Latest Page Discussions/Comic Update Chitchat

[ChazHoosier]

You're right, they didn't convert right away.  It took a generation or two or three.  The fact of the matter is, "Pagan" is a Christian category.  People might have dabbled in magic, their priests certainly didn't like it, but in their minds they were Christians and I see no reason to stick them with a label they never would have accepted for themselves.

[Laufey]

The era when people tries to hedge their bets with both religions was a very narrow transition period.  By the middle ages there just weren't any pagans left.  People might have cast as spell or two, but it wasn't because of any commitment to Thor.

During the Middle Ages half of Iceland was still Pagan according to the sources I mentioned in my previous post. Out of curiosity, which sources are you referring to that state otherwise?

[ChazHoosier]

A class I took on Scandinavian history back in the day.  Even those sagas are suspect because they were written down by Christians looking back on their past.  I am certainly not saying that conversion to Christianity was instantaneous—it took its own time.  But to suggest that it was less than complete is to project a 21st century dialogue between Christianity and Neo-paganism onto the past.  Indeed, many of these stories of lingering pagan rites were actually accusations cooked up by Protestants trying to show how Catholics just weren't Christian enough.  Just because they weren't in the Bible doesn't mean they were pagan rites.

There is also the further complication that we are projecting a different understanding of religion itself onto the past.  Paganism was a collection of ancestral rites and small daily rituals.  It just didn't impose a coherent, universalizing worldview on its practitioners—or more properly, people could bring whatever worldview they liked to paganism.  It's why different pantheons could exist side by side. How you resolved it all in your mind and how you lived was your own affair.  It was Christianity that came along and suggested that there was one Truth for all humankind, and it was Christianity that boiled down Paganism into its own coherent worldview in dialogue with this Truth.

So did some rites that pagans practiced survive in the Christian era?  Certainly.  Does throwing a coin in a fountain mean I am some synthesis of Christian and pagan?  Does it mean I am trying to appease well spirits?  I don't think so.

[Laufey]

Alas, "a class" is not a source. I've also taken quite a few classes here in the University of Iceland regarding old Norse beliefs and Middle Ages in Iceland, but what I name as my sources are the texts we studied there. My professors are of the opinion that these texts are still the best sources that we have and that archaeological findings support them, such as the finding of Egill Skalla-Grímsson's homestead.

Egils saga too was most likely written down by a Christian scholar, Snorri Sturluson, but Egils Pagan practices and even his blood sacrifices were still written down and described as effective, and everything in his saga states that he really was capable of magic. There is even a mention of a goddess taking a side in a battle, turning it for the worse for the other side.

And I have to repeat myself a bit here because it feels a little bit like you're twisting what I say into something that I never said: when it comes to Finnish Pagan beliefs I'm not talking of tossing a coin in a well. I'm talking of having a sacrificial table for a god, or a hiisi site, and going there to pray. People certainly believed they were Christian, but some also blended in other types of worship that went much against Christianity... the difference was that many ordinary people didn't see a contradiction in situations where priests would see many. For this reason I don't see any problem with Minna bringing Christianity in to the SSSS world and see it as a logical continuum of the past.

[ChazHoosier]

I suppose I'll have to yield to you as the expert of Medieval religious practices.

[Róisín]

Laufey, not for the first time, your accounts of Finnish religious usage and custom remind me very much of the Irish ones. Especially among country people, nobody saw any contradiction whatever in people going to Catholic mass, then coming home and setting out a saucer of milk and honey for Themselves, last thing at night, or singing the old fire blessings rebranded to Saint Bridget rather than Brigid/Bride. Or, indeed, changing the course of a road to avoid damaging a sacred tree.

[ChazHoosier]

But is any of that inherently pagan?  It seems to me that both Medieval priests and us today are begging the question and presuming it is.

[urbicande]

You know all the right things then, lonkero is delicious!

You know, despite having been to Finland thrice before, I'd never had it before this trip. And it's lovely stuff!

But is any of that inherently pagan?  It seems to me that both Medieval priests and us today are begging the question and presuming it is.

I'd certainly call it inherently pagan, whether we wish to acknowledge it or not.

[Vafhudr]

But is any of that inherently pagan?  It seems to me that both Medieval priests and us today are begging the question and presuming it is.

Well if it is not pagan, what would you say it is?

[ChazHoosier]

That depends on what the rite means in its own context and in the minds of the people performing the ritual.  Rites don't have inherent meaning—and for the record I absolutely include Christian rituals in that statement.  Indeed, the great thorniness of inter-denominational dialogue explains very well what I am on about.  The various Christian sects have more or less the same rituals, but we all mean very different things by them.  A Presbyterian Communion service and a Catholic Mass have common elements but they think something very different is happening during them.

So, does a Irish peasant think she is "blending religions" when she leaves milk in the fields appease the Kindly Ones?  Almost certainly not.  She most  likely felt herself to be a good Catholic in a world filled with many unknowable forces.  Did an Icelandic farmer think his glyphs on the corners of his fields implied he was a pagan?  There just isn't much evidence that he did outside of these narrow transition periods.  We know what the parish priest felt, but we shouldn't let his opinion have all the say.

In fact, even giving those rituals meaning identifiable as pagan is to concede Christianity's point.  No one considered himself pagan until Christians framed the world as "Christianity vs. Everyone else."

[Laufey]

ChazHoosier: Ok, now I think I understand your point a bit better. However, blending religions does not have to be a conscious decision and it hardly ever is - it just happens. Nobody thinks to themselves that they're being both Christian and Pagan at the same time, but their beliefs may still be a mix of both sides.

Laufey, not for the first time, your accounts of Finnish religious usage and custom remind me very much of the Irish ones. Especially among country people, nobody saw any contradiction whatever in people going to Catholic mass, then coming home and setting out a saucer of milk and honey for Themselves, last thing at night, or singing the old fire blessings rebranded to Saint Bridget rather than Brigid/Bride. Or, indeed, changing the course of a road to avoid damaging a sacred tree.

There's some weird link between the Irish and the Finns!

Somebody put this really well when we were discussing things people did not really believe in but regardless would avoid doing anything "forbidden" around it. Like some Icelandic companies calling a medium to help them if they suspect elf activity, or Finns avoiding making too much noise while rowing on a lake; you don't necessarily believe in it but it's best to not make it angry at you regardless.

[Róisín]

Laufey: There does seem to be a link in our customs and our nature! And we too have the thing of not annoying the water spirits with unnecessary noise or especially profanity. They do like music though.

Chaz: I think most people don't overanalyse, or think: 'I'm doing x for reason y', they just live. And living involves connecting to their world, in whatever ways work.

[Hrollo]

It's worth noting that Catholicism in medieval Europe often deliberatedly turned a blind eye to pagan practices and tried to encourage their incorporation into the faith rather than their erasure, so as to have an easier time spreading and be able to accomodate to different local cultures.

Edit: also, while not exactly pagan, for centuries the Church accepted and even encouraged the practice of astrology. What we think of "acceptably Christian" today is very different from what it would have been centuries ago, especially before the Protestant reformation which took a much harsher and fundamentalist approach to religion (and pushed the Catholic in competition with them to kinda do the same in a holier than thou one upping thing).

[urbicande]

OK, first fika in 90 years!

[Vafhudr]

Who knows. Maybe those fancy people have some ersatz coffee going and the tradition lives on.