For anyone interested in the intersection between neuroscience and cosmology, I recommend looking up this book: The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology
After 12 years of watching CZcams content without posting a comment, this video has prompted a change. An excellent video, clearly explained, and so, so fascinating. Keep up the great work, and thank you.
Seeing intelligent, critically minded people like you share topics with badly needed, sober analysis that challenges our assumptions gives me real hope. Thanks for all your efforts.
Interesting note on belief in elves, a residual cosmology which includes elves is still present in Iceland, especially in rural areas. I went there with my family for a long holiday in 2015, and we encountered people who were sincere in their belief in elvish creatures and their influence on the local landscape. To be honest I can understand why: in many places the volcanic landscape has natural structures which must have seemed completely alien to Germanic settlers from northern Europe, and they reasonably (to them) concluded that these structures were built and inhabited by elves and similar creatures. This belief extends even to local planning departments, where sometimes roads are diverted and extra care is taken in new buildings to avoid disturbing the local elves. Locals in visitor centres and bike rental shops were also careful to inform us as tourists where to avoid so as to not anger the elves. I don't know if Anglo-Saxon cosmology associated elves so strongly with specific places or natural structures, but this cosmological belief is definitely still there in parts of Iceland.
maybe roads are blocked because of elves but ... However, many of the Friends of Lava are motivated primarily by environmental concerns and see the elf issue as part of a wider concern for the history and culture of a very unique landscape. Andri Snaer Magnason, an environmentalist, told the Associated Press that his major concern was that the road would cut a lava field in two and destroy animal nesting sites. “Some feel that the elf thing is a bit annoying,” said Magnason, adding that personally he was not sure they existed. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/road-project-iceland-delayed-protect-hidden-elves-9021768.html
Ireland also has a strong belief on elves, or leprechauns. I gather that the Irish will divert a road, for example, around a tree believed to be important to “the little people”.
Simon; thank you for these videos! I love the way that you interweave anthropology, linguistics, history, and bits of your own personal experience. You have a great gift for taking seriously arcane and esoteric information and presenting it in a way that is understandable (and fascinating!) to the great unwashed masses out here on the other side of the internet. Please keep it up!
You say you are not a linguist, but you conduct yourself and your work in a very professional, lingusticis-researcher manner. The more I watch your content, the more I feel like you are to the Anglo-Saxon language reconstruction, what Dr. Jackson Crawford is to the Old Norse language reconstruction. Keep it up good sir.
Thank you for sharing these topics, ideas, thoughts and for making them accessible to all of us who are curious about these things. Being a Norwegian, I find it particularly interesting to see written examples of Anglo-Saxon phrases, because it reminds me a some vague details I half remember reading about in samples from old Scandinavian languages and how those languages changed over time to their modern forms. Keep up the good work, I find this both fascinating and, at times, captivating.
@@TrondBrgeKrokli interestingly Contact between the two groups is a leading theory on why English lost most of it's case system. Basically cases were dropped to simplify communication between two groups with similar but still different languages. Another is middle English was a partially creolized Norse dialect with a substantial Old english substrate or vise versa
Simon, your channel is delightful! I follow you mostly for your linguistics videos, because that's what I'll major in I hope, but I love it when you talk about archeology/anthropology because these subjects are less "accessible" to me, i.e. no one I know really studies these things or geeks out about them enough to explain them to me in as much detail as your channel does You're very good at what you're doing, keep it up!!
@Saint Hypatia The -red bit of Alfred comes from the word 'read'. In modern English it means 'to read', a book for example. But in Old English 'read' meant more the sense of 'to be advised', or counselled. So Ælfred was a contraction of Elf + read. Frederick, where the diminutive name Fred comes from, is more from German and as explained above, the first element is related to German word 'Fried' meaning peace. An aside, the OE had a similar word for peace that would be 'frith' in modern English. Shame, another fine Old English word needlessly replaced by a French/Latin word...again!
Damn man I'd never heard this term mod before. Stopped to hear what you had to say about anthropology, and still got a free etymology lesson. Good work
my grandparents grew up in rural county tyrone, and when my grandmother was little if a rash or a spot developed on her body she would be brought to a relative who would coat it in (if i recall correctly) milk and recite a christian incantation or prayer of some kind; after 2 failed attempts, the third one worked! kinda similar to what was being described in this video, it wasn't really considered that the two were unrelated, given that the third attempt was a success that reinforced the belief in its effectiveness! very interesting stuff
Regarding: "mód" German "Mut" means nowadays usually just that someone is brave but the more archaic meaning is something like state of consciousness or state of the soul
Mod could also refer to the plattdeutsch word for " inne Möde kommen " This means to approach too closely and disturb my space needed to feel comfortable. So people were warned not to come inne Möde. BTW, St. Boniface, or with his anglo-saxon name, Winfreth of Wessex, Went to the mainland in order to christianize the Germanic tribes of the Franks and partially the Saxons. He was educated near Credinton and Exeter. The pope needed people who spoke a similar dialect and knew about the pagan beliefs and rythes. He convinced the people by cutting the holy oak, which carried the skies, and no Wotan or Donar intervened to hinder Winfreth and destroy him. Thus he became the apostle of the Germans and the Frisians. I would even dare to say that by installing monastries and bishop's dioceses along the former Roman castells, he laid the fondament of the later inthronization of Charlemagne by the Pope and thus the resurrection of the Roman Empire, now Holy, as the annointed Emperor was called the protector of Christianity.
You're so right about associating certain smells with Christmas and the like. Good video and good topic. I have an interest in Anglo-Saxon England and Old English, even though I'm much more of a Mediterraneanist.
100% here for this. Yours is one of the best channels on youtube. What you said reminded me of an article about Iceland, which manages to juggle global economics with an abiding and unswerving belief in the Hidden Ones, which an Icelandic person will straight up tell you are the same thing as elves. Cut to an ALCOA (American alumninum corporation) factory in Iceland, whose Icelandic employees refused to return to work unless the Hidden Ones were appropriately removed from the premises and appeased. Can you imagine those board meetings?
