Thursday, March 31, 2011

Distinguishing Haralds



King Harald Finehair allegedly unified Norway, for the first time, in the ninth century. He’s not to be confused with Harald Bluetooth, king of Denmark, who lived in the tenth. Neither Harald Fairhair nor Harald Bluetooth should be confused with Harald Hardrada ("the Ruthless"), who died invading England in the eleventh.
Two of these Haralds remain candidates for the Scandinavian 81. Finehair was a recent cut. If I‘m to consider him, then I must consider his near- contemporaries, Eric the Victorious, who unified Sweden, and Gorm the Old and Thyri the Restorer, who unified Denmark. There's no room for them, even though these monarchs are arguably more important than Harald Finehair, since Sweden and Denmark went on to occupy greater roles in world history. Norway, for most of its existence, was just a colony of one or the other.









Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Vikingology


By tomorrow evening I intend to have highlighted and summarized the lives of all of my Vikings who feature prominently in Heimskringla. So far, I've only finished Rollo and Sigrid.  (Who both take up comparatively little space in this work.)
I’ll never be a Vikingologist. The literature, even just in English, on this subject is enormous, and always growing. I’ll never have time to absorb all there is to know. Only so many of my eminent Scandinavians hail from this gory epoch. Moreover, with so much scholarly attention devoted to it, Vikingology is surely vibrant controversies between rival schools of interpretation. My remarks, therefore, are bound to dissatisfy at least some of the experts. I’m bound to commit inaccuracies, over-generalizations.      

Perhaps the scholarly attention devoted to the Vikings is disproportionate to its actual historical importance. It’s not like they the Mongols, after all, or the British.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The search for the Search for Odin



As far as I can tell, Heyerdahl's Search for Odin (Jakten pa Odin in Norwegian) has yet to be translated into English. This saddens me, the more so because the book drew "forceful and detailed response from leading academics," which allegedly verged on the personal. The Heyerdahl controversies fascinate me, this one most especially. 
Was Heyerdahl a visionary who saw beyond the confining dogmas of archaeological orthodoxy? A smasher of received prehistoric paradigms, predictably crucified by the scientific establishment for his many heresies? Or, was he an imaginative, eloquent, physically courageous kook who took intellectually unconscionable liberties with evidence and logic?  And does the answer, for my purposes, even matter?
One interesting fact about Heyerdahl, he's been, so far, my most frequently suggested Scandinavian. (But he was on my list from the first.)        

Sunday, March 27, 2011

81

Today the title change is official: the Scandinavian 81: I bothered to figure out how to do it.  The address, at least for the moment, remains http://scandinavian78.com/ : I'll leave changing that, if it can be done, to more computer savy people than me.  (ie: your average eight year old.)

Over my upcoming vacation, I resolve  (1)  to set up a Wiki account for the 81, linked to this blog.  (Which I might then retitle "Scandinaviana")   (2)  to extensively chart my reading schedule  (3) to finish Heimskringla and several other books.

I'll include here an update of my bibliography in progress....

