Of coarse we exist silly! And I make a quite delicious Hobbit Stew!

Jutland was never a part of Germany! The Romans used the name Germania to generalise race wise, but the Germanic tribes who lived there had each their own kingdom. The tribes who lived in Denmark at the time (500-600 AD) were Jutes, Angles and Danes.
The setting of Beowulf is the Danish Island Zealand/Sjælland between Jutland and Sweden. Beowulf was raised among the Geats in Sweden and came to Hleiðra/Lejre on Sjælland to visit his family, fight the beast Grendel and get some honour.




Well it's a long time since I have read it, but I'm sure it is not an Elf-woman. Halga/Helge rapes his own daughter and makes her pregnant by mistake. He had never seen her before and her Mother had arranged the meeting because she hated Helge and wanted revenge.
By the way, Helge is the brother of King Hrothgar from Beowulf.




That's right. In Scandinavian tradition the Elves were forest people, man size, but dangerous to meet. If you got lost in the forest and meet the Elven girls they would charm you and try to make you follow them to their home where they would drive you mad and make you stay forever.
When somebody became raving mad, people sometimes thought that they had been visiting the Elves. However, You could recognise them by the hole in their bag.

Do you mean a stew made BY Hobbits or a stew made WITH Hobbits?

I was quoting that to show that I wasn't making it up that there were man size elfs in mythology. And thanks for giving us more info on the human sized elfs/elves.

i agree..i mean scientists think they have an idea about how old the earth really is...but in all reality, they dont. And the whole is their life on other planets controversy thing...of course their is, i mean. look how huge the universe/multiverse is, if our planet has life, obviously so do others

LOL, wonder if it tastes like chicken?....

glorybebe! Forgive me for trying to correct you regarding the Hrólfs kraka saga. Just been reading some of it again. Helgi also had a child with an Elf-woman, exactly as you said:

"What he saw was a sleeping woman so fair that he thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful. She was dressed in a silken gown."

"Skuld's mother was an elfin woman, and the king never again saw or heard of her. Skuld grew up with the king; from an early age she showed a vicious temperament."

No problem! I am not that sensitive. I had just read that there were more human like elves, and had to back up an earlier claim. I shall have to pull out my mythology books again, they fascinate me.

I understand remains of midget races have been found in at least three places. One was in America where excavations for a building site unearthed tunnels within the limestone caverns in the Catskills. What appeared to be small apartments complete with tombs of deceased inhabitants. This happened in the sixties. The people measured three and four feet tall. Another site was in Hawaii. On one of the islands a race of little people are said to have existed.

I'd never heard of the Hawaiian ones. Do you know of any more info on them or the Catskills ones?

The mythical Hawaiian dwarfs are called Menehune or something similar. I've never heard of dwarfs in the Catskills. Very interesting.

Iwould have to agree .You just kind of have to think outside the box on this. Civilized life as we know it has only been around for about twenty thousand years and the earth is alot older than that. So i think it could be a possibility.

..then where you do draw the line between what you want to believe and what bears scrutiny?

--Jaylemurph

I agree with you, with the fall of the western empire Europe became a wery unstable region, a not nice place to live.
But must of the barbarian nation was scared away by plague or other invading forces (like the huns) so they were not raiding the empire for fun but for need. After all the Goths were immigrants who were begging the emperor for aid.
Must of the barbaric kingdoms rarely lasted more than a 100 year, later they became civiliced (at least partially) thanks of the work of the missionaries.

Anyway back to the topik, probably all the histories of the orcs, have root in the encounter of the homo sapiens and the neanderthal people. The orcs usally were describe as cave people who lived either alone or in groups, they were hairy, ugly and they stink! oh they were also cannibals. Sounds like a neanderthal...no?

Actually, before Tolkien, there were no tales of Orcs. This is his invention, and he seems to have taken the name orc from a kind of sea dragon of the very same name in a medieval legend.

But I do agree with you that there may be distant human memories of the Neanderthals. I believe the Nephilim "giants" of the Bible, supposedly wiped out by the great flood, were Homo Sapien memories of the Neanderthals.

The point about the barbarians is not that they were forced to migrate into Roman territory, but that they destroyed everything in their path.