Wow, good explanation about "mood" and "soul". As "mood" for something that can need will-power to be kept in check, and the soul is something that just is on its own -> solo. Just for the record: in Flemish/Dutch: "moed" and "ziel". And there we have even the 2 opposite meanings -> moed-ig (courageous) and ziel-ig (to be in such a deplorable unsupported state that triggers compassion in others, appeals their soul). I think the words with "mod" (mood, mode) can be connected with fe Flemish/Dutch word "moed". Nowadays used for courage, but evenly known in the word "ge-moed" which means emotional constitution (uplifted or depressed or anything in between). This ressembles the Flemish/Dutch word "maat" (measure or rythm), like "de maat houden" (keep balanced) is the recept for a longlasting and succesfull material and emotional life. And that is what the Egypt construct and deity of Ma'at does exactly the same. See the connection with Old English "gemæte", also coming from Flemish/Dutch "ge-meten" (measured). When you meet someone or something, you measure up to that one or thing. I can imagine that the mother (moed-er) is the one in the family that assures the correct "mood" for a healthy environment to bring up kids.
Thank you, Simon, for making me think about different themes I never used to wonder about before, also I love it that you let me view things from such curious angle.
Simon Roper exactly! Before voice recording, film, and now video, the only things that got recorded needed to be significant enough for the author to note it. As well, that author had to be in that place, in that time, which strictly limits the ability to record. And who the heck was the author? Why did they think that thing was of interest? Certainly, there are second-hand recording, where someone heard something about something or someone and then wrote it down, but these layers of distance cause diffusion of information. We are the products of the people and the things they wrote down.
Excellent as always Simon, thank you again 😊 Interesting how we have kept certain artefacts (?) in the language such as days of the week, etc., long after having shifted basic paradigms in our perceptions. (To morrow is Woden’s day.)
could you give some examples of cosmologies which do not include the things you mention? Like privacy/time alone (i think some mongolian cultures do this), individualism, time, etc.
The account of the conversion of Northumbria in Bede's Ecclesiastical History is a source of information about how Anglo-Saxons transitioned from their earlier belief system to Christianity. Notable is the comparison of the soul to a bird that flies into a house and then flies around in the house until eventually leaving through the window. The comparison is that the time spent by the bird in the house is like the time spent by the soul in this world; that is, we don't know what came before or what comes after. Also noteworthy is that fact that the king's advisor on religious matters (possibly a euphemism for a chief priest) does not oppose the conversion and takes it on himself to burn down what was probably a temple of Woden in a ritualized manner (thus, both paving the way for Christianity and also preserving any arcane secrets which the temple may have housed). Another source of information about the Anglo-Saxon world view, a source which seems hardly Christian from a modern point of view even though it has at least a veneer of Christianity, is the poem The Seafarer. The narrator of the poem is a warrior whose leader has died (who would have been a ronin in a Japanese context), and the feel of the poem is almost as though he is rowing a boat on the river Styx rather than a mortal waterway. Its imagery seems more black-and-white than Technicolor.
@@sirmount2636 That may not have been the case for Northumberland, since there was no advantage to the conversion for King Oswald of Northumbria. King Oswald's mother was Scottish, which in those days referred to Gaelic speakers in both Ireland and what we now call Scotland and which, in this case, referred to people in what we now call Scotland. At that time, Gaelic speaking monks were the most highly educated people in Western Europe. Before becoming king, Oswald was exposed to this version of Christianity while spending time with his mother's people, and he requested a missionary after he became king. The first missionary was a dud, but the second mission was Aidan of Lindisfarne, a humble and tolerant man who established the bishopric which is now the one seated at Durham Cathedral. Apparently, King Oswald acted as translator between he Gaelic-speaking Aidan and Oswald's English-speaking retainers, so he was an active participant in the work. The conversion of Northumbria was resented by the surrounding Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which eventually declared war on Northumbria and took care to put Oswald to death during the war. By contrast, the conversion of Kent by the so-called Gregorian mission (which resulted in the establishment of a bishopric at Canterbury, or "Kent-burg") was a more standard political conversion in which a mission was sent from Rome to convert southern England after the king of Kent had married a Christian princess from continental Europe.
It's interesting to note that during the excessively Empiricist Victorian era there was a resurgence in the belief in elves. See the paintings of Richard Dadd, for instance.
I wouldn't say it was excessively empiricist. There was something of a counter-revolution at the time in the form of romanticism which tried to bring back pre-modern aesthetics and beliefs.
@@dglukesluthier If it wasn't, at least a little, excessive, then why would there be a counter movement? Besides the counter reaction was precisely not Romantic, it was pre-Romantic, even pre-Renaissance (hence the Pre-Raphaelites), looking very much to the Medieval and Anglo-Saxon periods. Romanticism was very much about liberation from Classical austerity (the Augustan Rules), Victorian medievalism was about a return to a time that was both ordered and yet more wild and in contact with the forces of nature than their own.
@@dglukesluthier Yes, but that doesn't make it the same as the Victorian medievalism, just as Victorian Neo Classicism is different to Renaissance Classicism, and Victorian Empiricism is different to Renaissance Empiricism.
@@thomascormack1746 "If it wasn't, at least a little, excessive, then why would there be a counter movement?" Something doesn't have to be excessive for their to be pushback. Look at the US where MAGAtards are having collective shitfits because people wanted to exercise their rights as guaranteed under the Constitution. Especially if it's women, or Blacks or Latinos or left-of-centre people, and then the fascists come out in droves trying to protect their gun-toting bowing & scraping to the Church and anti-feminist racist way of life.
The elves stories sound a bit like the Cherokee tales of the “little people “ who would play tricks on people for fun or cause trouble or illness for people they didn’t like.
