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6 June 2021 10:34![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonGods, every time I look into Norse mythology there are so many things that are fascinating about it.
In Irish lore, you could not be a king if you were disfigured; hence the drama about forging a new hand for Nuada of the Silver Hand after he lost his original (have I the details right here? It's not my specialism.
In Norse mythos, Odin has lost his eye and Tyr has lost his hand - in both cases, these are major defining features of their mythos and sacred attributions, and both were given in sacrifice. It's very interesting in contrast to the Irish, where such blemishes would have been a problem, or the Greek where as far as I know - no deities are permanently injured, disabled or changed in this way.
& I was collecting some images from a Swedish website, which noted: "Odin is often portrayed as a charming man who enjoys drinking mead and wine. But he was accused of “unmanly behaviour” when he “beat the drum and practised prophecy”, something that was associated with women. The fact that he was a seer and a man provoked disgust in some quarters."
& as a queer man, that word "disgust" really stood out to me - I got bullied out of my doll collectors community recently by a group of extremely reactionary straight women, whose gulf of experience and privilege shocked and caught me off guard, so it's kinda on my mind. Disgust. So I'm reflecting again on the profound weirdness of Odin being all that, it's weird in the sense of "the weird", presumably one of those queer-genders-as-sacred-mystery things.
But again, alongside the disabled gods thing, it's very. I think it's naive to assume the Vikings did not have the same prejudices as we do; we know queer people were marginalised from the very same poems we know Odin's queer ambiguity from; and my instinct is that wherever there is scarcity, real or imagined, people will fear the burden that the disabled represent to them. & it's obviously absurd to assume that the Vikings were the roaring man-bros of the trad imagination.
It's the duality of it; it feels nuanced; it feels like the tension is the source of the power here - something disjointed, something landweirdy for want of a better word. I don't believe that straightforwardly "Odin was queer so the Vikings were an accepting culture", that seems too simple and not bourne out by the evidence. I'm imagining something more like - some of the terror and awe of the gods is that they would have these marginalised qualities, and yet still be gods.
but it's not a feature I know from many (any?) other faiths, where divinities embody physical and moral perfection.
One thing my husband raised, which fascinates me, is the fact that these are the latest and last versions of Viking myths after a long period of unrecorded time. They are grim and dark and with a sense of doom and decay - and this perhaps reflect the uncertain, frightened culture that told these stories. They don't have the bucolic confidence of imperial Rome, i.e. So maybe there's something of that to it as well: our king has one eye, but he is still our king. Our judge and warrior has one hand, but he lost it in our defense. Now is a time to endure.
But yeah, fascinating, appealing, deep-mystery stuff.
In Irish lore, you could not be a king if you were disfigured; hence the drama about forging a new hand for Nuada of the Silver Hand after he lost his original (have I the details right here? It's not my specialism.
In Norse mythos, Odin has lost his eye and Tyr has lost his hand - in both cases, these are major defining features of their mythos and sacred attributions, and both were given in sacrifice. It's very interesting in contrast to the Irish, where such blemishes would have been a problem, or the Greek where as far as I know - no deities are permanently injured, disabled or changed in this way.
& I was collecting some images from a Swedish website, which noted: "Odin is often portrayed as a charming man who enjoys drinking mead and wine. But he was accused of “unmanly behaviour” when he “beat the drum and practised prophecy”, something that was associated with women. The fact that he was a seer and a man provoked disgust in some quarters."
& as a queer man, that word "disgust" really stood out to me - I got bullied out of my doll collectors community recently by a group of extremely reactionary straight women, whose gulf of experience and privilege shocked and caught me off guard, so it's kinda on my mind. Disgust. So I'm reflecting again on the profound weirdness of Odin being all that, it's weird in the sense of "the weird", presumably one of those queer-genders-as-sacred-mystery things.
But again, alongside the disabled gods thing, it's very. I think it's naive to assume the Vikings did not have the same prejudices as we do; we know queer people were marginalised from the very same poems we know Odin's queer ambiguity from; and my instinct is that wherever there is scarcity, real or imagined, people will fear the burden that the disabled represent to them. & it's obviously absurd to assume that the Vikings were the roaring man-bros of the trad imagination.
It's the duality of it; it feels nuanced; it feels like the tension is the source of the power here - something disjointed, something landweirdy for want of a better word. I don't believe that straightforwardly "Odin was queer so the Vikings were an accepting culture", that seems too simple and not bourne out by the evidence. I'm imagining something more like - some of the terror and awe of the gods is that they would have these marginalised qualities, and yet still be gods.
but it's not a feature I know from many (any?) other faiths, where divinities embody physical and moral perfection.
One thing my husband raised, which fascinates me, is the fact that these are the latest and last versions of Viking myths after a long period of unrecorded time. They are grim and dark and with a sense of doom and decay - and this perhaps reflect the uncertain, frightened culture that told these stories. They don't have the bucolic confidence of imperial Rome, i.e. So maybe there's something of that to it as well: our king has one eye, but he is still our king. Our judge and warrior has one hand, but he lost it in our defense. Now is a time to endure.
But yeah, fascinating, appealing, deep-mystery stuff.
no subject
Date: 6 June 2021 12:49 (UTC)Highly interesting then, that having a bad leg was a common euphemism for being impotent and/or castrated, in ancient times around the Mediterranean countries. Probably not so coincidentally, most stories of Hephaestos has women(/goddesses) of all kinds rejecting him, including his own wife. One way or another, he's definitely an outlier.
Both the 'disfigured smith' and the 'one-armed hero' have many appearances throughout history and they're not strictly contained in Indo-European cultures either. Might be worth looking into if the subject is of further interest to you.