Side question: what if the Neanderthals won their battle against their rivals from Africa? Would this world be split into 2 parts. Each part posseses absolutely different languages and very different DNA.

the reason i say middel earth well on that side of the pond you got the atlas mt range and on this side of the pond you got the appalation mt range,
and in cape breton there are those two mt ranges but squeezed to 130 miles.

that makes this island the capstone of that mt that fell ooow so long ago,
and that middel earth that you call in myth well we burn it in our coal .
for that is when the timespan has taken us ,but back then we were knowen for our fire rock,
and not importing it for greed like today.

I'm not saying this is something i believe in firmly, Only open to the possibility.But it is a thin line between what somebody wants to believe and what facts we currently have. But like i said before, Who's to say solid evidence of a past civilization before us won't be found.

big mistake, sorry i wanted to say TROLLS not orcs. All the tales on trolls could be somehow a reminiscent of the encounter of the first sapiens and neanderthal.
Imo Tolkien ispired his creature, the orc on the old tales of trolls....



could be



they were barbarians, that daytime terrorists.... they didnt now any better....

Bul*s**t! The Romans invaded almost every Country in Europe! They thought they could treat their neighbours as they wanted to, and finally got their @$$ kicked. That is what happened! Thanks to Hermann they didn’t invade Scandinavia. Civilised! How many deaths do you think Caesar and Augustus had on their conscience?

The Pax Romana allowed the people of the Roman Empire (Most of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa) to live their lives in reasonable peace, and a person could travel from Northern Britain to the Euphrates in relative safety, something that has been impossible ever sense that time.

Rome was only defeated by the Germans by base treachery. Appropriately, Herman died at the hands of fellow Germans, for these savages were constantly at each others throats in endless blood feuds. The Romas weakened themselves by taxing the middle class to death, while the rich used their connections to get out of paying them. No taxes no army.

But if Roman reamined strong, and the dark ages never occured, we would probably have achieved a "Star Trek-esque" Utopia by now, for thanks to the German destruction of western civilization, almost a millennia of human progress was lost.

I'll grant you that as your opinion -- but come up with some facts before you say that's the truth.
History is far too complex to come up with simplistic answers like that.

--Jaylemurph

Sometimes the simplest and most obvious answer is the right answer.

...Not so much in history. I speak as a historian.

--Jaylemurph

I thought the origin of Tolkein's Orc was the same that gave us Orchestra, Orchid, and Orca: Orcus, a variant name for Hades/Pluto, the god of the dead.

As for the troll origin, it is possible that small, hybridized, remnants of Neanderthal tribes may have survived in the frozen mountains to the north edge of Scandinavia. The climate is actually fairly close to that in which they evolved in, and the area was fairly isolated from their main enemy: Homo Sapiens. When one hears descriptions or sees pictures of trolls, we have powerfully built, stooping, beetle-browed privative humanoids, often with oversized noses (in short what Neanderthal man looked like). Even if the "trolls" were not interested in a fight, the Norrthmen of the dark Ages would have only have seen something to exterminate, so any legends of their innate evil don't necessarily hold well.

So, you say it is OK to invade other populations if you can keep peace in the area afterwards? That there was not peaceful in those areas was none of their business.




And the Romans didn’t fight and backstab each other? I think you have selective memory.




You are dreaming!

Drac: "But if Roman reamined strong, and the dark ages never occured, we would probably have achieved a "Star Trek-esque" Utopia by now, for thanks to the German destruction of western civilization, almost a millennia of human progress was lost."




Well, at the time the Roman's had developed a crude steam-engine "Hero's Wheel". They had invented concrete, and many civil-engineering marvels, not to be equaled again until the industrial age. There is also little doubt that the Dark Ages plunged Europe into centruies of savage stagnation.

Would Rome have ever brought us to space? I, for one doubt it. Rome was too dependent on slavery: whenever they needed more labour, they just added slaves. Not a good environment to develop labor-saving devices. Indeed, the Black Death of Europe killed so many people, that early machines preeciding industrialization were necessary. Still, had Rome survived, it may have spawned the civilizations that would have, much as the United States broke away from, and developed from the British Empire.

Well, we can fom an independent topic to talk about this question:
If the invaders can bring peace and prosper to the place they are going to conquor, are they justified to do so?
To present a concrete example, if Hitler could form a Uropian Union, through war, would he be justifed?

I think the consensus throughout most of Western history is that the ends never justify the means.
I think Hitler /was/ trying to create a pacified Europe -- at the expense of the Jews, Catholics, Slavs, Gypsies, Blacks, Communists, Retarded, Criminals, Dissidents and Homosexuals.

