Comment by eesmith | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eesmith | Hacker News Reader

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin#Roman_era_to_Migration_Pe... says "The earliest clear reference to Odin by name is found on a C-bracteate discovered in Denmark in 2020."

So, "written mention of Odin" seems to mean written as "Odin', and not as "Mercury".

It also mentions some debate over if the Goths actually worshiped Odin/Mercury, but I am too ill-informed to make sense if that's relevant.

I did manage to find a scholarly reference to the topic at https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/c11e69e... ("Pre-print papers of THE 18TH INTERNATIONAL SAGA CONFERENCE SAGAS AND THE CIRCUM-BALTIC ARENA. Helsinki and Tallinn, 7th–14th August 2022")

> The problem of Mercury

> Despite lack of Germanic evidence for the existence of a cult of Wodan/Óðinn before the fifth (or perhaps even the sixth) century, as presented above, many scholars maintain ancient roots. For example, disregarding critical scholarship on various individual sources, Schjødt reiterated that “taken together, they strongly indicate that Óðinn, although not exactly the same as the god that we know from the Nordic sources, has roots reaching far back in time, probably as early as the Indo-European era (at least 3000 BC)” (Schjødt 2019: 67). ...

> The reading of interpretation romana maintains that Tacitus’ famous description of Germanic deities, Deorum maxime Mercurium colunt, should be understood to signify Wodan/Óðinn. Of course, it has already been shown by Karl Helm that this was a historical trope copied from Herodotus, and/or Caesar’s Commentarii de bello gallico (Helm 1946: 7-12). The fact that Caesar was talking about Celts, and his description of religion among the Germani mentions worship of the sun, moon, and fire, does nothing to secure the reliability of such ‘historical’ sources. Either way, the argument that the foremost deity interpreted by Tacitus as a ‘Mercury-type’ must be Wodan/Óðinn is a projection of the latter’s supremacy in Old Norse material onto a Germanic society several centuries older. This becomes a circular argument and cannot be leading.

Tacitus isn't the only interpretation of the Germanic gods. He is thought to refer to Thor as Hercules, but there are other references where a Jupiter is mentioned. There is a Roman complaint that the Germanic peoples see Mercury as the father of Jupiter when it should be the other way around.

And while it's possible, it would be extremely surprising for Odin to be a new addition to the Germanic pantheon when we find him attested under that name in the 5th/6th century. He's in charge of the whole thing! The norm is for gods - all gods - to have very deep roots. Where we can prove that a god is novel, we can also often show that it's a borrowing of a foreign god with deeper roots (e.g. Adonis < Tammuz) or that it is an explicit deification of a human (e.g. if you go to the temple of the city god in Shanghai, there's an informative plaque explaining that the city god was posthumously appointed to the position by an emperor of the Yuan dynasty).

I do understand that after cassava or maize was introduced somewhere in Africa, anthropologists documented a new goddess associated with the crop. Innovation exists. But pantheons are very conservative overall. "Several centuries" is not an amount of time where we expect to see pantheonic turnover.

Were all gods worshiped?

By my limited understanding, the question isn't if Odin was part of the pantheon, but rather if there was a specific cult of Odin.

I don't understand your question. All gods are worshiped by definition.

"The cult of Odin" would refer to anything and everything related to Odin. See sense 1 here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cult , or sense 3/4 here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult .

I am a software developer with little knowledge of the topic.

What do we call a personified supernatural being who is not worshiped? Are there really no such entities?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God informs me: "In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the universe or life, for which such a deity is often worshipped". The "often" tells me that a god is not always worshipped.

How should I make sense of this line from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin#Roman_era_to_Migration_Pe... : "There is no direct, undisputed evidence for the worship of Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and the existence of a cult of Odin among them is debated."

Definition 1 starts 'The veneration, devotion and religious rites given to a deity'. What veneration, devotion, and religious rites are attested?

> How should I make sense of this line from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin#Roman_era_to_Migration_Pe... : "There is no direct, undisputed evidence for the worship of Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and the existence of a cult of Odin among them is debated."

You should read "the worship of Odin" and "the existence of a cult of Odin" as meaning the same thing. The sentence wouldn't mean anything different if it said "there is no direct, undisputed evidence for a cult of Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and its existence among them is debated", or "there is no direct, undisputed evidence for the worship of Odin/Mercury among the Goths, and it is debated whether he was part of their pantheon".

> Definition 1 starts 'The veneration, devotion and religious rites given to a deity'.

There are two concepts here:

1. Belief that a god or spirit exists.

2. Rituals intended to communicate with, maintain good relations with, propitiate, or placate a god or spirit.

"Worship", "veneration", and "devotion" all refer to both of those concepts. "Religious rites" refer to the second one.

(Compare https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/worship : "to honor or show reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power".)

So a reference to belief in a deity is an attestation of "worship", "veneration", and "devotion". For rites, Tacitus mentions that Mercury receives animal and human sacrifices while other deities only get animals.

> What do we call a personified supernatural being who is not worshiped? Are there really no such entities?

In the ordinary sense, obviously not, because acknowledging that something is a supernatural entity is worshiping it. But even in the sense of particular rituals, there are no such entities. All supernatural beings receive prayers some of the time.

> For rites, Tacitus mentions that Mercury receives animal and human sacrifices while other deities only get animals.

