Earliest Mention Of Odin
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Summary
A centuries-old gold disc was found in Denmark, revealing the earliest known mention of the Norse god Odin at least 150 years earlier than any previous inscription. Before the Vindeliv discovery, the oldest mention of Odin was on a brooch found in southern Germany from the late 6th century.
Transcript
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We talked about this in Flashback Friday, but we have to talk about it again because it is so cool.
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It's like Odin wants to reveal himself and he wants to be known in this time.
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Which is very interesting and symbolic and not a coincidence. A centuries-old gold disc was found
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in Denmark, revealed the earliest known mention of the Norse god Odin at least 150 years earlier
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than any previous inscription. The disc, known as the Bractite, I believe, was unearthed in a
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treasure trove in Vindeliv, central Denmark in 2020 alongside Roman coins that had been reworked
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into jewelry. As you know, Odin is one of the primary gods of Norse mythology, a pre-Christian
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pagan belief system central to Viking society. This is the smoking gun for Odin's presence in
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Scandinavia as early as the 5th century. Simon Nygaard, an assistant professor in pre-Christian
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Nordic religion studies, said. Before the Vindeliv hordes discovery, the oldest mention of Odin was
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on a brooch found in southern Germany from the latter half of the 6th century. The disc features
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an inscription, he is Odin's man. This can tell us something about the relationship people had
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with their gods and possibly even how divine rulership was organized in Scandinavia at this
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time, said Simon. Although it was known that Odin had existed as a concept or deity for centuries
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before the Bractite was created, the Bractite also displays a swastika, an ancient symbol used
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throughout the Iron Age, and we will come back to that. Odin appears in multiple pre-Christian
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barbarian belief systems across northern Europe and centuries following the collapse of the Roman
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Empire in the west. He's among the Saxons and the old Dutch. Some traditions place him as the father
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or ruler of the gods. The pros Eda, one of the main sources of Norse mythology, refers to Odin as the
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all-father. Odin is highest and eldest of the Asser, the primary group of Norse gods. He rules all things
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and is mighty are the other gods. They all serve him as children obey a father, it says. Odin's son
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included Thor, of course, the god of thunder. The Bractite may have been buried to hide it from enemies or as a
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tribute to appease the gods. It was a very large amount of gold, so it must have been a very serious
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situation and they wanted to preserve this, right? We know that in 536 AD, Simon says, there was an
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enormous volcanic eruption and there was at least two more that blocked the light of the sun. There
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must have been famine in the areas that relied on grains and cereals, he said. We also know that in
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541 AD there was a plague similar to the Black Death, so this might have been something to appease the
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gods. Either way, it's beautiful and it's amazing and it's part of our European heritage. And by the
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way, I don't think you have to be Scandinavian to appreciate something like this. No, that's it.
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Nope, just Norse. You're a Slav, you can't. That's right, you can't appreciate this because there's no
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overlap between other Slavic gods here either. But yeah, like Perun. And while Odin, that would be
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what, maybe Svantavit or something like that? Who would that be? Svarog, maybe? Svarog, maybe? Yeah,
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exactly. Anyway, there's a lot of different parallels here, right? But yes, so I find it's
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interesting because this period also has a lot of other coins. It looks like a coin, but it's a,
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yeah, as you said, it's not a bracelet. It's a brassetite or bracketet. I'm not sure how you pronounce it.
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But apparently that's unique to Northern Europe and it's obviously inspired by Roman designs because
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they had that contact at that time. I personally think there's a distinct Gothic connection.
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And that's one of the reasons both why it looks the way it does. So it has Roman influences,
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but then it has runes on it. There's other words on these things that refers to the, you know,
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the most high or the highest one, which is like, you know, a known name for Odin. And in some cases,
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it was forbidden to use the name of Odin. It's kind of like, you know, how some Jews and Christians
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have like, you know, Lord's name in vain. Yeah, exactly. They don't say Yahweh. They spell a G,
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dash, D, you know, things like that. And the same, it's called a, I forget what the term for it is,
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that there's a term so that you find other things, right? And in fact, there are hundreds of different
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names of Odin, right? Even Wikipedia lists some of these, right? And if you go through here,
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it's just like, holy shit, you know, for all father, obviously, you know, these classic ones,
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but even like Baldr's father, his father, even words like Gothic and Gut or Gauter is related to
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names of Odin as well. And I just remember a while back going through like the place names in certain
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areas of Sweden, and you find these names in tons of little towns, places that are still like,
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you know, a little county today, or they're a little municipality and things like that.
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But yeah, Gauter or Gaut, which is the kind of proto word for Goth, that was basically a name for
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Odin, right? Gilsur, there's all these kinds of things, which means writer. Gud, God, which where
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we get the word for God from today, which means good or even gut, like your gut instinct. Yeah,
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there's all these things like words and how they're related to each other, right? But there's other ones
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similar ones. This is one from the Met Museum, same thing, Scandinavia, 400 to 600, which makes it
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very close in dating to the latest one that were found in 2020. But as you can see, this is actually
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not the same one, but it also has the swastika, but now it's down below under him, right? Here's another
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one from the Huggren in Gotland, Sweden. Another Viking Bronze Age ingots were found there. And this
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one, Gold Brassetets or Teets, whatever you pronounce it, in Djupsbrunn. And the same thing there,
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I see that. I think this is different, but then you have the same swastika down below. You see,
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similar these are in style. And so even those that are older finds and recent finds are very similar.
