User talk:MarcusAntoninus
Willkommen, υποδοχή, добро пожаловать, Welcome
[edit]Guten Tag Marcus, I just want you to know how to left your signature on wikipedia. You just type ~ 4 times, like ~ ~ ~ ~ but all side a side(without spaces between) and your signature with the time when you have left it is at the end of your text and is, by the same way, a link to your account. Friendly FenrisUlven 19:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC) P.S I've started some contributions on wiki english: I've put some corrections and links to Mannus, Borr, Búri, etc... many corrections will follow as soon as I can.
On the path to the gates
[edit]Regarding the way to reach the links to all my contributions, you only have to go to my account(french:FriedrichUlven or english:FenrisUlven) and click on historique(history in english). Then you will find links to each one of my contributions, with the arcticles, dates of publication and the modifications themselves. I guess maybe the majority of all these contributions are minor modifications but the creation of many articles, in fact all the ones created by my own, are also included in the list. FenrisUlven 19:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Sigurd, Siegfried, Irmin, Armin, Arminius...
[edit]The original Germanic folk remained fairly well isolated from the rest of the world, expanding and evolving during the first two millennium before Christ (2000-550 B.C.). They spoke Proto-Germanic dialects, with a large number of words from the pre-norse megalithic culture. They were living in kins, each owning a property. Obviously when a kin became overpopulated, many individuals of the kin go on their own an created their own kin on a newfound property. By the time of Caesar Augustus, (30 B.C.-A.D. 14), as they expanded, the early Germanics began to split up into various cultural and linguistic divisions: the North Germans (Scandinavia), North-Sea Germans (Friesland to Jutland), Rhein-Weser Germans (also called "West Germans"), the Elbe Germans (throughout the drainage area of the Elbe river) and the Oder-and-Vistula Germans in the east. The more closer to the baltic sea, the more pure and fair the people were. The Roman authors Plinius and Tacitus tell us that they knew of three cult groupings in the west (the Ingwaeons, Istwaeons and Herminons, all of whom believed themselves to be descended from a common ancestor, Mannus. The written history of the Germanic peoples began with their violent contacts with Rome. The Teutons erupted into the Roman sphere of influence in the areas of modern Austria, Switzerland, southern France and northern Italy around 100 B.C. Over the next century the Romans spread northwards to conquer all of Gaul (modern France), but their expansion into the Germanic areas east of the Rhin river was permanently failed, when a great Germanic military genius, Arminius, slaughtered an entire Roman army consisting of three legions and their logistical support units. In the words of Tacitus, he was the "Liberator of Germany". Many of the great Germanic epics and songs of great antiquity center around a key figure known as Siegfried, also known in Old Norse as Sigurd. The tradition, now mostly literary, continues to this day. For centuries, scholars have puzzled over what historical character might have generated this wealth of legends and songs. In the third quarter of the twentieth century, the researchers determined that this individual was the one called Arminius by the roman. Arminius was a Cheruskan prince born about 16 B.C. and treacherously poisoned to death by his in-laws about A.D. 21. He may have obtained the name "Armenius" (likely the proper spelling) after "armenium," a vivid blue, ultramarine pigment made from a stone from Armenia, due to his piercing blue eyes, a feature which many among the Germanic peoples have to this day (Several centuries ago early scholars mistakenly thought "Arminius" was a Latinized form of the German "Hermann," and referred to him thus in their literary productions.). His brother's Latin name was Flavus ("the Blond"), which is also a name based on physical characteristics. The name of his father, a prince of the Cheruskan tribe, was Sigimêris ("Victory-renowned"). Because of the fact that first-born sons among the early Germans were usually given names beginning with the same first component as the name of their fathers, it is likely that Arminius' Germanic name was Sigiwarðus, "Victorious Protector," which later became Old Norse Sigurd and Old English Sigeweard. For metrical and other reasons, subsequent Old and Middle High German songs modified his name to Sigifridu (modern "Siegfried") or "Victorious Peace". His wife, Thusnelda (Þûsnildo, perhaps "Powerful Beauty"), had originally been promised by her father Segestes (Sigistis, "Most Victorious"), another Cheruskan prince, to a different man, but she ran away to marry Arminius. Segestes, whose paternal and princely rights had thus been violated, thereupon became the permanent archfoe of Arminius. Thusnelda's son with Arminius-Sigiwarðus was born after she had been kidnapped by her father and delivered to the Romans; she gave him the name Thumelicus (Þûmêlika "Powerful Kindness"), which alliterated with her own name. Arminius had been sent to Rome for early military training, spoke excellent Latin, possessed Roman citizenship and held the rank of Roman knight. He seems to have commanded a regular Cheruskan auxiliary squadron in Roman service, at first during the Pannonian (Balkan) revolt of A.D. 7-8, and thereafter in Germany. In Germany a rebellion began, originally probably as a revolt of the troops. But it was aggravated and spread by Arminius through a coalition of the Cheruskans and neighboring tribes. In September of A.D. 9, he drew three Roman legions (the 17th, 18th and 19th) commanded by Quintilius Varus deep into the Teuton Mountain Defile (Teutoburgiensis saltus) made treacherous by swamps and annihilated them. This success transformed him into the most famous figure of all early Germanic history. Kalkriese Mountain (ancient