When I was an exchange student in Norway 40 years ago, people enjoyed telling me stories about ˋnisse‘,which I think must be the equivalent to elves. These nisse are considered folklore or mythology now, but in the past, daily things that went wrong, were attributed to the nisse playing tricks on them. For example, if the milk went sour, or something went missing, it was blamed on the nisse! Also in Norwegian tradition, it is the Julenisse, or Christmas elves who bring the Christmas presents! Perhaps a Norwegian person can explain this better than me, or add to it(?) Then in Norway, there are also the trolls!! I think they may have played a similar role to the elves. 🤔
Simon Roper, Hope is well in the cultures of England. From your Celtic, Viking, Norman, Anglo, Hebrew, German , Dutch and others who have rambled into our lands over the centuries.
After living in mainland China for several years (and having a wonderful time), I have learned that everything is cultural. Nothing is universal except maybe loving our children.
Interesting post. I spent six months in Kenya in 2017 and came across several instances of belief in witchcraft and also of sacred trees, which were explained as "just tradition" when I asked for more detail but were obviously deeply held beliefs. I was advised not to even touch some trees because of their sacred nature, and there were reports in a national paper when a sacred tree died and fell - local worthies gathered to inspect it and reassured the people that it was not a bad omen. The services of witch doctors (is there another, less derogatory term?) are widely advertised in the streets, for all sorts of services, such as regaining a lover or getting a well-paid job. To be honest, I find the belief in elves no more incredible than the belief in money, or in nationality as real things...
I hope that you can get rid of the cold, cough, whatever the cause. I enjoy your language lessons, although it goes over my head! Never studied that while getting my bachelors degree 😱. Get well, take care, stay safe !
Hey, I'd be interested to know which translation of Beowulf is believed by others to be the 'best'? I've read a couple but there are many and always intrigued. Wæs þu hæl 🌿
Elves were river spirits, "alv" meaning river in old Norse. C.S. Lewis dealt with "lesser deities" etc, in the "Narnia Chronicals" and how to incorporate their cosmology into the Christian influenced ideas. Well explained. Keep up the good work. Belief shifts of a culture take centuries. Christianity was gradual even until the Reformation.
very recommended: Vor folkeæt i oldtiden, Wilhelm Grönbech (The Culture of the Teutons, Oxford University Press 1932) It´s not about the Teutons, but all the Germanic culture and Cosmology and Sociology.
Cosmology- needed that word. Thank you. Interesting, the degree it was claimed that elves were experienced in medieval times. Perhaps similar to the Jinn/ Djin in Arabic culture, believed in since ancient times. Many progressive Arab scientists still believe in Jinn existence.
Just my personal opinion, but it was greatly helpful as Christian monastacism promoted literacy and led to a dramatic increase in recordings of history, poetry, and literature that would otherwise have been potentially lost, given the massive importance of written material to history. The codex that Beowulf is found in, for example, was copy-writen likely at an abbey by monks from an original text that is completely lost. We know a lot more about Anglo-Saxon than Norse rulers of the early Mediaeval period, for example, as their histories were written down whereas a lot of Norse rulers survive only in stories written long after their deaths.
Any recommendations on books about pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon history? Especially anything that would be best for those just starting out learning about this kind of thing?
I am reading Max Adams (on Kindle, can be bought paperback) at the moment. I am really enjoying his book 'the King in the North' about the time of the conversion of a lot of the Anglo-Saxon kings around the time of 600AD, particularly focusing on Northumbria and king Oswald. Not so much pre-Christian but he does mention a bit of 'back-story' and a bit of that great Mercian heathen king: Penda. He has other books out including one about the power vacuum time after the Romans left and king Arthur ('the First Kingdom'), that might be more relevant, even though Arthur was British, not Anglo-Saxon. I think I will check that one out after the King in the North. P.S. Just seen on Amazon he has one called 'land of the Giants' about the post Roman Britain. That might be a good one.
For many years I have puzzled over the ruah-pneuma-spiritus-Holy Ghost to Holy Spirit transition. One assumes that a translation really talks about the same thing and is supposed to function as the same. But it isn't. Your videos always seem relevant. The distinction between mod and sawol and your deft handling of subject/object in self perception is right on. I just finished Charles Taylor's Sources of Self. He doesn't spend much time talking about Anglo-Saxon theories of self. From what you just posted, I'd say that is a major deficiency. Surely the old cosmology enters into the picture as much as Western philosophers.
Thank you! It's a subject I'd only really started to look into with that thesis, so I'm sure there's a huge amount more written about it! It might be worth having a scroll through the bibliography at some point.
Interesting video Simon . :) Do you think it's possible that elves were necessarily visible? Or were they detected by other senses or just feelings? Maybe someone might have thought that strange smell in the air was very elf-like for example .
I think Alaric Hall's book (and PhD thesis, which I think is available for free through his website) touch on the issue of perception - it's difficult to say whether they thought elves could be seen. Plenty of animals are just elusive and are never seen even though they are clearly around, so it could be that people just thought they were very elusive. Alternatively, it's possible they thought they were invisible.
This is such a good thought process. Especially because it's quite broadly applicable. Most of your points could also be applied to how bizarre many ancient pre-Christian Roman traditions were to our modern eyes. They look that bizarre because we're not ancient Romans, we're 21st century humans, of course it's going to look weird to us.
You have a solid baritone voice, by the way. Makes your content easier to listen to. Based on your observations on Elves, this is precisely the reason why we can't dismiss mythology or folklore as "fake" or "imaginary" if it's something that the Ancients wrote about and recorded. I don't believe it is due to "hallucinations" or "overactive imaginations". I certainly believe in the supernatural and the unexplained. I might as well not believe in The Bible, then, if I don't believe in anything that does not conform to "science".
are you familiar with The Genesis 6 Conspiracy by Gary Wayne and also the work of Dr Nathaniel Jeanson on the Y chromosome (Answers in Genesis - CZcams)?
Even today people hold strange beliefs, a man told me that after a friend died that a bird had followed him, implying that it was some embodiment of the friend. Also my mother said that after my father died that on one occasion she had been aware of his presence and she suggested that this was his way of telling her that he 'was alright '.
