#christianisation

[septembergold]

I hear so much talk in the mainstream Christian and Muslim statements and some Jewish discussions about Jews not accepting that we were often Christianised. This is blown out of proportion because there was a lot of history to that development. What did one do to survive, and how vain it seems when faced with war? But you'll still be a Jew at heart, and you are connected by family ties to non-Christianised Jews forever. No matter what you believe, you cannot ignore the love one has for one's own people and heritage. This does not mean one has to agree on everything; love and loyalty should be there. This goes for the maternal line and paternal lines, especially in Germany, where my Jewish family had been residing for almost two thousand years before either getting killed or scattered around the globe. Christians have often reached out to us and helped, yet they have also, most of the time, misunderstood us, treated us as outsiders and belittled our understanding of God. I can understand why many Jews now do not want to reach out to me, thinking I have forgotten the past and that I would enjoy my "goy" life.On the contrary, I do not enjoy the situation I am in. But I have to live with what Hashem gave me gracefully. I believe if Jesus Christ knew my problem, he would be compassionate about my wish to reconnect with my family and my diaspora and believe in the idea of a Jewish homeland. I will remember his teachings, too.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

i don't have the words to articulate it at this moment but there's something about the way that people have specific expectations for "authenticity" and will dismiss anything that falls outside them as a mangled, anglicised version of the thing when actually that is the older and more traditional form of something, it just doesn't match their expectations. obviously in my personal experiences i'm mostly talking about medieval literature here especially medieval irish literature

sometimes this is as simple as spelling – i've had people argue that the name "finn" is anglicised and it should always be "fionn" to be Really Irish, but "finn" is an older spelling, glide vowels are later, if you wanna go real far back it'll be "find" (nd in place of nn is an older spelling pattern). or they'll hear someone say "ogam" and assume they're mispronouncing "ogham" due to lack of knowledge of irish and not consider the fact that medievalists tend to use the older form of the word. or they'll Well Actually you about "correct" terminology which wasn't standardised (and/or invented) until the 20th century

a lot of this is defensive and the result of seeing a lot of people ACTUALLY get this stuff wrong and have no respect for the language. in that regard i understand it, although it becomes very tedious after a while, particularly when people sanctimoniously declare something "inauthentic", "fake", or "anglicised" without doing enough research to realise it's not trying to be modern irish and is in fact correct for older forms of the language

more often however this search for the projected "authenticity" is ideological and has much larger flaws and more problematic implications. "this can't be the real story because it's christian" well... that's the oldest version of the story that exists and it postdates christianity in ireland by about nine hundred years, so... maybe question why you're assuming the only "real" version of irish stories can't be a christian one? this is especially true when it comes to fíanaigecht material tbh, but in general there seems to a widespread misapprehension about ireland's historical relationship with christianity (i have seen people arguing that christianity in ireland is the result of english colonialism which took their "true" faith from them... bro. they were christian before the "english" existed. half the conversion efforts went the other way. please read some early medieval history thank you)

however i also saw someone saying this about arthurian literature lately which REALLY baffled me. "we'll never have the Real arthurian stories only the christianised versions" and it was in the context of chivalric romance. buddy you are mourning something that does not exist. this "authentic" story you're looking for isn't there. that twelfth century story you're dismissing as a christian bastardisation is as "real" a part of this tradition as you're going to get

[betweenblackberrybranches]

Im so sad that most of yall didnt grow up with our stellar fairytales only that disney stuff... you guys dont even know Das tapfere Schneiderlein

You dont even know this bad bitch

Imagine one day this tailor kills 7 flies with one swat and decides thats such an awesome feat that now he tells everyone "i killed 7 at once" and everyone thinks hes an actually a skilled fighter who killed 7 people so he keeps getting roped into doing extremely dangerous stuff. Hes going up against giants, a big boar and even a unicorn and always wins with his witts.

