Bookcase

A Complete History of the Druids

A Complete History of the DruidsA Complete History of the Druids; Their Origins, Manners, Customs, Powers, Temples, Rites, and Superstition; With An Inquiry into their Religion, and its Coincidence with the Patriarchal

 

 

 

 

Download: A Complete History of the Druids

An Introduction to English Runes

An Introduction to English RunesRunes are quite frequently mentioned in modern writings - usually imprecisely - as a source of mystic knowledge, power or insight. This book sets the record straight. It shows runes working as a practical script for a variety of purposes in early English times, among both indigenous Anglo-Saxons and incoming Vikings. In a scholarly yet readable way it examines the introduction of the runic alphabet (the "futhorc") to England in the fifth and sixth centuries, the forms and values of its letters, and the ways in which it developed, up until its decline at the end of the Anglo-Saxon period. It discusses how runes were used for informal and day-to-day purposes, on formal monuments, as decorative letters in prestigious manuscripts, for owners' or makers' names on everyday objects, perhaps even in private letters. For the first time, the book presents, together with earlier finds, the many runic objects discovered over the last 20 years, with a range of inscriptions on bone, metal and stone, even including tourists' scratched signatures found on the pilgrimage routes through Italy. It gives an idea of the immense range of information on language and social history contained in these unique documents.

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Mallory J.P. - In Search of the Indo-Europeans

Mallory J.P. - In Search of the Indo-EuropeansBy the first century A D historical records reveal peoples settled from the shores of the Atlantic to India all speaking languages closely related to one another.

These are the Indo-European languages whose origins can be traced back to a common ancestor that was spoken in Eurasia some 6,000 years ago.

We call the people who spoke this ancestral language the Indo-Europeans or Proto-IndoEuropeans.

But although we can give them a name, they are unlike almost any other ancient people we are likely to encounter.

Download: Mallory J.P. - In Search of the Indo-Europeans

 

Warha Europe vol.2 release

Warha Europe vol.2 releaseForeword to the 2nd issue

We are glad to welcome the readers of our almanac.

The “Warha” almanac has been published in Russia since 2015 and the latest issues are published once a year, summing up all the best texts about pagan traditionalism, as well as presenting fresh translations, interviews and original texts to the public. This fall will be the sixth issue.

The first English-language issue of the “Warha” almanac was released in 2017 and it was a trial attempt. And now, two years later, we are ripe for the second volume in English. This issue comes out in a difficult time of general fragmentation, fake-news and shameless propaganda from all sides. We conceived our almanac as a kind of bridge or a space of acquaintance, dialogue and exchange of opinions and skills between Russian-speaking pagans and traditionalists on the one hand, and Europeans and Americans on the other.

Download: Warha Europe vol.2 release

Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World: Eostre, Hreda and the Cult of Matrons

This book considers evidence for Germanic goddesses in England and on the ContinePagan goddessesnt, and argues on the basis of linguistic and onomastic evidence that modern scholarship has tended to focus too heavily on the notion of divine functions or spheres of activity, such as fertility or warfare, rather than considering the extent to which goddesses are rooted in localities and social structures. Such local religious manifestations are, it is suggested, more important to Germanic paganisms than is often supposed, and should caution us against assumptions of pan-Germanic traditional beliefs. Linguistic and onomastic evidence is not always well integrated into discussions of historical developments in the early Middle Ages, and this book provides both an introduction to the models and methods employed throughout, and a model for further research into the linguistic evidence for traditional beliefs among the Germanic-speaking communities of early medieval Europe.

Download: Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World: Eostre, Hreda and the Cult of Matrons

The Livs in the antiquity

The Livs in the antiquityThe Livs are among the indigenous inhabitantsof Latvia, with an ancient and unusual culture anda complicated history. They belong to the Finnicgroup of peoples and Liv is included in the southerngroup of Finnic languages. The ethnic origin of theLivs has not yet been established with certainty,and there is still no consensus among researcherson the origins of the Livs and their descendants,the available evidence being contradictory.

We can speak more specifically of Liv culturaldevelopment from the 10th century onwards, whennew sites, unknown in previous periods andconnected with the Livs, appear on the lowerDaugava. Archaeological data does not support theview put forward by some authors regarding thelocal origin of the Daugava and Gauja Livs.Written sources provide information about theLivs from the 11th century onwards, where theyare mentioned in Scandinavian runes.

