#i'm coming to the end of norse-related books i can access

[tyrannuspitch]

hmm i'm getting. possibly over-ambitious. again. we'll see how this goes.

[ihavedonenothingright]

Captive Prince: Historical References and Naming Conventions

Part 2

And I'm back! Last post I looked at Vere and Akielos; today we're onto Patras. I was originally going to tackle Isthima and Artes here as well, but then things got. Long. So we'll save them for next time. You might notice I'm not touching Vask or Kempt—that's because I lack the background to do so properly. I'm currently studying Greek and Latin, and I speak okay-ish French, so I feel pretty comfy looking at names derived from those three, but not other languages. And with that little preamble, let's jump right in!

Patras

Patras' historical inspiration is a little less cut-and-dry than Vere and Akielos. We're told it's culturally similar to Akielos, and it shares its name with Πάτρα/Patras—the regional capital of the Peloponnese and one of the largest cities in Greece—but the two Patran given names we have access to—Torveld and Torgeir—are both Scandinavian. You could also probably make a good case that its capital "Bazal" is a slightly corrupted version of "Basel," the third most populated city in Switzerland. I don't really think we see enough of it to fully label its culture one thing or the other, but for my purposes here, I'm going to label it a mix. So then, why do I feel fine analyzing the name?

I did a quick search to see if any words similar to Patras pop up in Old Norse or derivative languages, and came up empty. So I feel pretty comfortable assuming that the country name is Hellenic/Romantic in origin, regardless of its other names. Feel free to correct me in the notes if that's not the case. But with that in mind, where does Πάτρα come from?

Well, first, from its Ancient Greek name, Πάτραι (Patrai). And that comes (supposedly; we're dealing with mytho-history here) from this guy, Patreus, who conquered it. I have not been able to find anything solid on where his name comes from, but what it reminds me of is the noun πατήρ (pater), or 'father.' This is partially because the word for one's native country in Greek is πάτρα, itself derived from πατήρ, and that is, I think, one possible interpretation of the country's name.

Patras' role in the story, from start to end, is to remind Damen of his home country. In book 1 this is a positive association—Patras' cultural similarities to Akielos are what allow Damen to 'save' Erasmus and the other Akielon slaves—and in book 3, when Torveld and Erasmus make their appearance, it's negative. Patras and Torveld effectively function as foils for Damen and his attitude towards Akielos, so having the country's name evoke that idea is nice. It works.

The other thing I associate it with is kind of related, but not entirely. It's important to note that Greek and Latin share a word for 'father'; πατήρ and pater. And particularly in Latin, the word pater lends itself to several other terms and associations that are, I feel, relevant to Patras's role as a foil. The main one I'm going to talk about is the patrōnus-cliēns relationship, which played a very important role in Roman society. 

Patrōnus, derived from pater (stem: patr-), can be translated as patron, advocate, or protector depending on context. The most common usage of it that I've encountered is in describing a social designation in which a wealthy Roman (typically a man) would take on clients and dependents (called cliēns) in exchange for some form of benefit. That benefit might be monetary—"I'll give you the money to maintain your farm if you trade xyz on my behalf"—or social and political; clients were typically obligated to vote for their patroni or his immediate family in elections. While not a legal institution, this kind of relationship was deeply ingrained in Roman society. And it was also the default relationship between freed slaves and their former masters. 

On the one hand, such an arrangement does help keep new freedmen (liberti) from becoming destitute; on the other, continued obligations to one's former owner meant that, functionally, the freedom afforded by manumission was never true freedom. Akielon attitudes towards slavery are, in my opinion, more in line with Roman sensibilities about slavery than Greek ones (take a peek at Martial's Epigrams if you want to understand what I mean, but it's not pretty), and Patras is the picture of Roman slavery. Torveld embodies the ideal of a Roman patrōnus: by the standards of his society, he is a protector and an advocate, and we see him exercise his power on behalf of dependents like Erasmus… but he is still, ultimately, in an unearned, hierarchical position that gives him the power of life-or-death over everyone he owns. And that's what really stands out to me about the name Patras: its associations with this state of protection and exploitation that are themselves associated with Damen's homeland. It's very, very good.

That's it for today's analysis; tune in tomorrow for Isthima and Artes! Please let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like me to look at. I'm open to anything linguistic or historical; in fact, I'll probably make a more comprehensive post about the similarities between Akielon and Roman slavery at a later point in time anyway. For Part 1, see below.

<< Part 1 Part 3 >>

(Note: for convenience, I'm making a tag for these posts. You can find them all on #capri name analysis)

[tuulikki]

https://www.tumblr.com/tuulikki/733369731375104000/my-fellow-americans-you-can-just-put-us-flags-its

I've been wondering about your Finnish url ever since learning that you're an English speaking American, and now that you don't have any roots in Finland, I'm super curious. Where does it come from?