Most people in Europe have heard of elves, or "the little people," leprechauns, etc. Some of that was acquired from parents and other adults, but a lot came from children's stories. Not just the old tales, in Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, but also modern children's authors like Enid Blyton speak of them. Children also learn about religion through stories, but there is sometimes more insistence that the stories are TRUE, or that they have a defined MORAL, which is usually left undefined in the fairy stories. We gradually lose our feeling that stories and the characters in them are real. This happens to Santa Claus despite the conspiracy of adults and business. Most of us also lose our belief in the religious stories and the associated world-view. I wonder how much a "willing suspension of disbelief" accounts for belief in elves today. We need to suspend disbelief while reading fiction, and some people seem to maintain that suspension with regard to the supernatural. "Potterheads," Lord of the Rings enthusiasts and Goths enjoy treating their fictional universes "as if" they were real, but they know that they are not. Do all Americans know that Superman is imaginary? After the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, murderous beliefs seems to have faded in Europe, and many people started to parody religion with made-up cosmologies and rituals such as those of Freemasonry (back when Freemasons were dangerous radicals), the Odd Fellows, the early Ku Klux Klan and even college fraternities like Skull and Bones. After religion lost its sting these began to seem quaint and outmoded. Elves, pixies, etc may once have been a way to explain random events in a non-threatening way (without blaming witchcraft or evildoers) but now they are more recreational beliefs, which one can pick up or put down.
Hey! Thought the "mōd" example was really interesting. I think we may have a version of the word still around in Swedish thats a little closer to the older sense. The meaning is still largely the same as in modern English, with "gott mod" ≈ "good mood". But then there's also stuff like "modig" (brave, courageous), "högmod" ("high mood", arrogance, haughtiness) and "tålamod" ("enduring mood"?, patience), with all of them being more deliberate and external in meaning than the modern English "mood". Greetings from fellow linguistically interested archaeologist :)
You've given me something to chew on. I always find other people's reaction to death sort of strange, but your first example of society 1 and society 2, and then of the two girls got me thinking. As a Catholic, our belief in death is more akin to society #2, where the people can still have an active role in our world and lives after death, and we can interact with them on some level (what we refer to as the Communion of Saints, or sometimes the Church Triumphant). Our funeral rites fulfill a very different role than most of Christendom and secular society - they are a prayer FOR the dead, not for us. It's not as much a goodbye as a helping hand. It's ingrained in us as a work of mercy for that person, and while it doesn't delineate the transition from life to death (only physical death does that), it becomes part of the extended process of death (new life?) as we try to help them shorten their time in Purgatory. Anyway, fascinating discussion, as always!
For anyone interested in the intersection between neuroscience and cosmology, I recommend looking up this book:
The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology
I don't need this stoopid nothing book cos I no about this already.
@@Haru23a I really hope you're a troll, otherwise I Just feel really sorry for you
@@Nobody-tx9zj Yes, I know about it same like I told.
Studies of the brain don’t really go anywhere, much less give comprehensive explanations to behavior.
This is so interesting. Thank you
Kudos to the Elves that kept interrupting your recording.
They must have arrived by train.
I see evidence of the tommyknockers all the time, even though I don't believe they exist! (Tommyknockers are likely known to most of you as gremlins.)
Once got piskie led down a bramble filled ravine on the Penwith Moors,
or so my friend insisted. I think it was the mushrooms.
Dont use the "e" word, please
After 12 years of watching CZcams content without posting a comment, this video has prompted a change. An excellent video, clearly explained, and so, so fascinating. Keep up the great work, and thank you.
Welcome to the CZcamss. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Mr. Roper is not just a great teacher, he's also an artist. Fantastically engaging content aside, the videography is a joy.
“babe wake up simon posted”
"oooh how exiting. would he be married?"
"babe go back to sleep"
Babe wake up, we need to carve the Insigna of Jesus into our elf inflicted horse.
Seeing intelligent, critically minded people like you share topics with badly needed, sober analysis that challenges our assumptions gives me real hope. Thanks for all your efforts.
I actually really like the birdsong that sneaks its way into the audio.
Also there’s a fairly high speed rail line nearby.
Interesting note on belief in elves, a residual cosmology which includes elves is still present in Iceland, especially in rural areas. I went there with my family for a long holiday in 2015, and we encountered people who were sincere in their belief in elvish creatures and their influence on the local landscape. To be honest I can understand why: in many places the volcanic landscape has natural structures which must have seemed completely alien to Germanic settlers from northern Europe, and they reasonably (to them) concluded that these structures were built and inhabited by elves and similar creatures. This belief extends even to local planning departments, where sometimes roads are diverted and extra care is taken in new buildings to avoid disturbing the local elves. Locals in visitor centres and bike rental shops were also careful to inform us as tourists where to avoid so as to not anger the elves. I don't know if Anglo-Saxon cosmology associated elves so strongly with specific places or natural structures, but this cosmological belief is definitely still there in parts of Iceland.
It's called baiting the grockles, an ancient practice very common round the South West of England too
maybe roads are blocked because of elves but ... However, many of the Friends of Lava are motivated primarily by environmental concerns and see the elf issue as part of a wider concern for the history and culture of a very unique landscape.
Andri Snaer Magnason, an environmentalist, told the Associated Press that his major concern was that the road would cut a lava field in two and destroy animal nesting sites.
“Some feel that the elf thing is a bit annoying,” said Magnason, adding that personally he was not sure they existed.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/road-project-iceland-delayed-protect-hidden-elves-9021768.html
Ireland also has a strong belief on elves, or leprechauns. I gather that the Irish will divert a road, for example, around a tree believed to be important to “the little people”.
ever read any haldor laxness?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halld%C3%B3r_Laxness
Simon; thank you for these videos! I love the way that you interweave anthropology, linguistics, history, and bits of your own personal experience. You have a great gift for taking seriously arcane and esoteric information and presenting it in a way that is understandable (and fascinating!) to the great unwashed masses out here on the other side of the internet. Please keep it up!