I imagine the four people left in Europe would have had a fine time.

--Jaylemurph

As has been somewhat described, Tolkien completely based Middle Earth on Norse Myth.

Middle Earth itself is based on Midgard, one of the nine worlds on Yggdrasil. Midgard literally translates to "Middle World", and in the literary sense, is fitting to be used as an alternate reality.

Elves are based on the Norse elves which have their own level on Yggdrasil, and being light beings of nature and spring, generally tie in with what Tolkien wrote about. Orc could very well be based on Svaltalfar, or Dark Elves, who were sinister and lived beneath the earth. Dwarves are based on the Dwarves that are also a creation of Norse Myth, and are equally crafty in Tolkien's novels. Dwarven scripts in the movie and book are based on the Elder Futhark and Anglo-Saxon runes that were used as a script for writing in Teutonic lands.

There is nothing too fantastic and original about Tolkien's ideas. I am a huge fan of Norse Myth and, as Tolkien wrote from a strongly Christian viewpoint, believe he could have done a much better job in representing it in his works without hiding the truth. According to the beliefs of my religion, Asatru, middle earth does indeed exist as you could say. We live on Midgard, the world of men. Since Middle Earth is based entirely on Midgard, we are living in Middle Earth.

On another note, I encourage you to overlook the overly cynical and ignorant posts that were made early in this thread by Draconic Chronicler. They are insultingly incorrect and arrogant. I will address his faults:


And the Romans were not equally destructive and merciless? Need I remind you about the Punic Wars, among others? And what of the Americans, the Soviets, and the British in the modern times. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's modern, civilized man that began and fought the two greatest wars in human history, far greater and more brutal than anything the "barbarians" -- foreigners in Latin -- could have done. Would you have rather had the "barbarians" charge into Rome and offer them tea and crumpets? War is war. If you are truly fighting for your life and your people, you are going to fight with everything in you. It is life and death. Are you really that biased and blinded by your impudent pride so that you do not see the truth about all races and human civilizations, and have to result to trying to belittle the Germans and those who romanticized them?


Let me remind you that the Dark Ages gave way to a rebirth of all civilization, a healthy rebirth, and movements such as The Enlightenment and The Great Awakening. It's easy to look at the past, in Rome especially, and imagine it as a beautiful, prosperous place. What you are probably forgetting to realize is the Roman culture, and how slaves outnumbered citizens.


I must say that this comment is absolutely revolting. I have never read such hateful and arrogant posts, let alone those that are clearly biased. You write about how terrible the Germans are, and the Nazis, yet you have views equally as radical against them. I encourage you to actually study history as it is written, deeply, before making such prejudiced opinions of societies.

I am very insulted by your insolence and how you are achieving a power trip over and internet forum, as I am a practicing Asatruar and have Germanic heritage. I implore you to learn to use more thoughtful words, and if you have such grossly negative views of the Germanic peoples, keep them to yourself.

lol somebody didnt do their homework here

And how many dead came by the hand of those warlords before the romans and after them? at that time every country in the world tryed to conquer each other, so the romans did a good job forcing peace upon other contryes.
The Romans builded something, the barbarians were only good to destroy, later they tried to COPY the romans but they were only copycats.
The end of the middleage came when europeans (mainly italian artist's and philosofists) started to rediscover the roman-greek-etruschian civilitation (the age of reason, see Leonardo da vinci, Galileo, copernicus, Rafael ect) other nation blinded by that beauty, followed them.

But I think by the way you write you are wery biased. IMO bias is a waste of time, but it's up to you to decide.

why not, many time the romans were greeted as friend in many countryes, and other wanted to be part of the roman empire.
What ever did the romans is not so important, but I remind you, that the barbarians who were roaming the empire, they wanted to be romans.
Odoacer who ended the western empire ased the Eastern emperor to recive the title of ROMAN PATRITIAN (roman noble) and to be in his service not bad for
somebody who "hated" rome

And how about the ostrogoths? when they came in Italy they tryed to rebuilt what was left of the roman civilitation....
Actually I have simpaty for the Goths, they were poor people fighting for their lives, but they understood the importance and greatness of Rome.

And Raven, now it's your turn.