Sorry about that time I just started to talk to you in Finnish :D

Haha, no worries! The short answer is: I’m a nerd.

The long answer…

When I was a kid, I was super into any mythology I could get my hands on. And I was a young Tolkien nerd who found out The Kalevala and its poetical style were hugely influential on Tolkien’s worldbuilding. So of course I had to read it. And, as a weird folk music kid, I also fell sideways into any music featuring kantele, which was a gateway drug into other Finnish folk and folk-y music (Värttinä, Pekko Käppi, Hedningarna’s “Karelia Visa” album, etc.).

I’d only lived in the USA and Asia at that age, and most of the “mythology” books I’d ever been exposed to were Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and some machismo-heavy Norse stuff. All very common and very easy to find in the kiddie section of my school library. Finnish mythology and folklore was the first time I had to work a little to learn. I started just with The Kalevala (and copious footnotes), then the internet, later a Finn on LiveJournal who would straight-up translate lyrics/verse, and then puttering around to the local Nordic museum.

I have a lot of nostalgia for that as my first foray into what was, for me, something that stands at the transition point between my being a Mythology Kid™️ and being a more adult-shaped-creature who had to consider mythology, not as an inert curiosity and kiddie hobby, but as one aspect of traditions that exist in relation to real things like nationalism, identity, Romanticism, ethnography, and all that.

So, with that history, when I set out to make a tumblr username, I picked a name I knew from The Kalevala, because literally every other name from stories or myth I knew or could think of was already taken.

A further little joy was that I also loved the Moomintroll books as a kid in the 90s. And some kids in my neighbourhood in Hong Kong had access to the TV show (I don’t remember how) so I got properly scared of the animated Groke. So now, knowing about Tuulikki Pietilä and Tove Jansson, I have a further pleasant coincidence from my already very coincidence- and happenstance-heavy username.

And I do have to agree with Tolkien, in the end: Finnish is a fucking cool language. People are always like “ohh French is so romantic!” and sure maybe but is French cool. I’m not a linguist, but I know the number of grammatical cases a European language has is directly proportional to how hard it fucks.

I… hope that’s an answer that makes sense 😅

[prome-th3us]

Runes for beginners: introduction

In this grimoire I'm going to go through runes and their meaning in a way that is accessible to everyone. I'm gonna make a post for every rune so it's gonna be a long serie. I hope you will find this useful and if there's something unclear or wrong, please let me know!

I decided to avoid runes magic because I just want to help to get to know the runes a little better. Before practicing magic, you have to understand what this powerful tool is.

Introduction

Runes are not only a writing system, but they were also used as a magical, divinatory and spiritual growth tool. Rune (norse: rún/rúnar) means "segret, mistery". The characters used to engrave the rune, symbol of a certain energy in this world, were called runstafas (runic sticks).

They are an oracle and we can ask them to guide us: they work better if our question is specific and detailed. The lecture of Runes sometimes is obscure: the petitioner must interpret the details and understand them. Runes give us a way to analize the path we are on and to understand one of his possible outcomes: the future isn't static, we can change it with everything we do.

each rune has a phonetic value and a name that identifies its function and meaning; then it has a very specific history behind it and is associated with a diety.

Historical origins

I'm not gonna say much about the historical origins of the Runes because there are so many different theories about them and we could write an entire book just about this topic.

This is what you have to know:

the ancient futhark comes from the alphabet used by the Celts of Lugano (leoponzi) which has Greek origin. The Greek alphabet would have been absorbed by the Etruscans in the 12th century BC. and then by the Celts of Lugano in the VII. From here, thanks to trade, it would have arrived in the far north, with the necessary changes.

The Greek alphabet influenced the Gothic one and then the Germanic peoples adapted it (we can see how the Gothic alphabet is actually similar to both Greek and Runic, then the Othala rune resembles the Greek Omega).

it originated from the Roman alphabet, given the many relationships that different peoples entertained.

Mythological origin

"I know that I hung

On the wind-blasted tree

All of nights nine,

Pierced by my spear

And given to Odin,

Myself sacrificed to myself

On that pole

Of which none know

Where its roots run.

No aid I received,

Not even a sip from the horn.

Peering down,

I took up the runes –

Screaming I grasped them –

Then I fell back from there."

from the Old Norse poem Hávamál.

In Norse mythology, it's Odin who brought the Runes to the other gods. He wanted to know everything and he was envy of the Norns, who already knew them. He went to the Well of urd, the home of Runes, and since they reveal themselves to any but those who prove themselves worthy of such fearful insights and abilities, Odin hung himself from a branch of Yggdrasil, pierced himself with his spear, and peered downward into the waters below. He forbade any of the other gods to grant him the slightest aid. He survived in this state, teetering on the precipice that separates the living from the dead, for no less than nine days and nights. At the end of the ninth night, he at last perceived shapes in the depths: the runes. He's also lost his eyes for the wisdom.

