In Which Anne Beeche Discusses the Germanic Peoples

Throwing axes?

That's ridiculously awesome.

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

Can anyone tell me how the Germanic tribes tended to supply themselves? Especially in the Germanian forest?

While farming is the obvious solution to food requirement, I suspect that farming land would be scarce in that massive forest. Would this mean that some (or many) Germanic tribes were essentially highly-advanced hunter-gatherers?

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Alex: Not sure; I know the Vikings mostly solved it with lots and lots of raids.

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

Germanics used herding, but the more western ones eventually adopted agriculture.

Supplied themselves? You mean in war? Well, they plundered. They didn't have much (or, well, anything) in the way of logistics, and especially not during the Great Migrations, where most tribes simply wandered through the Roman Empire anyway. That's how they supplied themselves.

Tacitus says the Chatti had some logistics, as only Germanic tribe. Which may be true or not. Concerning the Germanics, Tacitus was always more about having An Aesop than about historic exactness...

If you mean in pre-migrations peace time, sparse subsistence agriculture among the ridiculously vast and extensive Germanian forests. Agriculture in this sense means both fields and herds; all Germanic tribes had fields, not just the western ones. Semi-feral pigs were important because they could more or less feed themselves off the forest, and they could last a family through the winter.

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They plundered, sure, but they also invaded and displaced the original folks to settle there. That's what the Anglo-Saxons essentially did to the British, and the later Norwegians and Danes to the Anglo-Saxons and Scots.

EDIT: Also, the vampire (or vampire-like creature) in Germanic folklore, which I am currently researching. Would anybody happen to know about that?

edited 17th Jun '11 8:36:42 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

102

They basically either had to move (and eventually they ran into people who wouldn't be moved out of the way), or adopt agriculture.

Most eventually got around to the latter.

This is an awesome thread.

Are the Jutes significantly distinguishable from Angles and Saxons that it's worth making the distinction? Did they (Frisians too?) have as large an impact, or is our use of the phrase "Anglo-Saxon" an accurate reflection of the importance of those two groups?

Related to the Topic: I used to get the Venerable Bede, as 1066 And All That kept calling him, confused with the Vermicious Knids. I had odd mental images of history.

EDIT: Vermicious, apparently, not Venomous.

edited 17th Jun '11 9:01:05 AM by mmysqueeant

Yes, but that was a different migration pattern then what happened in the Roman Empire. At the British isles it was several waves of invasions and migrations, and the Anglo-Saxons accumulating more and more land.

In the Roman Empire, it were really hordes of locusts - the single tribes wandering as one entity plundering all land in their way. They would now and then be settled somewhere as foederati, but that never lasted long because the Germanics realized they could much easier plunder food than produce it.

And when those tribes eventually settled down and created own realms, it was essentially as warrior nobility lording over the native population.

I have no idea, heh.

Both Angles and Jutes were very, very small tribes, IIRC. I think over time both simply got assimilated into the Saxons, which is why by 1066 you had Saxons and Normans, and nothing else.

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@anne: I know there are numerous tales about them coming from Eastern Europe. I think that the Czech version was quite hairy.

Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.

I don't remember Jutes actually establishing any kingdoms. Based on one two of my readings It sounds like they came with the settling/invading tribes, but then left. Maybe they got bored.

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

Annebeeche: What of them?

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

VIKING FASHION

I JUST DON'T GET YOU

Tjaengvide◊

So while looking at this stone, I noticed something that I had not noticed before: Look at the noblewoman (probably Freyja) presenting the horn before Sleipnir. You'll notice that under her cloak/shawl that not only is she wearing a dress, she is wearing something cape-like that trails behind the dress.

And you know what? This reminds me of something I saw a long time ago—this reconstruction fits the image on Tjangvide perfectly sans the cloak. Back when I last looked at it, I rejected the idea because this was the only example I was able to find and I couldn't find the support for it. Does this mean that the hangerok *

may not have actually existed?

...

Well, that just throws half of my artwork out of the window.

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

I can't speak to Viking or Scandinavian specifically, but historically, and almost everywhere in the world, one of the popular ways to demonstrate wealth was to wear clothing that was wildly impractical for the area. That included shoes with beaded soles among the Mongols, headresses that were tall, overbalanced, or oversized in all sorts of places, and the perennial favorite: a dress that dragged on the ground behind you, so that you needed to accept that it was going to get worn, torn and filthy. Unless you were wealthy enough to have a servant or slave to carry it around for you, of course.

edited 20th Jun '11 10:34:28 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

You're right, I hadn't thought of that.

They did in fact have slaves that could probably do that sort of thing for them. But in Germania the slave trade wasn't a huge affair and slaves were actually comparatively rare and kind of a minority. As a matter of fact, it was even abolished in Scandinavia earlier on because it was cheaper and easier to just hire people.

EDIT: Also, Germanic nobility was surprisingly more active and inclined to work than nobility from other regions, so you'd think the women would wear more practical clothes.

-shrug-

Maybe they're for ceremonial occasions.

edited 21st Jun '11 3:34:34 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

Also, this website apparently exists.

Unfortunately, it appears to be in German.

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

.*takes a look* Eh, it's mostly photos anyway. Plus contact and legal stuff. Not much in the way of historical information and the like for which one would need to understand German, heh. The photos do look cool, though.

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The only thing that I can think of right now would be Nachzehrer, but that is once again rather old German and not Germanic folklore if I'm not mistaken.

Programming and surgery have a lot of things in common: Don't start removing colons until you know what you're doing.

Well, I suspect "old German" still more or less counts as "Germanic", since Germanic people have lived in Germany since Germany was Germania and still do.

Germanygermanygermanygermany.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

Yeah, basically.

The reason why I'm looking into the vampire thing is because I'm planning on making a spoof of Twilight saga such that it is literally a saga, and I want to see what the Germanics think of the vampire.

Old German is fine, even though it's removed from Scandinavia where I plan for it to take place. It's only when we go into like Celtic or Slavic or Hindi when it's not fine.

Also, somebody else recommended the website. i picked it up because it is a database on Germanics and I collect these in a bookmark folder I have incorrectly labeled Nordic Stuff. I haven't looked at it myself yet.

edited 21st Jun '11 9:45:31 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.