Ýmir and the Cosmos

[JeffSinger]

cool

[JeffSinger]

Thats your site? I thought u were from the south...its a good one...i noticed you have one of Maria's videos up, shes awsome i talk to her quit a bit

[Bathilde]

I'm not from the south, I just currently live here for the time being.

[JeffSinger]

ah

[saxonmann]

[quote="JeffSinger"]This is a letter written to a friend.

"Frankly if you read the Poetic Edda and translate it properly and interpert it properly it seems to line up rather well with scientific theory. Keeping in mind its all allegory and metaphor."
______________________________________________

Well spoken, a conclusion I had come too many years ago. How would you interpret Heimdahl and his horn; in connection to the progression of the equinoxes? Or do you think there is any connection?

[JeffSinger]

I need time to think about that

These really are my opinions and interpetations and are in no way actually grounded in fact and i dont think the whole thing and all its characters fall into this idea, rather some parts seem to sync up with science and the natural world. At no time do i think the ancestors viewed the Poetic Edda in the way i stated above.

Let me ponder this

[Gangleri]

I'm sorry if this comes across as offensive in any way, but I feel I should recommend not to over-romanticize your views on our Fore-bears understanding of the history of the Cosmos.
It is not that hard to change interpretations of anything to fit into a specific mold, in this case in the scientific consensus. I highly doubt any of our Fore-bears would consider the last common ancestor of humans and tree's to be of much note-worth, if one could express such an idea to them without being considered a lunatic.

I do agree that some of the Edda's seem to be rather mythical ways of explaining sound scientific theory's, what you seem to do is make it appear as if what science later discovered ''we'' already knew and just hid in myths. This comes close to the ''Golden age'' theories (which I use very liberally here) that where so oft used from the Romantic era up to WWII. Do not underestimate the power or the danger of pseudoscience. Again I do not intent to offend anyone, I don't know if you meant your article the way I read it but it would still be a fair interpretation, so its better to be aware of it.
(your disclaimer of march 17 did address much of this, but being the nitpicker I am I still saw the door to the scientific understanding being hidden there, hidden from normal people's minds)

As for Heimdall's horn. I always considered it to be part of the culture of the time. Horns are things that make much noise that is easily notable. They are the historic air alarms. I would think Heimdall in this reflects the guardsmen in any settlement that values its security, listening and watching everything on apparently super natural levels (Ive had to watch a tent with expensive equipment a few nights, I challenge anyone to do that without becoming a bit jumpy). When the inevitable would happen (for many settlements there was not that much that could be done to prevent raiding warbands from going Raganorok on them, and the settlements that could do something against the normal unorganized groups where prime targets for the more organized groups, therefore being assaulted at some point or another seemed pretty likely, like the sword that hung on a silk thread above the throne in a old story).

Of course I do realize that these story's did not cleanly come from their culture to ours, and have been developed, re-written, re-interpreted and understood by people much more wise in the ways of spirituality, politics and nature then me. Id say that the interpretation I give here is a simplistic, materialistic one-dimensional outlook that is only part of the truth, like how Midgard is truly the world, but not all of it.