You say you are not a linguist, but you conduct yourself and your work in a very professional, lingusticis-researcher manner. The more I watch your content, the more I feel like you are to the Anglo-Saxon language reconstruction, what Dr. Jackson Crawford is to the Old Norse language reconstruction.
Keep it up good sir.
Thank you for sharing these topics, ideas, thoughts and for making them accessible to all of us who are curious about these things. Being a Norwegian, I find it particularly interesting to see written examples of Anglo-Saxon phrases, because it reminds me a some vague details I half remember reading about in samples from old Scandinavian languages and how those languages changed over time to their modern forms. Keep up the good work, I find this both fascinating and, at times, captivating.
Old English and old Norse were really similar so It's not surprising.
@@gotioify Fair point. Old English and Norse did have quite a bit of vocab going back and forth.
@@TrondBrgeKrokli interestingly Contact between the two groups is a leading theory on why English lost most of it's case system. Basically cases were dropped to simplify communication between two groups with similar but still different languages. Another is middle English was a partially creolized Norse dialect with a substantial Old english substrate or vise versa
@@gotioify Thank you for that insight. I didn't know that. Really interesting theories. Also enjoyable reading.
'mood' coming from a word meaning soul or spirit is such a mood
As a teacher, I would have really loved to have you in my class.
Simon Roper is an extremely intelligent and knowledgeable young man who has a fantastic gift of teaching.
Simon, your channel is delightful! I follow you mostly for your linguistics videos, because that's what I'll major in I hope, but I love it when you talk about archeology/anthropology because these subjects are less "accessible" to me, i.e. no one I know really studies these things or geeks out about them enough to explain them to me in as much detail as your channel does
You're very good at what you're doing, keep it up!!
Elves must exist, Aelfred could never have accomplished all he did without their counsel.
How nerdy are we for getting that joke without having to look it up? :|
If you're talking about Alfred the Great, well, kek
OMG I am a nerd. OMG.
@Saint Hypatia The -red bit of Alfred comes from the word 'read'. In modern English it means 'to read', a book for example. But in Old English 'read' meant more the sense of 'to be advised', or counselled. So Ælfred was a contraction of Elf + read. Frederick, where the diminutive name Fred comes from, is more from German and as explained above, the first element is related to German word 'Fried' meaning peace. An aside, the OE had a similar word for peace that would be 'frith' in modern English. Shame, another fine Old English word needlessly replaced by a French/Latin word...again!
But it would have been brownies burning the cakes, no?
Damn man I'd never heard this term mod before. Stopped to hear what you had to say about anthropology, and still got a free etymology lesson. Good work
my grandparents grew up in rural county tyrone, and when my grandmother was little if a rash or a spot developed on her body she would be brought to a relative who would coat it in (if i recall correctly) milk and recite a christian incantation or prayer of some kind; after 2 failed attempts, the third one worked! kinda similar to what was being described in this video, it wasn't really considered that the two were unrelated, given that the third attempt was a success that reinforced the belief in its effectiveness! very interesting stuff
Regarding: "mód"
German "Mut" means nowadays usually just that someone is brave but the more archaic meaning is something like state of consciousness or state of the soul
Also the German word "Gemüt" comes to mind.
"mood" corresponds to "Gemüt" which is mostly used with animals like in "dieses Pferd/Ross hat ein ruhiges Gemüt"
@Maatje Waterman That´s true, "gemütlich" would be sth like snug/cosy
Mod could also refer to the plattdeutsch word for " inne Möde kommen "
This means to approach too closely and disturb my space needed to feel comfortable. So people were warned not to come inne Möde.
BTW, St. Boniface, or with his anglo-saxon name, Winfreth of Wessex,
Went to the mainland in order to christianize the Germanic tribes of the Franks and partially the Saxons.
He was educated near Credinton and Exeter. The pope needed people who spoke a similar dialect and knew about the pagan beliefs and rythes. He convinced the people by cutting the holy oak, which carried the skies, and no Wotan or Donar intervened to hinder Winfreth and destroy him.
Thus he became the apostle of the Germans and the Frisians.
I would even dare to say that by installing monastries and bishop's dioceses along the former Roman castells, he laid the fondament of the later inthronization of Charlemagne by the Pope and thus the resurrection of the Roman Empire, now Holy, as the annointed Emperor was called the protector of Christianity.
Simon keeps getting a noisy sky every time he mentions the Old Gods, hehe. [This time we have to take his word for it, I suppose.]
You're so right about associating certain smells with Christmas and the like. Good video and good topic. I have an interest in Anglo-Saxon England and Old English, even though I'm much more of a Mediterraneanist.
100% here for this. Yours is one of the best channels on youtube. What you said reminded me of an article about Iceland, which manages to juggle global economics with an abiding and unswerving belief in the Hidden Ones, which an Icelandic person will straight up tell you are the same thing as elves. Cut to an ALCOA (American alumninum corporation) factory in Iceland, whose Icelandic employees refused to return to work unless the Hidden Ones were appropriately removed from the premises and appeased. Can you imagine those board meetings?
Culture 👏🏽. Matters 👏🏽.
What more can I say? ♥️
Your point about smells is super compelling
Excellent as always. Love the bush.
Looking forward to your upcoming film project, I like the concept you described. Thanks for this video Simon, great stuff in this one.
I can't wait for this series you're working on, that's a really cool concept
Wow, good explanation about "mood" and "soul".
As "mood" for something that can need will-power to be kept in check, and the soul is something that just is on its own -> solo. Just for the record: in Flemish/Dutch: "moed" and "ziel".
And there we have even the 2 opposite meanings -> moed-ig (courageous) and ziel-ig (to be in such a deplorable unsupported state that triggers compassion in others, appeals their soul).
I think the words with "mod" (mood, mode) can be connected with fe Flemish/Dutch word "moed".
Nowadays used for courage, but evenly known in the word "ge-moed" which means emotional constitution (uplifted or depressed or anything in between). This ressembles the Flemish/Dutch word "maat" (measure or rythm), like "de maat houden" (keep balanced) is the recept for a longlasting and succesfull material and emotional life. And that is what the Egypt construct and deity of Ma'at does exactly the same.