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So this is definitely not the only one. There's others actually, which is kind of interesting
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with the swastika on it too. Here's a fibula, which is basically a kind of a brooch, a brooch,
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is that what you call it? Where they have the word allugad, which is alluguder, right? Followed by
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a swastika on it there too. And this is a small fibula or brooch found at Väderlöse in Norway,
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is it? I think this one. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Denmark, Zealand, Denmark. And they have this
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word on it, which is kind of interesting, Olu. A lot of them have that beginning. Apparently
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there's a special kind of like magical runic inscription. And actually a lot of these gold
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amulets either begin with that or they have that in, in the inscription, which is a, I guess,
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a runic charm. And people don't know there's an old, I went through these threads earlier
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and it's kind of, kind of interesting, right? The alerunes, right? Ă–lrunar, which we get
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the word actually ale from, which you can, you can maybe imagine that since this put you
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in a different state of consciousness, somehow that was associated later on with like magic
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activities or some kind of almost shamanistic, you know, type practices or something like
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that. You drink ale or öl or alu, as they call it. But even the Gothic word, they explain
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that here too. The Gothic word for temple is al, which is related, right? A-L-H. So there's
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all these interesting connections to why they used this. And it goes through this thread of
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all these different places where that word has been found. It's on these brassetets.
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It's also on runestone. It's on brochures and all that kind of stuff. No one has actually
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accurately said this is what it means, but it's on the latest one as well, which is kind
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of interesting. Here's another one from Vodstena. Same thing there, which is Sweden. They haven't
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fully understand some of the runes and words on it, what they actually mean. But it has the
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high one mentioned in it as well, which is, again, a reference to Odin. So we don't know
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As Simon pointed to here, the professor who is part of investigating this, he said that
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just because it's on a brooch or a coin or whatever doesn't mean like, oh, okay, that's
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when they first talked about Odin. Obviously, it's much older than before it appeared on
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Oh, definitely. And as I said, this was a, I think they call it NOA name. No one name,
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I think the word is, which is basically like, yeah, it's forbidden. You wouldn't allow to use
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it. So they used all these other, you know, say a beloved child has many names, right?
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So it's like hundreds of different names that they use to describe the same thing. Look,
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we don't have time to get into this now, but there's a fascinating web page that I usually
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visit. It's kind of Western Gothic centric or whatever, but it's, it's kind of interesting
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talks about how Odin came to Scandinavia through, through Denmark, which of course, where the
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latest find we began talking about where that was, that was found. But then there's tons of
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similar finds up in Sweden and then later on Norway as well. And there's all this mythological
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story, how Odin sent out one of his daughters to kind of pre-check the landscape and see
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if it's good conditions to settle there and stuff like that. And as he passed Kjelland,
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which is one of the biggest islands in Denmark, there's a whole myth. So his daughter's name
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is, I think in English you say Geofyn, Geofyn, the myth of her. She was allowed to plow as
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much land as she could. And somehow she plowed the equivalent of the land of the island,
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Sjöland, which just happened to match almost, not, I mean, identically, but it's interesting
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how the shape of Lake Vannan is very similar to the shape of Sjöland. So some people, the
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myth of this is that it was literally, that was a piece of land that was taken from Sweden
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and placed down there, right? This is a story obviously, but it's like all this fascinating
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stuff. And Odin has a, you know, central role in settling Scandinavia and all these kinds
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of things. And the point is, this is like, this could be 2,000 years ago, you know what
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I mean? Not just like 5, 4, 5, 600s when like the migration age happens and stuff like
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that. And again, they put the name Odin on this thing after they have gotten an inspiration
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from the Roman world about these kinds of coins, but they do their own Nordic spin on
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it. And then later on, of course, you have tons of gold flowing up from both the Western
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Gothic, but also the Ostrogothic areas and coming back home, right? So there was in this
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latest find in Denmark, there was Roman coins with like, I forget it was Titus on some of
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them. I forget which Caesar, which emperor was on there. But anyway, Odin goes way back,
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right? The story of how he received the runes. There is rune stones that have these inscriptions
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on it, you know, kind of telling us the story of how he received them. And there's a link
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between, you know, the Goths down in southern and eastern Europe to the Norse Goths, if you
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will, which is a rune stone called Sporlösa Sten. And I've visited that a few times myself
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for some photos of that. And on one of the sides, you have this pretty cool, basically what
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looks like a temple depicted. And some people have said that it's actually the Theodoric's
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mausoleum that's down in Ravenna, in Italy, that they visited and saw, and then they came
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back home and they made a depiction of that. Or someone had said that this was the depiction
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of a Norse temple, and actually Theodoric ended up modeling his mausoleum after that
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one. You know what I mean? There's all these kind of back and forth. Where did it be gone,
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right? We kind of don't know. But the point is, there was plenty of contact between them
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and us. It didn't separate. It wasn't like that they migrated in, you know, what, 500-ish
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because of climate changes, actual nature-driven ones, volcanic eruptions, which means bad
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harvest, bad crop yields. So they're forced to leave the colder northern regions and go
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down further south. They continued that contact, and there were still people living up in the
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north at that point. So this is not something that's completely separated and we're basically
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like, oh, they walked out and then that's it. So we're getting bits and pieces of information
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from this. You can read Beowulf, you have a little bit there about the Gittish influence,
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the myth of Odin, how he ended up in Scandinavia, how long back he goes. But I personally, I think
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that this was not something, I've heard people say this, oh, since it's not written until
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four or five hundreds, that's when it was like invented and came out, you know, came out of
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nowhere. No, there's much older references to it.