Well actually, you are wrong (partially) the romans BUILDED, the romans were able to secure peace and prosperity in many countryes. They builded roads, aqueducts, temples, they created a effective burocraty, the must modern law system for that time.....it's not a wonder that many countryes and tribes wanted to be part of that empire.
The barbarians fighting for their life (but not for their country, because they were running from it, the barbarians were refugee), it's true, but they were not able to build nothing, they were only capable to divide europe in many small kingdoms poorly administrated and with almust no security. Leaving Europe vulnerable to foreign attach (like the arabs).
If people like Charlemagne learned something about politics and culture it was than to the catholic church who gave the frankis king some lessons of roman way of politics.



No, the fall fall of the roman empire gave birth to many new countries, and the end of middle age came when the intellectual elite of Europe started to rediscover the greatness of roman-greek civilitation. About slaves, well there were slaves before during and after the roman empire. Dont tell me you belive in Rome there were only slaves?



first chill out, what's you problem? this is history. The dark age came at because of the fall of the western empire...the "barbarians" occupied the earth (here we go, why so much hostility agaist rome but not against those people who ravaged and destroyed europe for centuries? you say Rome occupied land, but the barbarians did the same only in a much uglyer way than the romans did. What we do have from roman time? almust everything, what do we have from those barbarian tribes? nothing few old castles, rusty armour...and some beautyfull churces. all the good thing came eather by the work of the church or by rediscovering the roman civilitation. We started to rise again as soon humanity rediscovered the beauty of the ancient classic culture and that include the roman civilitation. Befreeing us from the grasp of the kings and the pope.

Look around, what do we use for writing? Runes? no...Gothic? no...Cyrillic? no (at least if you are not from greece)....what do we use? LATIN ALFABET (and derivates) wow, the same alfabet used in roman time. Look at your governement. What does it have? burocraty...yes (like in roman times) what more....a parlament and elections...WOW JUST LIKE IN ROME, the senators was elected by the people! And your governement does also have istitutions (like the roman empire).

You may reply, all this good stuff (and many more) there were before the romans, like democraty was originally from greece and burocraty...., Yes, BUT the ROMANS SHAPED THEM in the way we now them to day! when tourist go to Pompei (if you know were it is) they are astonished: they say look, gosh how they were modern. They houses had water (some houses) look this place was made for the election pools...oh my gooood it's almust like a modern town...they even had graffity incredible. I used to hear that all the time...do you now why? because i grow up in Pompei in Italy.
When people go to a medieval town or a castle, they say, how a beautyfull sigh, nice walls....cool armour. But they cant compare themself with the medieval world.



Now if you feel offended by dragons (and perhaps mine) word, well i think you should go to the doctor, what we told you is history, not imagination. Read history books...go out and see roman ruins, avoid asterix, and gladiator. And perhaps pro nationalistic books about celts and germans.
Dont misunderstand me, I dont say Rome was the paradise in earth, I say Rome was the best possible choice for THAT TIME. We all now what came later.....the dark age (but let me say, christianity has also a major role in the fall of the empire, not only the germans).

Now you say you are Asatruar, well i know lot of people from Forn Sidr and Valravn, serious people, not wannabies, and I am danish (ok part Danish, from my father side, my mother is Italian) so I also have a "German heritage" more precisely skandinavic. And I must say, in all the time I have been in the asatruar community I NEVER MEET PEOPLE who had a radical hate against the romans (why not hate the sumerians or the Persian then?or Nebukhenazar or perhaps president Odaga Mumbele?) so you are NOT giving a good impression of a Asatruar.

First let me explain few thing of your (our) German ancestors: they were warriors (not all of them of course)...repeat after me WARRIORS. That word doesent mean eco hippy son of flower pot smoking peace lover freak. No it means: A warrior is a person habitually engaged in warfare. In tribal societies engaging in endemic warfare, warriors often form a caste or class of their own. In feudalism, the vassals essentially form a military or warrior class, even if in actual warfare, peasants may be called to fight as well. In some societies, warfare may be so central that the entire people (or, more often large parts of the male population) may be considered warriors, for example in the Iron Age Germanic tribes or the Medieval Rajputs (from wikipeadia).

What does that say to you? I tell you, the Germans spent more time fighting against them self rather against the romans. So Germans major enemy wasnt Rome but Germans.
As soon they meet Rome, they hurried to be part of it, not to go out and destroy her. Thousand of germans died serving and defending the empire...so show some respect!