See the connection with Old English "gemæte", also coming from Flemish/Dutch "ge-meten" (measured).
When you meet someone or something, you measure up to that one or thing.
I can imagine that the mother (moed-er) is the one in the family that assures the correct "mood" for a healthy environment to bring up kids.
All of your videos are always really interesting, but I gotta say this one might be the most fascinating one yet
Thank you, Simon, for making me think about different themes I never used to wonder about before, also I love it that you let me view things from such curious angle.
I just wanted to announce that I wasn't the first commenter. It's important to let the internet know insignificant moments.
The internet will be pleased. All hail the mighty and all powerful internet.
If it is important enough to respond to, it was important enough to type it. Significance is in the mind of the beholder.
This is the fault of elves! It is plain as day.
It is! In history, seemingly insignificant moments go unrecorded all the time, and so much is lost because of it.
Simon Roper exactly! Before voice recording, film, and now video, the only things that got recorded needed to be significant enough for the author to note it. As well, that author had to be in that place, in that time, which strictly limits the ability to record. And who the heck was the author? Why did they think that thing was of interest?
Certainly, there are second-hand recording, where someone heard something about something or someone and then wrote it down, but these layers of distance cause diffusion of information. We are the products of the people and the things they wrote down.
I absolutely love your videos. You're such an interesting person, I feel like I could listen to you for days. This is some amazing work.
Excellent as always Simon, thank you again 😊 Interesting how we have kept certain artefacts (?) in the language such as days of the week, etc., long after having shifted basic paradigms in our perceptions. (To morrow is Woden’s day.)
I always find your content so interesting.
Very interesting stuff. Simon, you are knowledgeable and an enthusiast, a good combination! Always enjoy these videos! (Cheers from Canada!)
Another highly informative video Simon: Keep up the good work and thanks!
Nicely done! I will be linking this for my students to watch!
You're looking great Simon, wonderful video.
I love Alaric Hall's book. I relied on it heavily for two different essays mostly because I enjoyed reading about elves so much.
Thank you for describing and explaining, the best way to understand what it was like!
i loved the video, thank you very much for the shout out dear pal
could you give some examples of cosmologies which do not include the things you mention?
Like privacy/time alone (i think some mongolian cultures do this), individualism, time, etc.
Great video, really looking forward to the stuff in the pipeline!
Great content as always, thank you!
Please keep up the good work. It’s super interesting.
Brilliant! Thank you for providing this interesting perspective!
My new favorite channel
The account of the conversion of Northumbria in Bede's Ecclesiastical History is a source of information about how Anglo-Saxons transitioned from their earlier belief system to Christianity. Notable is the comparison of the soul to a bird that flies into a house and then flies around in the house until eventually leaving through the window. The comparison is that the time spent by the bird in the house is like the time spent by the soul in this world; that is, we don't know what came before or what comes after. Also noteworthy is that fact that the king's advisor on religious matters (possibly a euphemism for a chief priest) does not oppose the conversion and takes it on himself to burn down what was probably a temple of Woden in a ritualized manner (thus, both paving the way for Christianity and also preserving any arcane secrets which the temple may have housed).
Another source of information about the Anglo-Saxon world view, a source which seems hardly Christian from a modern point of view even though it has at least a veneer of Christianity, is the poem The Seafarer. The narrator of the poem is a warrior whose leader has died (who would have been a ronin in a Japanese context), and the feel of the poem is almost as though he is rowing a boat on the river Styx rather than a mortal waterway. Its imagery seems more black-and-white than Technicolor.
It always seemed to me that kings were persuaded to accept Christianity because it solidified their power more than in their previous belief systems.
@@sirmount2636 That may not have been the case for Northumberland, since there was no advantage to the conversion for King Oswald of Northumbria. King Oswald's mother was Scottish, which in those days referred to Gaelic speakers in both Ireland and what we now call Scotland and which, in this case, referred to people in what we now call Scotland. At that time, Gaelic speaking monks were the most highly educated people in Western Europe. Before becoming king, Oswald was exposed to this version of Christianity while spending time with his mother's people, and he requested a missionary after he became king. The first missionary was a dud, but the second mission was Aidan of Lindisfarne, a humble and tolerant man who established the bishopric which is now the one seated at Durham Cathedral. Apparently, King Oswald acted as translator between he Gaelic-speaking Aidan and Oswald's English-speaking retainers, so he was an active participant in the work. The conversion of Northumbria was resented by the surrounding Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which eventually declared war on Northumbria and took care to put Oswald to death during the war.
By contrast, the conversion of Kent by the so-called Gregorian mission (which resulted in the establishment of a bishopric at Canterbury, or "Kent-burg") was a more standard political conversion in which a mission was sent from Rome to convert southern England after the king of Kent had married a Christian princess from continental Europe.
It's interesting to note that during the excessively Empiricist Victorian era there was a resurgence in the belief in elves. See the paintings of Richard Dadd, for instance.
I wouldn't say it was excessively empiricist. There was something of a counter-revolution at the time in the form of romanticism which tried to bring back pre-modern aesthetics and beliefs.
@@dglukesluthier If it wasn't, at least a little, excessive, then why would there be a counter movement? Besides the counter reaction was precisely not Romantic, it was pre-Romantic, even pre-Renaissance (hence the Pre-Raphaelites), looking very much to the Medieval and Anglo-Saxon periods. Romanticism was very much about liberation from Classical austerity (the Augustan Rules), Victorian medievalism was about a return to a time that was both ordered and yet more wild and in contact with the forces of nature than their own.
@@thomascormack1746 I’ve always seen romanticism as a reaction to renaissance thinking and it’s accompanying empiricist logic.
@@dglukesluthier Yes, but that doesn't make it the same as the Victorian medievalism, just as Victorian Neo Classicism is different to Renaissance Classicism, and Victorian Empiricism is different to Renaissance Empiricism.