Cool guy, i always liked the part where he goes up against a giant in a copetition of strength and the giant is like "i am going to milk rocks" and starts pressing those rocks so hard that water drips out. And this guy is just like ah yes imma do the same and takes out the soft cheese he had in his pocket for lunch, acting as if its just a weird looking rock and pressing moisture out of it

Guys a legend

[stackslip]

one of my what-ifs in history is wondering how western mediterranean history and relations with the east would have changed had arian christianity triumphed over nicean christianity and how this would have affected the development and national identities of early medieval western kingdoms

[finnlongman]

Hey, I was wondering if there’s an Irish polytheism equivalent to the Delphic maxims of Hellenic polytheism? I have a lot of Hellenic friends reading into the Delphic maxims a lot and it has me wondering if we have something similar, basically “universal” truths or a list of guiding principles for the Irish polytheistic faith. Kind of scared to look myself because it seems like exactly the thing to fall prey to Celtomanic Victorians and I’m still working on my research skills 😅

I'm afraid I don't know anything about Irish polytheism, since it falls outside of my remit as a medievalist, being primarily a modern phenomenon (because we know virtually nothing about historical pre-Christian Irish beliefs).

There are various medieval Irish 'wisdom' texts, including of the 'mirror for princes' variety which are basically about being a good ruler, but these are all written within the medieval Irish Christian tradition, even if they're sometimes put into the mouths of non-Christian characters. It doesn't sound like that's what you're looking for, though.

To be honest, I'm the wrong person to ask when it comes to religious engagement with this material, as I've never had that kind of relationship to it. I study it as literature, and my main focus is late texts which are very self-consciously constructed as literature and often explicitly as fiction (a concept that isn't really around at the time that the earliest stories are written, but definitely is by the 15th-18th centuries when a lot of my corpus was written). I have no connection to / knowledge of modern polytheistic practices or ideas beyond what I've picked up in passing, I'm afraid.

[rune-folk]

Runestones in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen

[windybluebelles]

When I love a character I make them Jewish. It brings me joy

You get a religion! And you get a religion! And you get a bar mitzvah! YAYAYYAYAYAYAYYA

[materassassino]

What is so viciously infuriating to me about Ahsoka (the series and the character) is that Filoni refuses to create any ties between surviving Jedi. They don't want to recreate the Order, they don't want to rebuild their community, they don't want to reconnect something that was their entire world. Like yeah, ok, Ahsoka was betrayed them, but she keeps acting like a fucking Jedi, she keeps preaching about the Jedi ways, but then she won't go to the actual last Jedi and help him rebuild the Order? Or at least help? And she completely ignores the son of her master and the padawan of her grand-master (which, in Jedi terms, is family) in favour of teaching a Mandalorian the Force, which shouldn't even be possible?

It does come down to Filoni refusing to acknowledge that these people are survivors of a genocide. The Jedi purge was a genocide. The transmission of knowledge and the creation of a next generation should matter, deeply, and he just doesn't fucking care because he's too invested in his bullshit MCUification revolving around a character that keeps saying she's not a Jedi, but struts around acting like one anyway. A character who can never do any wrong whatsoever.

What is the fucking point of all this? What are the themes? What is the meaning? It's just shit.

[islandiis]

BLINDSIDED !!

send BLINDSIDED for a scene from my muse's past in which they were betrayed or shocked by what someone did

There are two men pinning him down by his ankles and by his wrists.

The sky is clear and the air is cold, and the grass he's been forced down into is certainly preferable to the abrasive rock that forms their land. A little ways off, there are people he knows - a farmhand and his girlfriend, both skirting eighteen. They keep their heads carefully turned away from him, despite Leifur's hissing and screaming. One of the men snarls him to shut up, and Leifur spits at him.

It is the fucking Norwegians, this is their doing. Leifur liked Tór, despite - he understood now - their initial meeting being an invasion. Tór gave him food. Deep down — despite failing to understand the intricacies of their existence, nor the political plays that these mortals weaponise — Leifur does not wish to believe that this is Tór's fault. It is the people, the Norwegian people, who came here to conquer and to pillage. Under Tór's instruction, yes, and yet...

Could Tór stop this, if he so wished? Could the Góðar?

It is King Olaf who sent Stefnir, King Olaf who sent Thangbrand to the Góðar, King Olaf who - now - has taken several of his people hostage in Norway. It is King Olaf threatening to take their life, should Iceland not convert.

