Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by nenothtu
Those Fenris/Fenrir things? Blows my mind how much of this ancient lore you two know about....fascinating.
I can't speak for BIAD, but I'm OLD. Very, very OLD. Much older than I look, and THAT is plenty old enough already. Vikings were something of a
specialty in the days of my wild and reckless youth. As a matter of fact, in one of my posts I mentioned how a "the spirits will not be denied" when
neno was fighting against sleep to avoid another dream confrontation with Dead Margot. That is another ancient Norse belief - that a sudden and
irresistible mid-day weariness and sleepiness (and be honest, who HASN'T experienced that at one time or another?) is an indication that the spirits
want to have a word with you - and intend to do so as you sleep.
There are a lot of ancient beliefs like that which seem to have been lost, misplaced or warped out of recognition these days. They, in turn, go back
to even earlier days, to a common proto-teutonic core that spread out with the teutonic peoples as they overtook Europe, and were changed slightly
(but not unrecognizably so) to suit the individual cultures as they developed. The beliefs themselves are far older than the rifts that produced
individual cultures, By the way, I'm including "Celts" in the "Teutonic peoples and cultures", because they are but another branch of the Germanic
peoples that split off earlier than most, arising in the area of the Danube - in the Transylvania neighborhood, believe it or not!
Cernunnos and Goibnu/Goban, Epona, Ogmos, ALL of the Celtic and Teutonic pantheon - including Odin, Fenris, the Ulfhednar, ALL of them started out as
real people, living, breathing men and women just like you or I, who lived not far from the banks of the Danube.
Fenris is a special case, since he is not obviously human, appearing to be a mad wolf instead. The origin of Fenris/Fenrir is the same as the origin
of the belief in werewolves. The very first "werewolf" was a supposed shapeshifter long ago. His name has been transmitted over the ages in one form
or another, and he is now only remembered in arcane tomes on Celtic mythology as a shapeshifter god, not very often connected in modern times with
werewolves specifically, He is remembered as a "myth", a "god", or an "urban legend" depending on
where he is remembered and by whom, but he IS
remembered, and was once a mere human being, just like you or I.
He loved, he cried, he fought, he hunted, he bled, he felt pain, and he smelled spring mornings in the alpine meadows of the Carpathians, but after
5000 or 6000 years, no one remembers those things... only his name (or variants) is recalled, and his memory relegated to the realms of
"mythology".
edit on 2012/5/26 by nenothtu because: (no reason given)