@@thomascormack1746 "If it wasn't, at least a little, excessive, then why would there be a counter movement?" Something doesn't have to be excessive for their to be pushback. Look at the US where MAGAtards are having collective shitfits because people wanted to exercise their rights as guaranteed under the Constitution. Especially if it's women, or Blacks or Latinos or left-of-centre people, and then the fascists come out in droves trying to protect their gun-toting bowing & scraping to the Church and anti-feminist racist way of life.
Have you ever looked into the anthropological outlook of Fredrich Engels? And if so, how would he compare to contemporary anthropologists?
oof
The elves stories sound a bit like the Cherokee tales of the “little people “ who would play tricks on people for fun or cause trouble or illness for people they didn’t like.
And that's why comparative mythology exists.
That's an interesting topic, thank you Simon!
I was with a girl who grew up in Honduras and she told me stories about Elves and acted like they were completely normal and real.
Joe Rogan talks about elves when he uses drugs.
Silly people.
@@sirmount2636 Dmt makes some people see elves while they are tripping, but this is not that.
Simon, i Absolutely love your videos. You open my mind and i thank you
simon you're becoming a true old anglo-saxon
Go into dense woodland at night on your own without technology and say you don’t believe in elves.
When I was an exchange student in Norway 40 years ago, people enjoyed telling me stories about ˋnisse‘,which I think must be the equivalent to elves. These nisse are considered folklore or mythology now, but in the past, daily things that went wrong, were attributed to the nisse playing tricks on them. For example, if the milk went sour, or something went missing, it was blamed on the nisse!
Also in Norwegian tradition, it is the Julenisse, or Christmas elves who bring the Christmas presents!
Perhaps a Norwegian person can explain this better than me, or add to it(?)
Then in Norway, there are also the trolls!! I think they may have played a similar role to the elves. 🤔
Well, the trolls have certainly found a new purpose in this day and age!
Simon Roper, Hope is well in the cultures of England.
From your Celtic, Viking, Norman, Anglo, Hebrew, German , Dutch and others who have rambled into our lands over the centuries.
Thank goodness for you
After living in mainland China for several years (and having a wonderful time), I have learned that everything is cultural. Nothing is universal except maybe loving our children.
Interesting post. I spent six months in Kenya in 2017 and came across several instances of belief in witchcraft and also of sacred trees, which were explained as "just tradition" when I asked for more detail but were obviously deeply held beliefs. I was advised not to even touch some trees because of their sacred nature, and there were reports in a national paper when a sacred tree died and fell - local worthies gathered to inspect it and reassured the people that it was not a bad omen. The services of witch doctors (is there another, less derogatory term?) are widely advertised in the streets, for all sorts of services, such as regaining a lover or getting a well-paid job. To be honest, I find the belief in elves no more incredible than the belief in money, or in nationality as real things...
Excellent
Interesting , revealing this is fascinating
Love this. Thanks
Excellent! I learned a lot.
So chill
I hope that you can get rid of the cold, cough, whatever the cause. I enjoy your language lessons, although it goes over my head! Never studied that while getting my bachelors degree 😱. Get well, take care, stay safe !
etymology is underrated among the laymen
outstanding
Subscribed, loved the video!
Very interesting.
the elves aren't real?! are you saying that Santa is wrapping all those presents on his own? don't believe it
Hey,
I'd be interested to know which translation of Beowulf is believed by others to be the 'best'? I've read a couple but there are many and always intrigued.
Wæs þu hæl 🌿
The Ollie Read look is coming on well. Keep up the English pastoral videos and great content.
“Mod” suggests German “Mut” or “courage.” I can see that as related to “spirit” “soul power.” 11:54
my moods definitely fit that description.
Yes do it! How well would we communicate with Captain Cook?
Please explain Green Man and beings of the forest
What do you think about the Anglo-Saxon cover of Pumped up Kicks?
Elves were river spirits, "alv" meaning river in old Norse. C.S. Lewis dealt with "lesser deities" etc, in the "Narnia Chronicals" and how to incorporate their cosmology into the Christian influenced ideas. Well explained. Keep up the good work. Belief shifts of a culture take centuries. Christianity was gradual even until the Reformation.
very recommended:
Vor folkeæt i oldtiden, Wilhelm Grönbech
(The Culture of the Teutons, Oxford University Press 1932)
It´s not about the Teutons, but all the Germanic culture and Cosmology and Sociology.
Cosmology- needed that word. Thank you.
Interesting, the degree it was claimed that elves were experienced in medieval times. Perhaps similar to the Jinn/ Djin in Arabic culture, believed in since ancient times. Many progressive Arab scientists still believe in Jinn existence.
Simon can you do a video on how Christianization either helped or hurt our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon (or more broadly Germanic) past?
Just my personal opinion, but it was greatly helpful as Christian monastacism promoted literacy and led to a dramatic increase in recordings of history, poetry, and literature that would otherwise have been potentially lost, given the massive importance of written material to history. The codex that Beowulf is found in, for example, was copy-writen likely at an abbey by monks from an original text that is completely lost. We know a lot more about Anglo-Saxon than Norse rulers of the early Mediaeval period, for example, as their histories were written down whereas a lot of Norse rulers survive only in stories written long after their deaths.
What do you use for filming your videos? I mean is it a camera perhaps?
This title attracts a very specific kind of audience. I’ll see you all on the next Sepehr video
Any recommendations on books about pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon history? Especially anything that would be best for those just starting out learning about this kind of thing?
I am reading Max Adams (on Kindle, can be bought paperback) at the moment. I am really enjoying his book 'the King in the North' about the time of the conversion of a lot of the Anglo-Saxon kings around the time of 600AD, particularly focusing on Northumbria and king Oswald. Not so much pre-Christian but he does mention a bit of 'back-story' and a bit of that great Mercian heathen king: Penda. He has other books out including one about the power vacuum time after the Romans left and king Arthur ('the First Kingdom'), that might be more relevant, even though Arthur was British, not Anglo-Saxon. I think I will check that one out after the King in the North.