Bolitho, William  Twelve Against the Gods
Boosse, Claire  Scandinavian Folk & Fairy Tales: Norwegian/Swedish/Danish/ Finnish/Icelandic
Brier, Bob  The Encyclopedia of Mummies
Bronsted, Johannes  The Vikings: The Background To A Fierce and Fascinating Civilization
Brown, Nancy Marie  The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman
Buckley, Veronica  Christina, Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric
Christianson, John Robert  On Tycho’s Island: Tycho Brahe and His Assistants, 1570-1601
Churton, Tobias  The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians, The World’s Most Secret Society
Cutler, Alan  The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius who Discovered a New History of the Earth
D’Aulaire, Ingi and Edgar Parin  D’Aulaire’s Book of the Norse Myths
Derry, T.K.  A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland & Iceland
Donner, Jorn  The Films of Ingmar Bergman, From “Torment” To “All These Women”
Feldman, Burton  The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy, and Prestige
Fante, Kenne  Alfred Nobel: A Biography
Farnell, Kim  Simply Runes
Garfinkel, Bernie  Liv Ullmann & Ingmar Bergman
Hall, Anna Gertrude  Nansen 
Hamson, Knut  Hunger
Hammarskjold, Dag  Markings
Hedin, Sven  My Life As An Explorer
Holberg, Ludvig  Jeppe of the Hill and other comedies
Howarth, David  1066: The Year of the Conquest
Heyerdahl, Thor  Kon Tiki
Ibsen, Henrik  A Doll’s House And Other Plays
Four Major Plays
Ingebritsen, Christine  The Nordic States and European Unity
Scandinavia in World Politics
Kuhn, Thomas S.  The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought
Lange, Karen E.  “Tales From the Bog”
Lingren, Astrid  Pippi Longstocking
Man, John  Atlas of the Year 1,000
McCullough, David Willis (ed.)  Chronicles of the Barbarians
Wars of the Irish Kings
Mcvoy, J.P. and Zarate, Oscar  Introducing Quantum Theory
Mears, Ray  The Real Heroes of Telemark: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Stop Hitler’s Atomic Bomb
Meyer, Michael  Ibsen
Midgaard, John  A Brief History of Norway
Moberg, Wilhelm  A History of the Swedish People: vol. 1, From Prehistory to the Renaissance; vol. 2From Renaissance to Revolution
Mowat, Farley  West Viking: The Ancient Norse In Greenland and North America
Nordstrom, Byron J.  Scandinavia Since 1500
Ohrelius, Commander Bengt  Vasa The King’s Ship
Orsted, Hans Christian  Selected Scientific Works of Hans Christian Orsted
Oxenstierna, Count Eric  The Norsemen
Palmer, Donald D.  Kierkegaard For Beginners
Pytlik, Mark  Bjork, Wow and Flutter
Riste, Olav and Nokleby, Berit  Norway 1940-1945: The Resistance Movement
Simmons, John  The Scientific 100, A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present
Shultz, Gladys Denny  Jenny Lind, The Swedish Nightingale
Smith, Alan G.R.  Science And Society In The Sixteenth And Seventeenth Centuries
Smith, John Boulton  Munch
Sonesteby, Gunnar  Report from agent 24
Sprinchorn, Evert  The Genius of the Scandinavian Theater
Sturluson, Snorri  Heimskringla or The Lives of the Norse Kings  (A.H. Smith translator) 
The Prose Edda  (translation and notes by Jesse L. Byock)
The Prose Edda  (translation by Jean I. Young)
Swedenborg, Emanuel  True Christian Religion
The Universal Human and Soul-Body Interaction
Toyne, S.M.  The Scandinavians in History
Undset, Sigrid  Jenny
Kristin Lavransdatter
Wedgwood, C.V.  The Thirty Years War
Weibul, Jorgen  Swedish History In Outline
Wilson, David M.  The Northern World: The History And Heritage of Northern Europe AD 400-1100
The Vikings and Their Origins






 

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Tygve Lie, et cetera

Is this project reckless or merely satiric?  It must be one or the other.  I'm in no intellectual position to compile this list, let alone write meaningfully (or even, perhaps, compellingly) about any, let alone all, of my chosen subjects.  Should this disuade me?
Maybe I should take the less egotistical approach, in the communal spirit that drives Wiki software...
I can't.  I won't.  Not yet, at least.  I need to see this project well off the ground, moving at sonic speed, before I cede its ownership to the collective....
                                                                  * 
Trygve Lie was suggested to me. He was the first president of the United Nations, and a Norwegian. However, I had already considered, and decided against, Trygve Lie. I do intend to sketch his career in my chapter on his still-more important successor, Dag Hammarskjold.
                                                                  *
I admire Norway's practice of honoring cultural figures on its currency. I would like to see Edgar Allen Poe on the U.S. dollar and Emily Dickinson on the $100 bill!
                                                                   * 
Deep into Heimskringla now, enjoying almost every gloriously gory, repetitive page of it.  I may also have to reconsider Harald Fairhair, Haakon the Good and St. Olaf, all of whom had been previously struck from the 81.
                                                                                   *

Monday, March 21, 2011

Yngling Saga


No-one except Thor Heyerdahl, according to a most erudite friend, takes seriously Snorri Sturluson's contention the "Aesir" came to Scandinavia from the Black Sea region.  Why not?  Grant that  elements of Yngling Saga are (perhaps) obviously fanciful: Snorri's etymology of "Aesir" as deriving from "Asia;" the fact that some of his early Norse kings (particularly "Odin") were potent sorcerers; and so on.   What remains?   The legend of an ancient migration.  Couldn't Snorri's account be based on oral or even written traditions that, in turn, are rooted in historical reality?  Why is it far fetched to imagine that some Scandinavians, at least, are descended from a tribe or tribes wandering from the Black Sea?  They had to come from somewhere.