Second Dragon is wery wise having a radical opinion on the nazi's, and you should do that to. I dont have simpaty for nazi people, about the barbarians I dont say Germans, celts and skandinavic people didnt have a civilitation, they had, but it was a little thing confronted to Rome (like it or not). If you want to be proud of the ancestors, fine, but dont write bull on others and then when corrected you become offended.


Edit: I hate doing this, I was forced to edit part of the post because it was almust unreadable, and I corrected some typos.

I know Cro magnon and neanderthals cooabitated for a while, I know the last "bastion" of the Neanderthals was somewere around Gibraltar. The Neanderthals lived in caves, the stink and their body was covered by hair, and they had big noses....sound almust like a description of a troll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls

Lux has already made an excellent response to your nonsense. But one thing I thought I should add is that my own ancestry is wholly German and Scandanavian, so understand that I have no racial bias against the northmen when I state the terrible truth about my own ancestors. Though an Amercian citizen I have also lived in Germany for many years and have many German friends. In real life I am a military historian. I work for the USDOD and that is why I spent over two decades of my life in Germany. I have been to virtually every museum there, and all the most significant archaeological sites. I have actually built exhibitions in major German museums, and three of my books are printed in that language. The Germans are a very proud people, and indeed, once they sought to imitate Roman civilization great things have come from those lands. Perhaps no other country has more thoroughly investigated their ancient past, with thousands of graves and habitation sites being excavated, and do you no what they find? Anything of beauty and intricacy was looted, or traded from the celts or romans. Anything made by the ancient Germans looks as though it were made by a child or a caveman. We only begin to see beautiful things coming from Germanic sources after enough civilized artisans were enslaved by them and made to do their bidding at the time of the Germanic migrations that herarlded the dark ages.

The poem Beowulf, which virtually all of Tolkien's nonsense is built upon sums it all up in the words of the germanic people themselves. This WAS a world of endless bloodfeuds, the poem says as much. Beowulf's people were exterminated by his neighbors as soon as he died becasue they were without a leader, so they sensed an easy victory. They certainly had slaves as well, it is fully documented, and besides, somebody had to tend the crops and livestock, for the "free" German men seem to have done little more than kill each other in drunken brawls, raid and plunder their neighbors, and get helplessly drunk every night. And while every Roman city had gleaming marble libraries and theatres, the greatest Germanic achievement is also heralded in Beowulf: a great meadhalle to get drunk in, made of timber, twigs and cowdung wattle, for which not a trace stands today, or any other "monument" to ancient or dark age German achievement. It like everything else these people did until they imitated the Roman civilization they largely destroyed has rotted away to nothing.

I would loved to have read many of the hudreds of thousands of books written in classical times that no longer exist becasue the rampaging, illiterate Germans used them for kindling and toilet paper.

You'll have a hard time disputing anything I have said, for I know what I am talking about, save for my projections on how advanced our civilization might be today if it were not for the dark ages and destruction of Western Civilization. This can only remain speculation. But I think a lot of educated people unbiased by racial pride would agree with these observations.

Sometimes politics and reasoning make your mind confused and may lead it to weird conclusions.

Last time I knew, this was a discussion about the possible existence of a Middle Earth, not a flame war between Romans and Germans. The Raven was not trying to be hateful toward the Romans, he was just countering the harsh words of Draconic Chronicler toward the Germanic peoples. We've had enough of a spat about this. Yes, the Germanic tribes were violent, but we do not need to trash their name at every corner we turn and every step we take in this little discussion.

To answer the topic of the thread...

As The Raven said, in the beliefs of Norse Pagans, Midgard (Middle Earth) is the world we live in today. If one takes the lore literally and believes it, then yes, there has been a Middle Earth and there still is, just a rather changed Middle Earth. I do hope this answers your question a bit better than back and forth bickering about Romans and Germans, no matter who started it.

Of course, but the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening, after the Renaissance, gave way to new ideas and ways of thinking that were never present in the Roman Empire. The majority of what we have today philosophically and morally as a society was highly influenced by these new thinkers and those influenced by them, as well as the knowledge base that is taught in school. They were not subjected to Roman or Greek society, and this also gives them the advantage of being able to openly question and oppose aspects of it to create new ideas that would have never come forth without the Dark Ages.