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Humans, we have oral traditions since the beginning of time.
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Absolutely. So, I mean, we can kind of, we can piece it together from oral traditions
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and the fewer sources we have, but it's always exciting when you find something kind of in
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the ground that you somewhat can date and it goes further back. There's other runes, we
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talked about that, what, three, four shows back about the oldest runes, inscriptions that
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they have found, right, in Norway and stuff like that. So I think it goes back several, probably
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several thousand years, to be honest, at least, maybe even further. But the swastika, just
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a quick little thing in there about the swastika, about the association to Odin as well, it might
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point to, at those little brassetets, that the swastika is associated with Odin. It might
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even be his symbol, for all we know, right? Here's what they claim is a Buddha depicted, and
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maybe that's because of the posture of his legs, that he's kind of in a meditative position.
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This is, of course, one of the buckets that was found inside of the Osseberg ship in Norway
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when they did an excavation of one of the burial mounds there, and it was a little, what
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they call a Buddha, but again, that could very well be a depiction of Odin there, too, you
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know what I mean? With little swastikas on it, this is one of the oldest symbols that we
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have in Europe, and therefore, it's ours to do whatever the hell we want with, right?
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That this is why it's so important for them to take this away from us, that we shouldn't
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And then here is money that a friend dropped off. This is money from the Soviet Union, a
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Russian friend handed this to us, has a swastika right in it. Check that out. Yeah, and as
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It's kind of like a watermark, you see it, behind the double-headed eagle there?
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It's a symbol, but yeah, that's an old symbol for Russia, by the way.
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Very interesting. And of course, it's also the kolovrat is an ancient Slavic symbol
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that means circle, or it's a wheel, right? The wheel of life, and that's...
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Sun, solar, life, you know, all these obvious things. And even, you know, you think of the,
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going back, I guess, to Leif Erikson, his discoveries of America, and the possibility that they had
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many more settlements, and that they colonized way deeper into America, and that they say,
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not just Newfoundland, and then they left, and all that stuff, right? There is this interesting
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so-called Native American overlap, right? Here's, this is actually one of ours, too. We received
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this from another friend. A Indian spoon, right?
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On one side, but then if you turn around on the other, there's a swastika on that one
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as well, which is kind of interesting. Now, you know, you have all the Hindu stuff, the
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Indo-Aryan stuff, the good luck charm, and all that things, but I frankly think that
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a lot of the styles of the Native Americans, so-called, is potentially something that was
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inspired by Norse settlers. Maybe it goes even back further. Maybe there's, you know,
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the Solutrean connection, or something like that, but it's, I think something is, you look
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at some of the, like, shamanic practices that they have, and stuff like that, and I'm just
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like, I wonder how much, kind of like the, you know, the Incas, and the Maya, and all
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that kind of stuff. I wonder how much of that was actually inspired by white people,
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whether they're from, actually, Europe, or someplace else, but they, you know, they came
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and brought them knowledge, and wisdom, and even the symbols. I mean, there's, like, old
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rock-carving-type depictions in North America as well that have striking similarities to what
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we find in the North, and stuff like that, right?
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Yeah, and remember, there's even stories of Lewis and Clark on their expeditions, where
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they talked about seeing white Indians running around with fair skin, and light eyes,
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and gold hair. I mean, man, so the history in America is much more fascinating than we
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Oh, definitely. Check out that show, if you haven't heard it, if you're new here in the
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archives, The Last Kings of Norse America, not North America, Norse America. It's a book
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written by a dad and a daughter. It was kind of a, it was a little bit of a harder interview
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to do, but the content of the book and the interviews talked about was very interesting,
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and they talk about the Ohio Valley, all the settlements there, and they've found actual
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proof, like, on location, like, they pull in their ships here, they, this was a settlement
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at some point, and all that kind of stuff, so I don't doubt it, and who knows what happens
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afterwards that somehow there was, like, a, you know, there's theories about this, but
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without being long-winded, it's clear that there was a ruthless campaign to exterminate
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paganism from Europe, right? And if there were some bleed over, if there were some inspiration,
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let's say, and maybe even a genetic remnant that happened over in America, well, you know
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what happened later on with that as well, right?
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