Ilium, once, was also just a myth, until it was proved true.  Or true enough.

I prefer to believe that "Odin" was a real person, or an amalgam, that time and liberal retellings of his deeds gradually elevated him to the status of a god--indeed, the greatest of gods--and that the Christian Snorri, intentionally or not, struck close to historical truth by demoting him back to a mere king.      



   

Thursday, March 17, 2011

comings and goings

I forgot to mention medieval Swedish rebel leader Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, Enlightenment era Norwegian playwright, philospher and satirist Ludwig Holdberg, and Swedish actor Max von Sydow, all of whom, too, have been knocked off the Scandinavian 81.  Of over a dozen names suggested by a recently, fortuitiously acquired Norwegian friend, particularly outstanding are scientist Kristian Olaf Birkeland, Danish opera singer Kirsten Flagstad, and Danish film director Lars von Trier.  These three names are now on the candidates list, bringing me back to a total of 80.

I'm trying to impose a reading plan on myself.  Pagan Ressurection was a good place to start my systematic study.  Next up, the entire Heimskringla, additional sagas, and a review of all my Viking literature.  The plan now is to proceed in more or less chronological order. 

I might be insane just thinking this project is something I can do, even poorly. 
 

Friday, March 11, 2011

more Scandinavian synchronicity

How's this for Scandinavian synchronicity?  I was waiting for the light to cross the street today when a passerby on a bicycle asked me if there was an ATM nearby.  "In there," I replied, pointing to the cafe where I myself was heading.  "Where are you from?" I asked on an impulse; he had an accent, but I couldn't place it.  "Norway," he said.

We wound sitting down and discussing the Scandinavian 78 at the cafe for about an hour.  His English is excellent and he did seem genuinely interested in the details of my pet project.  I indulged him by sketching out a list of some of the more prominent Norwegian candidates.  (Amundsen, Nansen, Brundtland, Munch, Undset, Olav Trygvasson, and so forth: the only one he hadn't heard of was G.H. Hansen.)

He asked me which living Norwegian will rank highest.  "Gro Harlem Bruntland," I replied immediately, underlining her name.  My ranking system is no system at all, and of course everything at this stage is highly preliminary--but Brundtland, to my current state of knowledge, has no rival among living Norwegians in terms of world historical influence.  My new Scandinavian acquaintance agreed.  "But," he added ruefully, "if you asked most Norwegians that question, they would say the name of a soccer player."

I pounced.  "Who?"  Athletics remains unrepresented on the 78.  From this portion of the conversation, I took away the following names: Marit Bjoren, Kjetil Andre Aamondt (skiiers), Ole Gunnar, John Carew (?) and  John Arne Riise (soccer players, or more properly, "footballers.")  These talented worthies will receive due consdieration.  At the moment, I especially feel the lack of at least one outstanding female athlete.  Marit Bjoren may well fill the niche. 

The most important name I learned today, however, didn't belong to an athlete, but to a Norwegian mathematician.  Niels Henrik Abel was born in 1802 and died in 1829.  In his brief life he (according to Wikipedia) "proved the impossibility of solving the quintic equation in radicals."  I don't really know what that means.  But my companion, himself a mathematician, assured me that Abel's achievement was one of the most important in the history of mathematics. 

So much to learn.  So much to know. 

Now for the best part of my story.  My new Norwegian contact once attended a ceremony commemorating Gunnar Sonsteby!  Sonsteby gave a lecture on his experiences as a resistance fighter in Nazi occupied Norway, answered questions from the audience, and recieved a medal his valor in his service to humanity.

A young Norwegian mathematician, studying abroad for three months in an exchange program at the University of Washington, wanders on his bike to my neigborhood.  He has seen and heard Sonsteby      
(my personal favorite Scandinavian) with his own eyes and ears.  He asks a random stranger a question, and that stranger is me.  Had either of us arrived at that stoplight five seconds earlier, or five seconds later, we would not ever have met.

How can I doubt the existence of synchronicity?
 