Other important concepts

First of all, to truly understand how runes were used, you have to know at least a little of Norse mythology (I will tell you some books and links in the last paragraph). Then you have to understand what Orlog and Wyrd mean.

Orlog

This is basically karma but without reincarnation. Every person is born completely responsible for everything they do in their life since the first second: positive actions bring positive results, bad actions bring bad results, even in the afterlife. Who did positive things will go to Valhalla (where the heroes and the people who died in battle go) or to Sessrumnir (the halls of Freya). Who doesn't die in an honorable way or who did bad thing will go to Helheimr (the realm of Hel, this means that even who died in a normal way and who had a normal life will go there) or to Nilfheimr (the world of ice and cold, where the Ice Giants live).

Basically we decide where we are going with every choice we make.

Wyrd

A giant cobweb that extends in space and time: each thread is made up of a different manifestation of energy and all together it constitutes the very fabric of the universe. Since we are born, we are in some part of this web so we are also part of it.

Wyrd and Orlog are intertwined: who does good things and has a good Orlog, he will be on a good thread of the web. Wyrd is the fabric of life as well, so the world will be influenced by the positive energy of the man and will give him back this energy.

If each strand is a different manifestation of energy, each type of energy must have a name: the runes. In runic divination, what we see is a reflection of the energies in and around us (or around the person we are divining for). When we want to modify the Orlog, the process is different: we use the Runes as a channel for the energies that we need. We can say that the practice related to the runes is of two types: passive (divination) and active (healing, protection, etc ...).

Aettir of Runes

In the ancient futhark, there are 24 runes divided in three aettir (sing. aett, sets) of 8 runes each. Every aett is dedicated to a different diety:

Aett of Freya. She is of the Vani lineage and is therefore linked to fertility and harvest. She was welcomed with her twin brother Freyr in Asgard at the end of the war between the Aesir and the Vanir (basically the "wae" between the Norse people and the invaders). She can use the Runes, so she's a goddess of magic but also of love, associated with death (she is the leader of the Valkyries) and sexuality. The runes in this aett are: ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚨ ᚱ ᚲ ᚷ ᚹ.

Aett of Heimdall. Of the Aesir lineage, he is among other things the guardian god of Bifrost and Asgard: he has hearing and sight that reach everywhere. Following a spell of Odin, he was born of nine waves and for this reason he is called "son of the wave". The runes in this aett are: ᚺ ᚾ ᛁ ᛃ ᛇ ᛈ ᛉ ᛊ.

Aett of Tyr. Of the Aesir lineage, he is known as the "Father of Heaven". He sacrificed one of his hands to be able to bind Fenrir and is a god linked to justice, loyalty, heaven, defense, war and law. The runes in this aett are: ᛏ ᛒ ᛖ ᛗ ᛚ ᛜ ᛞ ᛟ.

Last things

Ok so for this first post it's everything! I will continue in the next posts to explore every single rune. I just wanted to suggest some links and books if you want to go deeper into the fascinating history of runes.

Here you can find an interesting article about everything I just said, with so many references and here they also give a list of good books (if you can't afford them you can download their pdf from this site)

Anyway if you want to dig into norse mythology you can read:

Poetic Edda

Prose Edda

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs by John Lindow

(other good books can be found here).

And of course, if you still didn't realize this, I fricking love the website Norse Mythology for Smart People, even tho everything I wrote in this post is from "Le Rune" by Marco Massignan (I couldn't find the English Translation sorry).

[dandthegods]

Can you explain/sum up the overall attitude Hellenics have towards Riordan? I loved his books when I was much younger, and they're what got me into polytheism (I'm now much much more educated and take the books with a grain of salt). I just find it frustrating that polytheism is now such a trivialized religion. If people did a quarter of what they do to Polytheists to Christians, they'd absolutely freak you out. Also I love your blog!!

Thanks for the compliment, I’m glad you enjoy what I post.

Ooooookay, Riordan. In my opinion, he isn’t respectful to the religion and the Gods and the worshippers of them. On his website, giving an otherwise academic account of the earlier struggles of native Grecians trying to establish religious presence in Greece, he says, “We just found this posted from Associated Press — another story about an attempt by a tiny fringe group of Greeks to revive the worship of the Greek gods. For years, worshipping the Greek gods has been against the law in Greece. Now, this group is seeing how far freedom of religion can go. I love Greek myths, but why anyone would want to worship the Greek pantheon is beyond me. Still, it’ll be an interesting court case to watch.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with his approach to modernizing the myths. He makes the main demigod characters relatable to kids that don’t get much representation. He makes it funny. He creates an odyssey of adventure in the books and creates new conflicts. He changes the god characters as they change in the traditional myths. Which is all fine. They’re meant to be entertaining and that is what happens.