He is aware, too, that the Góðar speak endlessly about Norway. That's all they ever seem to talk about: Norway, Norway, Norway. Friends, that's what they are, and they have to stay that way. It is because of Olaf. No decisions are ever made without the King's presence looming. He doesn't understand why, but he doesn't understand a lot of things. He thinks King Olaf is evil, and he cannot understand why his countrymen simply bow their heads to him. After all — is he not mortal, too?

"Fuck you," he hisses at the men, jerking his wrists against the restraints — ineffectually. Few men would be so heinous as to treat a child this way, but Leifur is no mortal child. He is an immortal boy, physically only five or six — but right now he is a rabid animal, the explosive embodiment of all the great fires of their land. He unleashes a barrage of curses a boy of his age should certainly not know, and he attempts to bite at one man's wrist. "Fuck you! You don't care about Sturla. You never cared about Sturla!"

"You don't even fucking know Sturla, boy."

Leifur spits at him again, then throws his head back against the ground and screams.

His countrymen all know him as a strange boy, coming and going as wildly as the winds of their homelands — and behaving just as erratically. His presence tends to inspire a variety of reactions: some find him endearing, while some find him offputting. They all find him familiar, though, even those he has never met before. He is, after all, the land they walk on and the water they drink. Regardless of how they may find him, he will be exist as they born and as they die.

"Stefnir destroyed everything!"

"And Stefnir is never coming back here."

"And now they've taken Sturla, your 'friend'. Coward!"

The man's chest heaves with rage, and for a moment he looks ready to strike the boy. "You question my fortitude as a man?"

Leifur stops thrashing momentarily to hold the man's gaze, violet eyes all but coring the man from the inside. "I don't question it. You are a coward."

Finally, the man grabs his hair and slams the boy's head back into the earth. Leifur doesn't seem to care or even really react, continuing, "And everyone who Thangbrand got are cowards!"

So, this boy is nothing more than a heathen, is he? It is unusual for one so young - and so isolated - to feel so strongly against the Christians. It was easier to understand it from the farmhands or the sons of the Góðar, but this boy who simply roams, who exists outside the bounds of their society? He doesn't even engage with the Góðar as he should. He may be their land, but he is disrespectful — a lucky little boy who does not know to appreciate what he has. It is infuriating, listening to him whine about the King and the political affairs he takes no interest in. Many of the Góðar are displeased, of course — but law is law, and blood is blood.

"You speak ill of the King and he will have your head, child."

"At least my head won't be bowed. I'm not a coward."

[treibholz-des-universums]

debating sending my (scandinavian) medieval literature prof a mail to ask for some sources, so that I can write historically accurate fanfiction

[earhartsease]

once again really cross about the english translation of Tintin au Tibet (Tintin in Tibet) where at the end in french, what Chang says about the yeti translates as "I wonder sometimes whether he isn't a human being" - but the english translation warps that into "I couldn't help wondering if, deep down, he hadn't a human soul" - which is amongst other things really insulting to tibetan culture that doesn't do souls

[merrymorningofmay]

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[niconiconwo]

Should bring back communal bathing in general but also mixed bathing would fix the "never saw grandma's tits" issue Westies and particularly Anglo-Americans have.

[nostalgia-tblr]

torn between "letting fandom have it's fun however it wants" and posting something like "the only reason we know so much about the Norse gods in the first place is that nobody was celebrating Christmas while they were writing that stuff down."

[cruelsister-moved2]

i think the core of what i dislike about most of these arguments made mostly by white neopagans who want to feel oppressed about how xtianity ‘stole’ such and such a thing, or whatever, is the assumption that mingling between cultural groups, and cultural change, is inherently a violent process, and the adoption of newer practises or the modification of older ones is a distortion of the True, Authentic Culture. that is a classic reactionary viewpoint, you get that, right....? we r talking about things that happened ~1000 years before the origins of modern imperialism. the christianisation of europe was largely voluntary. your AnCesTorS gradually received new practises via trickle-down from their ruling class and gradually incorporated it with their existing traditions and belief systems. that isnt cultural appropriation, and its certainly nothing like colonisation and cultural genocide

[the-lady-general]

X-Files does Over the Garden Wall 43 years early, doesn't think to cast Christopher Lloyd as the woodsman. More as the situation unfolds.