 
      

    

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

I'm almost finished with Pagan Resurrection, and a used book on Svante Arrhenius arrived in today in the mail, and... and... and this project is barely an embryo when, in my estimation, it ought already to be a vigorous youth, bright with the promise of a prodigious maturity.  But there's so much to do, so much to know, so little time, and so, so many tantalizing excuses.

Today I described the Scandinvaian 78 on another hike, to another female friend, along another shore, but this time with different bad weather.   It rained so hard that we almost might as well have jumped into Lake Washington.  The wind, again, was intense.  We did not talk so much Vikings, however, as physics, conversational dynamics, Jung, and architecture; I'm looking forward to her view, when she acquires one, of Arne Jacobson. 

To read: "Wotan"  (1936)  Carl Jung

Saturday, March 5, 2011

another attempt

I need a plan.  Pages of notes continue to pile up.  But I'm not on pace to complete this thing any decade soon.  I'd like to do it in a year or so, move on to something else.  Back to the Holy Roman Empire, I think, and my Jesuits and Rosicrucians, who are calling me.  I need a reading plan, a schedule, and I need to keep to it.  I need to take still more thorough, intense notes, start my own wiki, and start my 78 short biographies.   
I'm reading Pagan Resurrection by Richard Rudgley (melodramatically subtitled A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality?).  The most I've seen on Bureus since Churton.  I'm please to state that, in part thanks to this book, the Swedish Rosicrucian's place on the 78 no longer looks so insecure.  He may well at least stand in for neo-Pagan revival, the honored and coveted final place.
Here's a recent effort to organize the candidates, in this case by their broad types of achievements:   

Archaeological curiosity:  Tolland Man

Activism:  Queen Margreta*, Bremer*, Nansen***,  Alfred Nobel*, Raoul Wallenberg, Gunnar Sonsteby*, Gro Harlem Brundtland*,  
Architecture:  Arne Jacobsen
Art: Carl Larsson, Munch, Ingri d'Aulaire, Strindberg*,
Cinema: Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Ingmar Bergman, Liv Ullman 
Entrepreneurship: Ingvar Kamprad
Exploration: Erik the Red, Leif, Gudrid, Nansen***, Roald Amundsen, Thor Heyerdal*,
Literature:  Egill Skalgraimsson*, Snorri***, Swedenborg***, Holberg,  Bremer*,  Hans Christian Anderson, Ibsen, Strindberg*, Hans Orsted*, Selma Lagerlof, Knut Hamsun, Halldor Laxness, Sigrid Undset*, Par Lagerkvist, Astrid Lingren, Asbjornsen and Moe, Karen Blixen
Music: Buxtehude, Jenny Lind, Ole Bull, Grieg, Bjork,
Philosophy/Scholarship:  Snorri***, Johannes Bureus, Swedenborg***, Soren Kierkegaard, Gunnar Myrdal*, Sveinbjorn Beinstensson, Nick Bostrom, Nicholas Steno*
Saintliness: Birgitta
Science/invention: Tycho Brahe, Swedenborg***, Celsius Anders, Linnaeus, Hans Orsted, J.J. Berzelius, Alfred Nobel*, G.H. Hansen, Svante Arrhenius, Gideon Sundbeck, Nansen, Bohr, Linus Torvalds, Thor Heyerdahl*, Nicolas Steno*, Ole Romer   
Sport:  Bjorn Borg, Bjorn Daehlie, Magnus Carlsen
Statesmanship:  Snorri***, Engelbrektsson*, Axel Oxenstierna, Gunnar Myrdal*, Dag Hammarskjold, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, Gro Harlem Brundtland*,   
Monarchy: Gunnhild Gormsdottir, Harald Bluetooth, Sigrid the Haughty, Olaf Tryggvasson*, Sweyn Forkbeard*, Canute the Great*, Harald Hardrada*, Margreta***, Gustav Vassa*, Christian IV*, Gustavus Adolphus*, Christina Alexandra, Charles XII*
War:  Egill Skalagrimsson*, Rollo, Turgeis, Rurik, Olaf Tryggvasson*, Sweyn Forkbeard*, Harald Hardra*, Margreta***, Engelbrektsson*, Nils Dacke, Gustav Vasa*, Christian IV*, Axel Oxenstierna*, Gustavus Adolphus*, Vidkun Quisling, Gunnar Sonsteby*,