I apologize if my comments came off as especially hateful towards Rome. It felt as though DC was singling out Germans and using them as a scapegoat and ignoring Roman atrocities. In fact, Luck Light, I am a big fan of the Romans. I am a third year Latin student and enjoying learning about Roman history and mythology, as well as that of the earlier Greeks. I have no Roman or Mediterranean heritage, however (although I have a Greek friend), and have pride in my peoples. I realize that they were warriors, and especially violent. I know that when the Vikings took over England, they sold over 10,000 of the fair skinned Irish women into sex slavery in the Middle East. I know that when they converted to Christianity they were crushed at the Battle of Hastings and Stamford Bridge. I know how they exalted Odin into a brutal war god, for he is my patron God. I know how they took honor and might in battle as the greatest sign of courage and it led them to Valhalla where they would fight amongst each other in practice until Ragnarok. All of this is brutal. I have a higher regard for their brutality, however, because they are my people, they were wronged by the Christians, and they accepted and reveled in their brutality instead of trying to have some sort of facade to cover up the truth.


And then we became realists in art and philosophy not so drawn to idealism. I can't say that trend is staying though. Look at the fashion world.


This is because Christian society, based in the city of Rome (Roman Catholicism) dominated Northern Europe after the conversion and defeat of the Vikings. The Church was predominantly Latin until the Protestant movement much later on, and this is why many German words and names have been Latinized and we use the Latin alphabet, and not any age of the Runes, which were used in England for some time and continue to exist in our languages. Icelandic continues to use the Thurisaz (TH) rune in written language, and symbols such as R, I, M, B, C, H, S have somewhat similar characteristics to their Runic counterparts. Our government is based on the ideas of the Greeks, reinterpreted by Enlightenment thinkers, which made up our Founding Fathers. Our government may be based on ancient systems, but is however largely an updated, modern reconstruction.


I do find it rather sad that we lost many of the Roman technologies until modern times. However, I am also sad that we have lost many Germanic documents and traditions. If they were written down, they may have been repressed. If they were not recorded, they may have been recorded by Christians and are known to be extremely biased. Many of these spoken and lesser known German traditions, especially in Religion, have been lost forever because of their repression and destruction by peoples from former states of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church.


I strongly dislike romanticizing German past, and glorifying it, was was done by the Nazis and people such as Richard Wagner. In here I agree with Friedrich Nietzsche. I recognize the atrocities of the past, but history is history, it cannot be changed, only hidden and lied about, and I support the truth coming out. We know where to guide ourselves in the future. The Germanic peoples are still powerful and in existence today, and are on a better course than their ancestors. If you have ever learned about the modern people and elders leading the Asatru and Odinist movements, you will see that the past horrors are accepted but we are moving on from these. We may be using the older and most accurate and unbiased texts we can find, which are from that era, but we are applying them to the modern world and not living in the past or conforming to biased racial groups such as the KKK.


I applaud you for accepting that realization that Christianity was also a key factor in the destruction of the Empire. In fact, both the Germanic AND Roman empires. Quite a destructive force, eh?


I don't have radical hate for anybody. I hope I explained that earlier in this post. I can't wait to visit Rome and experience their culture, and although they were an enemy to the Germanic peoples, that is the past, this is the present. No reason to keep living in the past in that sense. I too am part Danish, so we have something in common.


Of course in the same right, Rome had unmatched military might, and was equally as feuding politically. Thus we see the assassination of Julius Caesar, and to be fair, the political feuds of his triumvirate. There are warriors in all societies, just not in the same ways as the Germanic peoples.


I do not have a radical opinion of the Nazis and will never have one. I refuse to accept them or like them, but I believe Adolf Hitler was a courageous and intelligent man. He had to be in order to make WW2 the war it was, and keep the Nazi Empire alive for so long in the midst of such battle. I also believe firmly from a thesis I have read (I wish I could dig up the link) that Adolf Hitler was a conservative Christian before and during his reign in Germany as Chancellor, and up until his death. His hatred for Jews came completely from Christianity, when he was a member of a small anti-semitic society in Italy as a youth. He then wrongly glorified and corrupted German history and abused things such as the Futhark runes. As a result we have both Christianity and the Germanic people to blame for WW2.


I appreciate that you are a historian and have published books on the subjects we have talked about, I would actually enjoy seeing those books myself. However I felt you were singling out the Germans by not discussing Roman atrocities and only focusing on the "nonsense" and "brutality" of the German people. Calling what has turned into Asatru, belief-wise, nonsense, is rather offensive and is grounds for a religious debate, which I don't want, and which solves nothing. I felt that you were being rather arrogant in saying literally that you know more than other people and using your role as a historian to rub in the face.


