.

Some women made their mark through exceptional status or achievement. One of the richest burials of Viking Age Scandinavia is that of the Oseberg 'queen', buried in a very grand style with a richly-decorated ship and large numbers of high-quality grave goods in 834. Later in that century, Aud the 'deep-minded' lived a veritable Viking Age odyssey. The daughter of a Norwegian chieftain in the Hebrides, she married a Viking based in Dublin and, when both her husband and son had died, took charge of the family fortunes, organising a ship to take her and her granddaughters to Orkney, Faroe and Iceland. She settled in Iceland, distributing land to her followers, and was remembered as one of its four most important settlers, and as a notable early Christian.

The Christianisation of Scandinavia in the eleventh century gave women new roles which are reflected in the rune stones from this period. On the Dynna stone from Norway, Gunnvor commemorates her daughter Astrid with pictures of the Nativity, while the Stäket stone from Sweden commemorates Ingirun who went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Queen Emma sums up the cultural connections of the Viking Age. Her father was Duke Richard of Normandy, descended from its Viking founder Rollo, while her mother is said to have been Danish. Emma was married to two kings of England, the English Æthelred and the Danish Cnut, and was the mother of two more. With Cnut, she was a great patron of the Church, and after his death she commissioned the Encomium Emmae, a Latin account of Danish kings in England in the eleventh century, ensuring that her portrait was included in the manuscript.

Knights Templar - Rotten

Fuente:

http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/knights-templar/

Información:

Knights Templar

According to legend, the Knights Templar was founded in 1118 to protect tourists headed for Jerusalem. There the small band of warrior monks established a headquarters. In due course, they somehow managed to gain possession of the Ark of the Covenant, which they hid for safekeeping.

Even though the Templars swore allegiance to the Pope, their beliefs were not exactly orthodox. They believed that Jesus Christ had conceived three children with Mary Magdalene, who moved to France after the crucifixion. Their progeny married into royalty; hence, there existed members of the French nobility who had divine blood in their veins. The Knights Templar eventually dedicated themselves to protecting the lives of these descendants of Jesus, the Merovingians.

But when they weren't busy doing that, they managed to amass a financial empire with vast holdings. The Templars created the first international banking system. Pilgrims heading off to the Holy Land would deposit money with a local branch, in exchange for a letter of credit, redeemable just about everywhere along their route.

By the dawn of the 14th century, the Knights Templar had become Europe's dominant religious order. They were more than 7,000 members strong. They held almost 900 castles. And they controlled unimaginable wealth in land, gold, and let's not forget that Ark of the Covenant.

In France, King Philip IV owed the Templars a lot of money, which he didn't really feel like repaying. So he hatched a scheme with Pope Clement V. In 1307, the Pope summoned Jacques de Molay, the group's Grand Master, to Paris. There they were supposed to enter negotiations on merging the Knights Hospitallers with de Molay's group. No such luck. Instead, he and his staff were arrested by King Philip and turned over to the Inquisition. Philip's men swept through the country, in just two days arresting 15,000 men associated with the accused.

Some of the Templars escaped to Portugal, where (for a few years) they enjoyed the protection of its king. Others were rumored to have fled to Switzerland and Scotland, but there is no documentation of this.

The Pope forcibly disbanded their organization in March 1312, announced in a Papal Bull accusing the Templars of having fallen "into the sin of impious apostasy, the abominable vice of idolatry, the deadly crime of the Sodomites, and various heresies." Plus, renouncing Jesus and spitting on the cross.

In March 1314, Jacques de Molay was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Inquisition. The sentence was announced during a public ceremony at Notre Dame cathedral. In exchange for his full confession, de Molay had received leniency. But before they could stop him, de Molay suddenly retracted his confession:

"I confess that I am indeed guilty of the greatest infamy. But the infamy is that I have lied. I have lied in admitting the disgusting charges laid against my Order. I declare, and I must declare, that the Order is innocent. Its purity and saintliness have never been defiled. In truth, I had testified otherwise, but I did so from fear of horrible tortures."

So, instead of life in prison, de Molay and his subordinate Geoffroy de Charnay were burned alive three days later. They were taken to the Isle of Javiaux in the Seine, not far from Notre Dame. There they were slow roasted over a pile of hot, smokeless charcoal. It took hours for them to die. Finally their ashes were collected for relics by Augustinian monks.