Right, but as the text I quoted earlier pointed out: "Of course, it has already been shown by Karl Helm that this was a historical trope copied from Herodotus, and/or Caesar’s Commentarii de bello gallico (Helm 1946: 7-12). The fact that Caesar was talking about Celts, and his description of religion among the Germani mentions worship of the sun, moon, and fire, does nothing to secure the reliability of such ‘historical’ sources. Either way, the argument that the foremost deity interpreted by Tacitus as a ‘Mercury-type’ must be Wodan/Óðinn is a projection of the latter’s supremacy in Old Norse material onto a Germanic society several centuries older. This becomes a circular argument and cannot be leading."

> acknowledging that something is a supernatural entity is worshiping it

I ... really? Christianity has angels, devils, cherubs, the Nephilim, and other supernatural entities who are not worshiped. Who prays to the first and second beasts of Revelation or the Ophanim?

Those are supernatural entities in a (nominally) monotheistic religion.

But really I was thinking more that given all the world's mythologies, I find it hard to believe that all supernatural entities in them are worshiped as gods.

In trying to research this, it seems the main problem is the dearth of information we have about pre-literate German culture. We have views through the eyes of Tacitus and Bede, but these come with unknown biases and misunderstandings.

> All gods are worshiped by definition.

There is no evidence Loki was ever worshipped.

> He's in charge of the whole thing!

But he may not always have been. In most European mythologies, the thunder god is the most "in charge". In Norse mythology, the thunder god is the son of the chief god instead. My assumption is that Thor was the main god until they syncretistically tried to incorporate new beliefs about "the father and the son" and self-sacrifice on a tree, which even by this super-early mention of Odin, was over 500 years old.

> In most European mythologies, the thunder god is the most "in charge".

Most? It's true of the Greeks. It's true of the Romans after their mythology is unified with the Greeks, and there's a good chance it was also true before.

But that's it, as far as I see. It's not true of Celtic mythology and Slavic mythology is barely known.

Slavic mythology isn't that unknown. We know that a thunder god (Perun) was on top of it. In Finnish mythology, it's pretty clear Ilmarinen (a sky/weather God) is on top of it. Though it has a specific thunder god (Ukko), they seem to think he came later and took over thunder from the sky god.

Celtic mythology doesn't have a sky god on top, it's true. But it has the same issue as Norse mythology: in the form we know it, it's much younger (and probably influenced by) Christianity.

Very little about Finnish mythology is clear. Pretty much everything known about it was written down centuries after Christianity had become established in Finland. And the same applies to other Finnic and Uralic peoples as well.

In some sense, talking about gods in Finnish mythology is a mistake. The entities now understood as gods were not the same kind of big important guys as Indo-European gods. Finnish mythology was more focused on spirits, most of which had narrow and/or local domains. "Gods" were more like spirits with wider domains.

Then there is the confusion around names Ilmarinen, Ukko, and Jumala, which possibly referred to approximately two entities in total. And to make the matters worse, "Jumala" and "jumala" in modern Finnish translate as "God" and "god".

Or that could just be what people remembered centuries after the pre-Christian Finnish society was gone. Very little about that society is known. The traditional treatment of Finnish history is mostly based on archaeological evidence until the semi-mythical Swedish Crusades.

By what standard is Finnish mythology supposed to be "European"? You'd have to argue either that they assimilated to local cultural norms, in which case they provide no independent evidence, or that a culture imported from Siberia is informative as to what Europeans thought.

Given the meaning of Jupiter and the extreme importance of Jupiter even in the time of the Roman kings, I think there's much more than a "good chance."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Jupiter

> “taken together, they strongly indicate that Óðinn, although not exactly the same as the god that we know from the Nordic sources, has roots reaching far back in time, probably as early as the Indo-European era

A reader might be interested in Kris Creshaw's "The One-eyed god" which reiterates Odin's similarities with other Indo-european analogues, specifically Apollo and Vedic Rudra.

Indeed, much of the Odin's acts and characteristics find similarities in the deeds of Rudra or Indra in Vedic myth. The Vedics even had a conception of afterlife similar to Valhalla, where the most excellent people and fallen warriors reach Indra's realm, carried by Apsaras.

Indra is also god of sacred verse, "vipratamo kavinam", which is similar to odin mastering the runes, giving a dual priest-king and warrior king function.

The efficacy of "several great deeds" is emphasized for both. Eg: The Havāmal: "140. word following word, I found me words, deed following deed, I wrought deeds.". The Rig Veda (1.101.4) - Praised, he is firm at every deed of his.

> Indra is also god of sacred verse, "vipratamo kavinam", which is similar to odin mastering the runes

That seems pretty tenuous; at the time Indo-Iranian diverged from the European branch, runes didn't exist at all, and most likely the proto-Indo-Europeans had no writing of any variety.

For example, different families' words for writing:

- write [English], from PIE *wrey;

- scribere [Latin], from PIE *(s)kreybʰ;

- graphein [Greek], from PIE *gerbʰ; (cognate with English carve)

- likhati [Sanskrit], from PIE *reyk(ʷ)h₂;

- neveshtan [Persian], from PIE *peyḱ (cognate with English paint)

[all taken from wiktionary]

This doesn't look like a concept that was around before the groups diverged.

I know that that Vedics didn't have writing. But the runes and Vedic "brahman" (sacred verse) serve the similar magico-religious function. Odin is also associated with poetry.

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