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TEUTONIC MYTH AND LEGEND

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Author Topic: TEUTONIC MYTH AND LEGEND  (Read 1477 times)
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Tannhäuser
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« Reply #15 on: April 17, 2009, 01:24:41 pm »

was taken as a peace hostage to Constantinople, where he resided for ten years and received a Roman education. Theudemir succeeded his brother, and when he died, Theoderic ruled the wandering Ostrogoths.

In 480 A.D. Odoacer, a German captain of mercenaries, deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last of the Western Emperors, who was but a boy of seventeen. Eight years later Zeno, the Eastern Emperor, commissioned Theoderic to invade Italy. Odoacer was overthrown, and our Dietrich of the legends became a great and powerful king in Rome, owing nominal allegiance to the Eastern Emperor. He died in 526, and was buried in a great marble tomb at Ravenna. A fine statue of him, clad in full armour, may be seen in the church of the Franciscans at Innsbruck.

In the Dietrich story Ermenerich is confused with Odoacer, and the hero is depicted as an exile, and thus identified with his father. A mass of floating legends attached to the memory of Dietrich, including the Hildebrand story, which originated in the ancient and world-wide father-and-son conflict theme, and the myths of Thunor (Thor) the thunder-god, the slayer of giants and dwarfs. But even Thor has his human side. He may have been originally a tribal hero who was identified both with an oak-deity and the central figure of a Nature-myth. 1 He remains "the friend of man" even when elevated to Asgard. All the heroes of the minstrels of Europe link one with another as the fictional descendants of an ancient deified personage, or a


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humanized deity, of a remoter and simpler mythology than that in which Odin is the chief ruler.

One of the most interesting problems associated with Teutonic Mythology refers to the story of the "Seven Sleepers". Mimer's seven sons lie in magic sleep in the Underworld, awaiting the blast of the horn at Ragnarok. This horn hangs in a cave. Thorkill, who visited Geirrod's domains with King Gorm and his company, saw the suspended horn which turned into a dragon when a man seized it greedily.

Rydberg argued that the various "Seven Sleepers" legends in Europe and North Africa originated in Scandinavia, and were distributed by the northern warriors who overran Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt. His main argument rests on one very remarkable coincidence. The "Seven Sleepers" of Ephesus were Christians who were condemned to death by the Emperor Decius. They were given time to renounce their faith, but concealed themselves in a cave, where they lay wrapped in sleep "for 360 years". 1 During the reign of Theodosius, the Roman Emperor, a shepherd entered the cave, and the sleepers were awakened. Rydberg notes that Decius fell in battle with the Goths "who a few years later invaded Asia Minor and captured Ephesus among other places".

Seven men, who were attired like Romans, lay asleep in a cave in Western Germany. An eighth-century legend relates that a man who discovered them attempted to disrobe one, and his arm withered. In the vicinity dwelt a tribe of Skritobians (Skridfinns).

In Arabia a dog lies with "the sleepers". Mahomet made them foretell his coming, and the dog, named


p. xlv

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