Eventually, the Church took possession of the assets belonging to the Templars. No word on whether the Ark of the Covenant was taken to Rome.

Today, the Knights Templar is the name of a branch of Freemasonry. It seems rather doubtful that the modern organization could ever conclusively trace its lineage back to their medieval namesake... but then again, everybody used to think the Coelacanth was extinct. So who knows?

Wicca & Paganism & Witchcraft - Wicca-Chat

Fuente:

http://www.wicca-chat.com/

Información:

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.".. Mahatma Gandhi

Wicca & Paganism & Witchcraft

Wicca is a nature based belief system. In other words, the natural world (i.e. trees, grass, rocks, mountains, etc.) is seen as a part of the Divine. Christianity, on the other hand, believes that these things were created by, but separate from, the Divine.

Wiccans believe in a dual male/female divinity. The God and Goddess are seen as separate but equal deities, each with unique talents and virtues. Some Wiccan traditions see all of the gods and goddesses of the world as 'faces' of the two true deities. Other Wiccans worship a trine goddess and god, the nature of the deities changing with the seasons.

Wiccans believe that the natural world, the creatures of the world (including humans) and the Divine are inseparable. Harm done to any of the aspects reflects on the others, causing pain and suffering needlessly in the spiritual and physical planes. As a result, many Wiccans are ardent environmentalists.

Are all Those who follow The Path, Witches, No and most Witches are not Wiccan. In real life many faiths practice witchcraft, however TV and Films may portray Wiccans, they are not all practioners of witchcraft.

Wicca is a religious tradition based on the ancient religions of the prehistoric Europe, specifically Western Europe and Great Britain. The faith is an amalgamation of folklore, archaeological evidence, and translated works from the period. It is not, in most cases, a religion passed unbroken from prehistory.

Although many pagan and witchcraft traditions can be traced back to pre-historic times, the religion known as Wicca began in the UK in the 1950's from the teachings of Gerald Gardner. This earliest form of Wicca, known as Gardnerian Wicca, is a system based on individual groups, known as covens, all of which can trace their lineages back to Gardner. Other forms of traditional Wicca that have evolved from the Gardnerian tradition include Alexandrian and Seax traditions.
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What is a Witch? What is Witchcraft?

Witchcraft today may be seen as the sum total of all a Witch's practices, including but not limited to: spell casting, divination ("fortune telling"), meditation, herbalism, ritual and ritual drama, singing and dancing to raise energy, healing, clairvoyance and other psychism, creative mythology, and more.

"Witch" comes from the Anglo-Saxon wicce (meaning wise), which in turn derives from an Indo-European root word meaning to bend or change or do magic/religion (making it related to "wicker," "wiggle," and even "vicar"). It is possibly also related to the Old Norse vitki (meaning wizard), derived from root words meaning "wise one" or "seer." "Warlock" (rarely used, for male Witches) is from the Old Norse var?lokkur, "spirit song" (not "oath-breaker"). Related words are "Pagan," meaning a country dweller, and "Heathen," a dweller on the heath, both of which peoples were the European equivalent of the Native Americans and other indigenous, nature-worshipping people.

Today, a Witch is a woman or man who practices a life-affirming, Earth- and nature-oriented religion, honoring Divinity in female as well as (or instead of) male aspects, and practicing Magic (which some Witches spell "magick," to distinguish it from stage illusions). There are many different traditions of Witches, encompassing many beliefs in addition to these. Some traditions are practiced by women only, and recognize only the Divine Feminine, the Goddess. Others include men and recognize a male god in addition to the Goddess. Some traditions may date back to before the Spanish Inquisition, others have been in existence for only a few years. The strength of the Witches' religion (also called "the Craft") lies in its diversity; it is a living, growing religious tradition.

What Wiccans are not,

Wiccans are not Satan or Devil worshippers, These beings are Judeo-Christian inventions and not part of Wicca. To believe in Satan you must first believe in the monotheistic God and then his fallen angel , therefore Satanists are just another branch of the broad Judeo-Christian faith who choose to follow a dark path.