Teuton Mountain) Pass, site of the slaughter of Varus and his legions by the Cheruskan warlord Sigiwarðus, the Siegfried of Germanic legend and Arminius of Roman history. The later punitive expedition (A.D. 14-16) of the Roman general Germanicus had great trouble in invading Germany even with eight legions, and was unable to reestablish Roman rule there. This effectively terminated Rome's attempts to expand into Germany east of the Rhin. Arminius first attempted to win over Marbod, king of the Frontiersmen ("Men of the Marches," Marcomanni, ancestors of the Bavarians) but, failing this, attacked and defeated him. Finally, in A.D. 19, the great Germanic general was undone by a revolt of the nobility and murdered (apparently poisoned) by his in-laws, who were loyal to his wife's father, Segestes. Of Arminius, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote, "He was undoubtedly the liberator of Germany, a man who did not, as did other kings and generals, challenge Rome in its early stages, but when it stood at the zenith of its power. In battles he fought with varying success, but in the war he remained unconquered. His deeds live on in the songs of his people...." (Tacitus, Annals, 1, 57,58). These songs were handed down through the generations, and the story of Arminius became transformed into myth in the process. Famous twentieth-century researchers such as the University of Bonn's classical philologist Ernst Bickel and the Viennese specialist in the Old Norse Eddas, Otto Höfler, retraced the development of these epic poems and discovered that their hero, Siegfried, is indeed the figure whose Latin name has come down to us as Arminius. These researchers have extracted a series of striking correspondences, among them the following: Siegfried was murdered by his wife's relatives - as was Arminius, since the propinqui of Tacitus can mean only Segestes' clan. Siegfried slew a dragon (Fáfnir), but so also did Arminius, for whom the "dragon" was the serpentine, 20-kilometer-long, Roman army column. Siegfried grew up in Xanten on the lower Rhein: Xanten was the location of the location of the ancient Roman Castra Vetera ("Old Camp"), the powerful Roman stronghold to which the remnants of Varus' army had fled after the debacle; Siegfried was suckled by a doe and died like a deer pursued by hunters: Arminius belonged to the tribe of the Cheruskans, a name derived from the Germanic word stem herut "deer, hart." (In Latin, "ch" was the spelling used to render the Germanic voiceless palatal and velar fricatives, which sounded like the "ch" in modern German "Chemie" or the "g" in Spanish "gente." Cf. the mead-hall named heorot or "Hart's Hall," in the Old English epic, Beowulf. This word is also the ancestor of modern English hart.) Siegfried was the son of the king Sigemund, while Arminius' father was called Sigimer (Latin form: Segimer). Siegfried fought with the dragon on the Gnitaheiðr (the Rocky Heath or "rock-strewn, gravelly plain" - cf. New Norwegian gnita "broken piece, shard" and Swedish dialectal , gnitu, "crumb, particle"), while Arminius defeated the Romans on the Gnidderhöi, the Knetterheide (Knetter Heath) in the vicinity of Schötmar southeast of Herford (which itself is northeast of Bielefeld in northwestern Germany), suspected of being one of the locations where the three-day battle with Varus took place. This series of parallels cannot be mere coincidence. The researchers' arguments are brilliant in their logic and absolutely convincing. Although all of these arguments' details cannot be set forth here, the important thing is that they have converted what was formerly a hypothesis into a fact that the todays science community still deny: Arminius was Siegfried. Why did they deny this fact? Only the weak is able to tell... FenrisUlven 21:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Mannus
[edit]The oldest god in the Germanic mythology is Búri, known within the Saxons as Tuisto or Tuiscon. Þórr derives from this proto-god; in the same line as the other gods. The Germanic proto-god is pictured at rock-carvings with its two palms up towards the sky. One of the palms is the sky's Sól (Sun), and the other one is the night sky's Máni (Moon). When we say that the wolf eats the Moon, it is a reference to the myth of the Fenriswolf eating Týr's one hand. The natural manifestation of this is the lunar-eclipse. As with the other gods, Týr derives from Tuisto. The thunder-god's two arms are also identical to Tuisto's two palms. One of them symbolizes Þórr's hammer; the other represents the Sun. This is the proto-god's role as Þórr. The hammer is the life-conserving force in the universe. The Sun, the life-creating force. There are three proto-forces in the universe. We call them by many names: Óðinn (Odin), Vílir (Vilje) and Véi (Ve); Istwô, IrminiaR and IngwaR; Óðinn, Lóðurr (Loki) and Hœnir; Óðinn, Þórr and Freyr... Óðinn's force is explosion, Þórr's force is gravity and Freyr's force is standstill. That is, respectively: expansion, implosion and the harmonic state of balance, that always come in-between the transition from the one force's dominance over the other forces - that is, balance between the two original proto-forces. Óðinn's force is that which throws the ball up into the air, Þórr's is the one which pulls it back down; and Freyr's the moment when the ball's velocity equals zero. Otherwise, look at this Freyr article part: In this temple, entirely decked out in gold, the people worship the statues of three gods in such wise that the mightiest of them, Thor, occupies a throne in the middle of the chamber; Wotan and Frikko have places on either side. The significance of these gods is as follows: Thor, they say, presides over the air, which governs the thunder and lightning, the winds and rains, fair weather and crops. The other, Wotan—that is, the Furious—carries on war and imparts to man strength against his enemies. The third is Frikko, who bestows peace and pleasure on mortals. His likeness, too, they fashion with an immense phallus.
Gesta Hammaburgensis 26, Tschan's translation