....were important enough to follow the Vikings to their heaven, Valhall:
>>In stanza 38 Helgakviða
Hundingsbana II, the hero Helgi Hundingsbane
dies and goes to Valhalla. In stanza 38, Helgi's glory there is described:
- So was Helgi beside the chieftains
- like the bright-growing ash beside the thorn-bush
- and the young stag, drenched in dew,
- who surpasses all other animals
- and whose horns glow against the sky itself.Δ]
Prose follows after this stanza, stating that a burial-mound was made for Helgi,
and that when Helgi arrived in Valhalla, he was asked by Odin to manage things
with him. In stanza 39, Helgi, now in Valhalla, has his former enemy Hunding —
also in Valhalla — do menial tasks; fetching foot-baths for all of the men
there, kindling fire, tying dogs, keeping watch of horses, and feeding
the pigs before he can get any sleep. In stanzas 40 to 42, Helgi has
returned to Midgard from Valhalla with a host of men. An unnamed maid of Sigrún,
Helgi's valkyrie wife, sees Helgi and his large host of men riding into the
mound. The maid asks if she is experiencing a delusion, if Ragnarök has begun,
or if Helgi and his men have been allowed to return.Δ]
In the stanzas that follow, Helgi responds that none of these things have
occurred, and so Sigrún's maid goes home to Sigrún. The maid tells Sigrún that
the burial mound has opened up, and that Sigrún should go to Helgi there, as
Helgi has asked her to come and tend his wounds, which have opened up and are
bleeding. Sigrún goes into the mound, and finds that Helgi is drenched in gore,
his hair is thick with frost. Filled with joy at the reunion, Sigrún kisses him
before he can remove his coat of mail, and asks how she can heal him. Sigrún
makes a bed there, and the two sleep together in the enclosed burial mound.
Helgi awakens, stating that he must "ride along the blood-red roads, to set the
pale horse to tread the path of the sky," and return before the rooster
Salgófnir crows. Helgi and the host of men ride away, and Sigrún and her servant
go back to their house. Sigrún has her maid wait for him by the mound the next
night, but when she arrives at dawn, she finds that he has not returned. The
prose narrative at the end of the poem relates that Sigrún dies of sadness, but
that the two are thought to have been reborn as Helgi
Haddingjaskati and the valkyrie Kára.Ε]>>
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 9:18
AM
Subject: [working-gundog] Nice
weather.....
...for a change. It has been sunny, mostly a blue
sky, not much wind and temperatures around 0 centigrade. I have been expecting
the laverat to come to shallow waters to spawn and had a couple of nets in the
sea last night but did not catch anything. Maybe the water still is too
warm........ The fish are very sensitive to temperature. Some professor said
long ago that to the Baltic herring a change of 0.5 Centigrade is the same as
5 C to us humans.
Our meat freezer is becoming full but if I move
some bones for dogs to another freezer I could probably press down another
roe-deer.
......................................................................................................................
Finding the special bronze age rock carving I
want to use to illustrate Cj's thoughts about stone age dogs has proved to be
a difficult task. I have now connected the Swedish Historical Museum to the
case and they have sent the request further to an expert in Swedish rock
carvings so the case has now expanded beyond belief!
Well, well - I have a plan B. I know of other
rock carvings not too far from us, there are dramatic scenes of boar hunting
with dogs but those carvings are not the oldest with dogs involved, maybe they
are from 1700 - 2000 BC.
After I have been thinking about the subject more
carefully I believe that I was swimming in deep water when I
wrote:
>>>I think that in modern times (the
last 2000 - 4000 years perhaps) religion has made an
unrestrained relation to animals difficult.>>>
The modern Christian religion was born in the
middle east around 2000 years ago and it took a while for it to spread around
the world. Our Vikings (800 - 1100 AD) for example had their own Nordic
religion with Tor, Oden and Valhalla ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla )
and not until the middle age did the Lutheran religion start to
spread to Scandinavia.
As for the Islamic view of life, it is even
younger, as far as I know. So in fact I have no really good idea of how
animals were viewed upon in Europe and the middle east before that. Were they
"slaves" or were they "brothers and sisters" ? Further eastward we know about
the Hindu and Buddhist religion and their relation to animals. Then again, as
far as I know, modern research was never invented or practised in that part of
the world. What did the ancient Greece philosopher think about
animals?
There are questions and most likely
also answers, although I am ignorant about them.
Torsti
"Merciful God the Almighty!
Deprive me my common sense
so
that I can at least to some extent
accomplish my commitments as a
citizen of the European Union!."