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Hedeager Lotte - Iron Age myth and materiality

Hedeager Lotte - Iron Age myth and materialityAn Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400–1000

Iron Age Myth and Materiality: an Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000 considers the relationship between myth and materiality in Scandinavia from the beginning of the post-Roman era and the European Migrations up until the coming of Christianity. It pursues an interdisciplinary interpretation of text and material culture and examines how the documentation of an oral past relates to its material embodiment. While the material evidence is from the Iron Age, most Old Norse texts were written down in the thirteenth century or even later.

With a time lag of 300 to 900 years from the archaeological evidence, the textual material has until recently been ruled out as a usable source for any study of the pagan past. However, Hedeager argues that this is true regarding any study of a society's short-term history, but it should not be the crucial requirement for defining the sources relevant for studying long-term structures of the longue dure, or their potential contributions to a theoretical understanding of cultural changes and transformation. In Iron Age Scandinavia we are dealing with persistent and slow-changing structures of worldviews and ideologies over a wavelength of nearly a millennium.

Furthermore, iconography can often date the arrival of new mythical themes anchoring written narratives in a much older archaeological context.Old Norse myths are explored with particular attention to one of the central mythical narratives of the Old Norse canon, the mythic cycle of Odin, king of the Norse pantheon. In addition, contemporaneous historical sources from late Antiquity and the early European Middle Age - the narratives of Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, and Paul the Deacon in particular - will be explored. No other study provides such a broad ranging and authoritative study of the relationship of myth to the archaeology of Scandinavia.

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Odin, Thor and Freyja: Scandinavian Cult Sites of the 1st Millennium AD and the Frankish Realm

Odin, Thor and Freyja: Scandinavian Cult Sites of the 1st Millennium AD and the Frankish RealmWith the exhibition "Odin, Thor and Freyja. Scandinavian Cult Sites of the 1st Millennium AD and the Frankish Realm " the Kulturfonds is supporting a wide-ranging international co I lab oration. It is a joint project by the Archaeological Museum Frankfurt and the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. Exhibits from three archaeological sites in southern Denmark a re presented and compared with early medieval findings from Frankish royal courts and palaces of the Rhine-Main region (namely the Kaiserpfalzen of Frankfurt and Ingelheim). The exhibition therefore has a particular significance for the Frankfurt area.

It seems that the architectural combination of Merovingian and Caro ling ian stately palaces with magnificent sacred buildings (palace churches, memorials, burial grounds) presented a model for the development of similar structures in the North. The personal contact between Scandinavian elites and the Frankish nobility in our region is illustrated in the exhibit ion thro ugh the rich double child burial from 700/730 AD beneath Frankfurt Cathedral, in which a Frankish and a Scandinavian child had been buried side by side. In Ingelheim the Danish King Harald Halfdansson was baptized in 826 and swore fealty as a vassal, here isalso where the miss ion of Scandinavia was launched that very same year.

Download: Odin, Thor and Freyja: Scandinavian Cult Sites of the 1st Millennium AD and the Frankish Realm

Measurement of Time by the Ancient Slavs - Roman Zaroff

Measurement of Time by the Ancient Slavs - Roman ZaroffThe paper explores time measurements and perception of time by the ancient Slavs in the pre-Migration Period and Slavic settlement of Central and Southern Europe. It attempts to reconstruct a year, seasonal, month-like division and naming, as well as lunar and solar time measurement.

Moreover, it explores and attempts to reconstruct what were the common Slavic month names that, is before 5th–7th centuries. It also, discusses the issue of adoption of Julian calendar across the Slavdom in the period between the 9th–11th centuries.

The research is based on scarce limited written historical records as it explores the times before writing came to the Slavs. Hence to a large degree it relies on abundant ethnographic sources, as well as on linguistics. Therefore, in principle it employs a comparative methodology and often draws from Indo-European examples.

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Shaman's costumes

Shaman's costumesThere are unique ethnographical collections in the Irkutsk's Museum of Regional Studies. These collections are the result of fieldwork of many generations of scientists. Peoples represented through these collections live in the Asiatic part of Russia. It is a vast territory: from the River Yenisey in the West to the Pacific Ocean in the East, from the Arctic Ocean in the North to China and the Central Asia in the South.

The collections that represent the peoples indigenous to Lake Baikal's region (the Buryats, the Evenks, the Tofalars) are of paramount importance. These collections belong to the golden fund of our museum and they are the golden fund of world's culture as well. There are no collections of this kind in other museums of our country or abroad.

The most exotic and picturesque things in our collections are attires belonging to Shamans of different Siberian peoples.

Download: Shaman's costumes