All civilizations had slaves, it's a dark thing in our past that still exists, at some level, today. On the topic of helpless drunkeness, I also realize that, as we know especially that the most drunken were the Berserkers, who would use drugs, drink and religious rites to work themselves up into an uncontrollable fury. To be fair, however, it was not just the Germanic people that were ruthless. Look at the Japanese in the 1930's, such as the Rape of Nan King. That could very well be the greatest atrocity/massacre ever committed in the history of human kind, up there with the Holocaust.


As would I, and I have disdain for that, but as I said earlier, we also lost many Germanic things because of Christian invasion and conversion, a direct result of the harboring of Christianity by the Roman Empire, whether it was standing or not, it secured the throne of power that stands to this day.


I do agree with many of your observations, it's unfortunate I was a bit angry in my post and then it was further misinterpreted. On top of that, DC, I apologize for the comment I left in your profile.

I don't think I brought up Germannic religion at all in my posts so don't know where you got that idea. I did say Tolkien's efforts to turn Germanic culture into much for than it ever was, was nonsense. And despite many people speaking of the Christian overtones in his work, I really do not see it. Other than the standard "good triumphs over evil" cliche there was nothing particularly Christian or religious about it. No one prays to their God for strength. Even painting Sauron as the evil one is a matter of perspective.

What is intriguing though is your idea that Christianity was detrimental to the Germans. The historical record seems to contradict this. The Germans accomplished virtually nothing as long as they were pagans. This is why we know so little about their beliefs. The Christians did not burn the pagan German scriptures, becasue there were none. These religious beliefs seem to largely be an oral tradition. The Runic alphabet was largely used to mark tombstones and personal possessions, not to write books.

Christians did not conquer the Germans. Quite the contrary, the Christians were at their mercy. So why did such a warlike people willingly accept a religion that scorned the violence they craved? The only plausible explanation seems to be that the Germans no longer believed in their old Gods, or believed the Christian God was more powerful. A theory I put forward in my next book (that accepts the premise that there are truths behind ancient religious beliefs), is that once accepting Christianity, the Germanic and Nordic peoples believed they would no longer plagued by the dragons that fill their art and mythology. This is not apparent today, but in ancient Christianity, dragons were the highest heavenly servant creatures, with scriptures stating they devour the souls of the wicked and nonbelievers. Perhaps this is the reason the Germans embraced rather than destroyed a Christian Church made absolutely helpless with the defeat of Roman arms. This does not make the dragons "real", though they seemed very real in the minds of our ancient ancestors, and particularly so in Northern Europe.

In terms of the viking era, as far as I know, 1066 marked their defeat and also was around the same time that the majority of the population had converted to Christianity.

Remember that history is always written by the victors.

Nor did they seek to preserve oral traditions in writing as a historical record, they instead repressed these beliefs, while today we have many anthropologists who have gone into illiterate tribes and recorded similar content.


As a pagan people they would be converted like all the others. In H.A. Guerber's book, "Myths of the Norsemen", he has many accounts of events that were recorded, which involved Christians converting Germanic people. You may wish to look into these, although I am not sure where he got them, as I haven't looked at the bibliography. One that comes to mind was fooling the people of a city and playing upon their superstitions to make them fearfully behold the power of God, which by the end of the record, was no more legitimate than Thor, the god that the priest was trying to disprove.


And it is unfortunate that an assault of missionaries ravaged their traditions like those of many others, instead of recording and analyzing their beliefs.

Undoubtedly, the only reason we have Beowulf is becasue a Christian missionary thought it worth recording, possibly becasue it had already been given a Christian connection, or perhaps this was added by the missionaries.

Meek monks could not make German warriors do anything. If they gave up all knowledge of their ancient religious beliefs, it was of their own free will.

Hello Raven, I will start to apologice to you if i was a little rude, sadly on we cant see each other on the forum so sometimes it is hard to figure out if the person you are writing to is just being ironically, kidding or dead serious. Second a friend gave me a tip about my spelling, I Know English is not were im strongest, but im doing my best to improve it.



Anyway, you have made some wery interesting points, but I like to add the new way of thinking and ideas came only through the rediscover of our past and this was used in opposing of the repressive regime of the pope and the kings...



DC know what he is talking about, but sometimes he is to rude. And I dont agree with everything he says.


