When the Norns Have Spoken: Time and Fate in Germanic Paganism

Etukansi
Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2004 - 187 sivua
This book argues that within Germanic paganism, considered not as mere cult but as a system of beliefs, it is possible to identify a conceptually coherent understanding of fate which detaches that idea from time, and connects it instead with an implicit theses about the nature of truth as written. Germanic cosmogony, as represented in such precise images as a worldtree, provides a context for an analysis of specific metaphors for the workings of fate as woven or spun by such figures as the Norns - the Norse goddesses of destiny. Employing both philosophical and mythic-linguistic considerations, this book also offers new insights into the persistence of a residual paganism in the understanding of fate following the Christian conversion. Anthony Winterboume is an independent scholar.

Kirjan sisältä

Sisältö

Introduction
11
Paganism in Myth and Cult
20
Mythical Space and Time
42
Cosmogony and the WorldTree
60
Spinning and Weaving Fate
84
The Logic of Fatalism
104
From Pagan Fate to Christian Providence
120
Notes
146
Bibliography
170
Index
183
Tekijänoikeudet

Muita painoksia - Näytä kaikki

Yleiset termit ja lausekkeet

Suositut otteet

Sivu 43 - Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external...
Sivu 16 - The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Sivu 20 - Now entertain conjecture of a time, When creeping murmur, and the poring dark, Fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the...
Sivu 84 - In the Foretime, even to the germ of Being, Nothing appears of shape to indicate That cognizance has marshalled things terrene, Or will (such is my thinking] in my span. Rather they show that, like a knitter drowsed, Whose fingers play in skilled unmindfulness, The Will has woven with an absent heed Since life first was ; and ever will so weave.
Sivu 104 - tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now ; if it be not now, yet it will come : the readiness is all : Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows, what is't to leave betimes ?
Sivu 45 - It is for this reason that religious man has always sought to fix his abode at the "center of the world." // the world is to be lived in, it must be founded — and no world can come to birth in the chaos of the homogeneity and relativity of profane space. The discovery or projection of a fixed point — the center — is equivalent to the creation of the world...
Sivu 42 - Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them"- Lamb, letter to Southey, 9 Aug.

Kirjaluettelon tiedot