BUT what changes and frankly sours many polytheists, myself included, is his attitude towards the religion itself and the people. He said the above quote along with these (sources I don’t have access to but here is the link to the post that gives them):

http://practical-magick.tumblr.com/post/116366161150/you-should-tell-us-about-how-rick-riordan-is-a

“It’s strange to think anyone would still worship the Olympians seriously” (X)

“I didn’t realize some people still worship the old Viking gods. Very strange, and a little scary…In my opinion, the more you learn about the mythology, the more impossible it is to take it seriously as a religion… after you’ve met Odin and Thor in the stories, who in their right mind would ever want to worship them?” (X)

“As long as we recognize them as stories that are part of our heritage and long-since stopped being any kind of serious religion” (X)

“Early in the book, the character Chiron makes a distinction between God, capital-G, the creator of the universe, and the Greek gods (lower-case g).” (X) “I don’t have the words for how much I hate this sense of religious superiority” (@ccconfidence )

“…Cernunnos is a bearded guy with horns, and he’s got… a torque, around each of his horns. Was he the god of playing ring toss games? Did you win a stuffed animal if you got one around his horns? I don’t know.” (X)

“…that horrible Disney animated movie based on his life” (X)

If you can’t tell in these quotes, Riordan takes the myths at face value and thinks the ancients and modern day worshippers did/do too. He treats the myths and thinks we treat the myths as many (if not most) Christians take the Bible: as canon fact of the deities.

Now, this contrasts greatly with Neil Gaiman, another author that modernized polytheistic gods. He focuses more on Norse Mythology in both his “American Gods” book and his retellings in “Norse Mythology”. Both are fantastic books and I recommend them. In “N.M.” he introduced it by explaining his process to writing these stories. He went through months of research, cross referencing CLASSICAL versions of the myths, asking and getting editorial advice from classicists and academics in the mythology. Essentially, he shows RESPECT for the mythology and the Gods. And that, I’ve never heard him say it, brings the feeling he would respect the worshippers of the Aesir and Vanir. In “A.G.” he creates versions of Odin and Loki and other gods of MANY pantheons that he expresses are not THE gods. Even at the end of the book (spoiler alert) he shows the actual Odin who explains the version of himself that the story was driven by was not, in fact, THE Odin.

At the end of the book, in a note section, Gaiman explains how his version of America in “American Gods” is not a true America as it is. He feels, and so do I, that he has made an America that is entirely fictional and other. I feel he accomplished that same aspect with the gods he wrote and kept it entirely fictional.

Okay, now that I’ve defended Gaiman, I’ll explain. When Gaiman writes about other people’s gods, even those who are not living any more (as many segments of American Gods illustrate) he shows respect and reference towards them. Riordan on the other than, does not. He mocks the religions his books’ mythologies are based on. He, when given the chance to acknowledge respectfully that others worship the Gods, outright mocks people and devalues us.

I’ve seen things and articles about him and his interviews and he seems to act like an authority on the mythologies he writes about. Greek, Kemetic, Norse, all of them he boasts a “superiority complex” when it comes to his knowledge. And I personally don’t think he should. If he takes them at face value and doesn’t see the reason for myths as entertainment, lessons, and pure FICTION inside of the religion, then he doesn’t understand the myths and isn’t as knowledgable as he claims to be. Gaiman, on the other hand, says in his exposition in “N.M.” that he wishes he could write about the lesser known gods and giants in the Norse mythos but he doesn’t and says it wouldn’t be right for him to assume he can. He shows more understanding of the purpose of myth than Riordan.

When I first saw that he was coming out with the Magnus Chase series, i honestly got upset. Not only was yet ANOTHER pantheon and its worshippers going to get the same treatment, but it was the heritage of my family (my family is 100% Norwegian and as Norse as it goes outside of the worship). So Riordan’s words and attitudes follow him wherever he goes, in my opinion. IF he ever did apologize, earnestly and honestly take back the words he has said and actually LEARNED about the religions he so openly and unfairly mocks, then I would give him a little forgiveness, but as that has yet to be even alluded to, I still say he is an asshat.

So, in short (as I could go on), Riordan is disrespectful towards the Gods, religion, and the worshippers both ancient and modern of any polytheistic religion he decides to incorrectly appropriate with his books. He is unapologetic towards his words against our beliefs and doesn’t see us as sane, moral, and valuable human beings. And he takes the myths at face value and thinks he’s an authority on them. Furthermore, this attitude seems to rub off on his fan base and fandom making it to where they think they know the myths and everything because they read his books. This makes it incredibly hard for worshippers to go through tags and find good, religious content, and for us to hold reasonable conversations and NOT be seen as simply book nerds who take it a little far.

Hope that answers your question. If you want to discuss it more, comment on this, or send me a message and I’ll be happy to reply!

Cheers!-D