P.S. Just seen on Amazon he has one called 'land of the Giants' about the post Roman Britain. That might be a good one.
have you read ‘old english medical remedies’ by sinead spearing ?
Interesting video. Anthropology helps give one a context for other things.
Smashed it 🌞 new fave
“If anything, it's gonna piss the horse off.”
This should be considered a prequel for the pluralism vid I reckon
@@hannah-mariachisholm8082 I was worried you would dismantle, we must (must) do the pluralism one while lockdown's at bay!
For many years I have puzzled over the ruah-pneuma-spiritus-Holy Ghost to Holy Spirit transition. One assumes that a translation really talks about the same thing and is supposed to function as the same. But it isn't. Your videos always seem relevant. The distinction between mod and sawol and your deft handling of subject/object in self perception is right on. I just finished Charles Taylor's Sources of Self. He doesn't spend much time talking about Anglo-Saxon theories of self. From what you just posted, I'd say that is a major deficiency. Surely the old cosmology enters into the picture as much as Western philosophers.
Thank you! It's a subject I'd only really started to look into with that thesis, so I'm sure there's a huge amount more written about it! It might be worth having a scroll through the bibliography at some point.
Interesting video Simon . :)
Do you think it's possible that elves were necessarily visible? Or were they detected by other senses or just feelings? Maybe someone might have thought that strange smell in the air was very elf-like for example .
elf farted?
I think Alaric Hall's book (and PhD thesis, which I think is available for free through his website) touch on the issue of perception - it's difficult to say whether they thought elves could be seen. Plenty of animals are just elusive and are never seen even though they are clearly around, so it could be that people just thought they were very elusive. Alternatively, it's possible they thought they were invisible.
interesting video! cheers
This is such a good thought process. Especially because it's quite broadly applicable. Most of your points could also be applied to how bizarre many ancient pre-Christian Roman traditions were to our modern eyes. They look that bizarre because we're not ancient Romans, we're 21st century humans, of course it's going to look weird to us.
I was wondering if you have ever heard West-Flemish.
You have a solid baritone voice, by the way. Makes your content easier to listen to.
Based on your observations on Elves, this is precisely the reason why we can't dismiss mythology or folklore as "fake" or "imaginary" if it's something that the Ancients wrote about and recorded. I don't believe it is due to "hallucinations" or "overactive imaginations". I certainly believe in the supernatural and the unexplained. I might as well not believe in The Bible, then, if I don't believe in anything that does not conform to "science".
are you familiar with The Genesis 6 Conspiracy by Gary Wayne and also the work of Dr Nathaniel Jeanson on the Y chromosome (Answers in Genesis - CZcams)?
Even today people hold strange beliefs, a man told me that after a friend died that a bird had followed him, implying that it was some embodiment of the friend.
Also my mother said that after my father died that on one occasion she had been aware of his presence and she suggested that this was his way of telling her that he 'was alright '.
Ooh I love that plant, it reminds me of lady bank's rose. Is that jasmine?
It's winter jasmine.
I don't know much about flowers, but my first thought on seeing yellow flowers on tall bushes was of St John's Wort.
It’s “jasminum nudiflorum” aka winter jasmine.
The banks rose comes out much later, in spring, even on the Riviera where it was discovered. Still, much earlier than most other roses.
Most people in Europe have heard of elves, or "the little people," leprechauns, etc. Some of that was acquired from parents and other adults, but a lot came from children's stories. Not just the old tales, in Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, but also modern children's authors like Enid Blyton speak of them.
Children also learn about religion through stories, but there is sometimes more insistence that the stories are TRUE, or that they have a defined MORAL, which is usually left undefined in the fairy stories.
We gradually lose our feeling that stories and the characters in them are real. This happens to Santa Claus despite the conspiracy of adults and business. Most of us also lose our belief in the religious stories and the associated world-view.
I wonder how much a "willing suspension of disbelief" accounts for belief in elves today. We need to suspend disbelief while reading fiction, and some people seem to maintain that suspension with regard to the supernatural. "Potterheads," Lord of the Rings enthusiasts and Goths enjoy treating their fictional universes "as if" they were real, but they know that they are not. Do all Americans know that Superman is imaginary?
After the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, murderous beliefs seems to have faded in Europe, and many people started to parody religion with made-up cosmologies and rituals such as those of Freemasonry (back when Freemasons were dangerous radicals), the Odd Fellows, the early Ku Klux Klan and even college fraternities like Skull and Bones. After religion lost its sting these began to seem quaint and outmoded.
Elves, pixies, etc may once have been a way to explain random events in a non-threatening way (without blaming witchcraft or evildoers) but now they are more recreational beliefs, which one can pick up or put down.
Hey! Thought the "mōd" example was really interesting. I think we may have a version of the word still around in Swedish thats a little closer to the older sense. The meaning is still largely the same as in modern English, with "gott mod" ≈ "good mood". But then there's also stuff like "modig" (brave, courageous), "högmod" ("high mood", arrogance, haughtiness) and "tålamod" ("enduring mood"?, patience), with all of them being more deliberate and external in meaning than the modern English "mood". Greetings from fellow linguistically interested archaeologist :)
You've given me something to chew on. I always find other people's reaction to death sort of strange, but your first example of society 1 and society 2, and then of the two girls got me thinking. As a Catholic, our belief in death is more akin to society #2, where the people can still have an active role in our world and lives after death, and we can interact with them on some level (what we refer to as the Communion of Saints, or sometimes the Church Triumphant). Our funeral rites fulfill a very different role than most of Christendom and secular society - they are a prayer FOR the dead, not for us. It's not as much a goodbye as a helping hand. It's ingrained in us as a work of mercy for that person, and while it doesn't delineate the transition from life to death (only physical death does that), it becomes part of the extended process of death (new life?) as we try to help them shorten their time in Purgatory.
Anyway, fascinating discussion, as always!
I'm loving the beard!
What kind of camera do you use?