That's probably a good thing.

 

AMA about Norse literature and stuff like that, maybe I know something interesting.

Northern culture isn't really interesting tbh. They look pretty boring. Germanic culture more interesting on other hand.

I actually have some questions. Do Nords have any epos in literature? Also what was their the oldest folklore books? What are the most well known and oldest.

By epos I mean something like the Ring of the Nibelungs.

Sorry, just found out it's called Nibelungenlied. Not a “ring”.

Oldest and most interesting is probably the Völuspá, although it's not an Epos and dating is always a bit questionable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lusp%C3%A1

 

Icelandic sagas are very interesting and long, but oftentimes more medieval than you probably like.

 

The Nibelung-story is pretty interesting, though, because there are many different versions and we have a bunch of archeological evidence, i.e. pictures that clearly belong to the story on stones and even churches.

So it's like Myths of the Ancient Greece? Cool. Is that the first mentioning of Odin?

When it comes to "the oldest", most of the texts can't be exactly dated. Only with about 100-200 years accuracy and still then there is a debate about it with some scholars arguing for much earlier or later dates.

 

However, Völuspá is significant in that it was most likely composed before Christianity became the official religion in Iceland. (But people already knew about it.) So yeah, it is one of the earliest long texts about the nordic gods.

 

There are some very short runic inscriptions or Germanic spells that are older, but much less impressive in terms of form and content.

What was before 10th century on Norsk? Do they have any folklore stories from that time?

 

In Russia, for the first time we had epos-like written texts somewhere near 10th century, which isn't really interesting 'cause it's related to Christianity. And 10-11 century is basically the time when written genres started to spread.

Tho we have plenty of stories which were part of the folklore before 10th century. They are pagan and these stories migrated to written form later in time, reformed a little bit.

So I'm interested was the pagan culture in Norks (before 10th century) developed enough to have widely known themes that are known to this day?

Awesome. I should read these texts.

Oh, I see, so the Den eldre Edda is what I was asking about. And Völuspá is only a part of that.

Finns should be jelly about such rich cultural heritage.

Biggest source of interesting things in pre-christian Scandinavia are the Icelandic Sagas, even though they were written in Christian times, they preserve a lot of the folklore and belief in magic, certain things like trolls and draugr and sometimes have pagan characters (although often as the bad guys).

 

You might like the Saga of Grettir the strong and should be able to find a translation. He was a really strong and kc tier guy who liked killing a lot of people. As his adventures go on, he is outlawed in more and more places and makes many enemies. One time he fights a kind of undead being and in the end his enemies hire a sorceress to carve runes that lead to his death.

 

A poem called Sonatorrek gives in my opinion interesting and personal insight into how a Germanic pagan person felt about his loved ones dieing. No Christian stuff here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonatorrek

 

Much younger but also interesting are folk ballads and fairy tales, that were collected all around europe after the middle ages, but often contain traces of weird folk beliefs. Nobody really knows how long these stories had been in the oral tradition.

 

One very famous ballad like this is the Swedish Herr Mannelig, about a troll trying to marry a christian knight, but he rejects her on the basis of religion.

 

Another one I like is this faroese one about a knight being invited to dance with the elves, which leads to his demise.

 

Many ballads like this have a strong sense of danger and magic in the natural world around the fortified settlements. Belief in such spirits of nature was especially strong in Iceland, where medieval law banned approaching the island with dragon ships as not to anger the spirits of the land and until the 20th century many people would carry rifles when travelling through the Highland, even though there are literally no dangerous animals there.

Kc tier info: If Finns appear in Old Norse literature, they are assumed to be magically talented, which is a bad thing and you shouldn't trust them. There is a lot of scholarship and speculation about the relationship of finnish and sami shamanism to Germanic religion and Germanic beliefs in magic.

Kek. Autism as an enchantment.

Thanks for the info, Bernd. It was really interesting. I have to go to sleep, will read your answer later.

on this subject I've always found this kenning to be ebin

If I was a medieval person who didn't understand his language, I'd also think he is some kind of troll or magical creature.

 

Also: I don't think he had a hard time preserving his virginity.

Ban Hans.

 

Of course.

When I saw Apu Viking and Deutschlandball I instantly was like: Oh, is it him?

Henlo fren!