Anyway im not a big fan of christianity (im not accusing modern christians, but ancient ones) they did lot of damage, more damage that ever could have been done with a sword. Sometimes when I am in Italy i walk throug the ancient rovines of old roman - greek temples (Pompei, herculaneum, or paestum) and i feel so sad. We lost all that beauty....for what? the misery of the dark age? the rule of the popes?.
You now, actually the pagan germans were not responsable for the fall of the empire, because when the barbarians roamed through the empire....they were already christians. Look at the Goths they were arian christians. I like to say sometimes they were used by the chistians for they own agenda (destrution of temples and non christian religious places) just look at charlemagne, he was used by the pope to kick the Longobards (some of the must miserable barbarian the world ever saw) out of italy.
Anyway IMO the pacification of the barbarian tribes and vikings by the missionaries was not that bad, but what I condemn is the destruction of their culture. That is what I cant accept!

In my opinion it's a good thing you are proud of your people, I respect that, im also proud of mine (both italian and skandinavic) I know we wasnt always so nice (just look at Mussolini or Hitler, but every culture in the world have both shadows and light) but I also know we gave to the world culture, civilitation, beauty...just like your people did : great scientist, generals, musicians ect. So be proud, it will be stupid not to be (always IMO).


ciao

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/06/euwc/ht06euwc.htm



http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european...4/timeline.html

Judging by these facts, Lux Felix could be right that many of the invading Germanic tribes were Christian. But somehow I believe that the tribes, such as the Franks, that took to Christianity were those that settled in what was formerly Roman Christian lands and took on the local religion. I doubt they were the ones who pushed forward into Roman territory and pillaged the Empire.

Understand that there were already huge numbers of Germans within the Empire that were already Christians during the time of the final collapse. But I must question the claim of Germans being "brutally converted" in the 500's AD. By who? Other Germans who were Christians?. Rome was gone. There were some brief successes of the Eastern Roman Empire in the west, but they were shortlived. That's why there was a dark ages. Not until Charlemagne was there again a powerful empire in Western Europe to impose its religion on its subjects, but by his time, virtually everyone in Europe, save for scandanavia had already accepted Christianity. So the bottom line is that the Germans who overran Western Civilzation for the most part abandoned their old pagan Gods very willingly and accepted the God of the people they conquered.

Yes, by the time of the great migrations we begin to see beautifully crafted objects in the graves of the Germans. But did they make them? Probably not,, becasue in all the graves of the earlier periods, we see only sophisticated Celtic and Roman objects, or crude German objects. The explanation is that during the migrations, the Germans enslaves civilized artisians to make their luxury goods. We do see a very different look to the German art, loud and garish, most often the subjects of it are all violent, with birds of prey and dragons, sometimes depicted swallowing human heads, etc.

despite your claims to be a qualified historian Drac Chronic you don't seem to know much about the reality of it
Beowulf is not a german poem
its anglo saxon english


what history qualifications do you actually hold ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf


If youre looking for someone to blame for that then you should really leave the Germans alone and leave the blame right at the door of the vatican
they did in fact have a policy of burning anything they didn't agree with (including women and children) and the dark ages were a direct result of their actions
and yes
their religion sprang from the so called "Holy Roman Empire"
who funnily enough are the same people who executed Jesus in the first place
really nice and civilised eh




theres also a wiki page that explains in full the sources for Tolkiens book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_t...ings#Influences
funnily enough you got that wrong as well

huh vatican? are u saying Europe was burned to ashes by the pope of Rome?



hold on, the dark ages was ALSO a result of christianity, and Germans actually they helped the christians to establish their regime of terror.
The romans (the real romans, not the christian copy cats) actually tryed to stop the christians.



the jew were responsable for the dead of Jesus, the romans couldn do anything to stop it.



nice

pop quiz

connect the two different types of execution with the two states that have used them for capital crimes

1) Judaism
2) Rome


a) crucifiction
stoning

ok here is another quiz.

who wanted him crucificted?

a) Romans?

Jews?

neither
he had it planned himself
he wanted to die for our sins and he used Human agencies to make it happen
I didn't want him to die for my sins and feel affronted that he didnt ask permission
I need my sins
theyre fun

lool maybe you right, but dont you think we are OT?

Shall we not step IT again?

http://www.nature.com/news/specials/flores/index.html


http://archaeology.about.com/od/earlymansites/a/flores2.htm




They remind me of the Dropas...

http://www.20kweb.com/weird_stuff/lecture_...g_hausdorf.html