About the religion of my ancestor's. Not the more recent ones. I know that. They were Lutherans and quite proud of it. German Lutherans, in my experience, tend to be proud of that. The combined ethnicity and religion. Because, after all, Luther himself was German.
I'm thinking of further back. Earlier than Luther. Earlier than Christianity. The pre-Christian tribal religions. It's an aspect of my ancestry that I've never thought of before. I'm proud of my German heritage but I've never considered the religion that my forefathers (and mothers) lived. Clearly I'm thinking about it now - something I blame on you, sanil. :)
Funny thing. In just the basic, googling beginnings of research it turns out that the tribal religions of Germany were closely related to the Nordic tribal religions. Which makes perfect sense once you know it and probably before that even if you bother to think about it, which I never did. :)
And I've been mildly obsessed with the Vikings for ages, which is what makes it funny for me. It's something I should have known but didn't!
I've not necessarily been thinking of way-back ancestors' religions, but thinking of them as waring and invading tribes going hither and yon throughout Europe. Been wondering who makes up part of me and how I am like them and how I am different.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your thoughts here!
The Vikings got *everywhere*. :D Ok, clearly not really. But back when I was sort of exploring pantheons, I had zero interest in the Celtic gods. That concerned me a little since that's the only ancestry I know. Did a little more digging, and found out that recent genetic research shows the area was heavily populated by the Vikings and most of the people I thought of as "Celtic" still likely had Norse ancestors. So it all comes back to Thor, really. :D I was a lot more comfortable with that answer. I like the Norse gods, Frigg still has a decently large place in my practice even though I've mostly gone Hellenic.
ReplyDeleteGlad you had fun researching! And continue to enjoy it, if you're not done yet. :)
Susanne,
ReplyDelete*laughs* I just like the phrase, 'waring and invading tribes going hither and yon'. It's cute to me for some reason!
sanil,
ReplyDeleteThe Vikings *did* get everywhere! *puts on classic Wagner-ian Viking helmet*
It's funny. I've long had a real love of Vikings and Norse mythology and never made the connection with the Germanic tribes.
Frigga *is* pretty badass actually, isn't she?
Ah, I have hardly begun to research!
Well the Nordic mythology is very fascinating, and of course "we" got everywhere :)
ReplyDeleteActually, one of my cousins practices the Asatro (when I switch the Danish wiki to the English wiki it calls it Heathenism, but that just sounds different to me, but what do I know).
It really, really is Becky. :)
ReplyDeleteI have this goofy mental image of Vikings standing in a circle and one of them going, 'Okay, it's Tuesday. Let's go thattaway!' and just randomly pointing. And they go thattaway. For the hell of it.