Rebirth in Germanic paganism

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Surviving texts indicate that there was a belief in

eddic poetry and sagas, potentially associated with naming and/or through the family line. Scholars have discussed the implications of these attestations and proposed theories regarding belief in reincarnation among the Germanic peoples prior to Christianization and potentially to some extent in folk belief
thereafter.

Attestations

Roman

In the 2nd century CE, Appian wrote in his Roman History that the Teutons had no fear of death because they hoped to be reborn.[1]

Medieval

In the Helgi lays of the

Brynhildr not be reborn.[3][6]

In the

álfar (elves) referred to souls awaiting rebirth.[9]

There are also mentions in two

Þórðar saga hræðu, Þórðr is born with a mark on his left arm corresponding to a wound his father had received.[10]

Names

In "Helgakviða Hundingsbana II", the second Helgi receives his name while sitting on a barrow; King Olaf was named after a man buried in a barrow at the latter's request; and in another tale in Flateyjarbók and in

Finnboga saga, dead and dying men ask for their names to be passed on, often to future sons of those they are speaking to. Hilda Ellis Davidson saw a connection between name-giving and the idea of rebirth in these passages.[11] Gustav Storm proposed this interpretation in an 1893 article;[12] a study of Icelandic genealogies by Max Keil supported the conclusion but cast into question Storm's idea that there was a change in practice from name-giving using variation to name-giving using repetition, and also distinguished a belief in rebirth from transmigration of souls as it is understood in Eastern religion, involving a progression over a series of lives.[13]

Both scholars noted that a grandfather's name was most commonly re-used—

Sami customs of naming also rest on a belief that people are reborn into the same family.[15][16]

Archaeology

K. A. Eckhardt, who published a book on the concept of rebirth within the extended family or clan, suggested that the burial position with the legs drawn up against the body emulated the position of the foetus in the womb and was therefore evidence of the belief in rebirth.[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ Cited in de Vries, p. 217.
  2. OCLC 311911348
    , p. 139.
  3. ^
    OCLC 848545556
    , p. 183 (in German).
  4. ISBN 9780195153828
    , p. 157.
  5. ^
    Folklore 57.2, June 1946, pp. 50–65
    , pp. 57–59.
  6. ^ Ellis, p. 140.
  7. ^ Ellis, pp. 138–39.
  8. OCLC 606010675
    , pp. 193–95: "We can safely say that some people thought that St Ólaf was his older namesake reborn".
  9. ^ Chadwick, p. 58 and note 18.
  10. ^ Ellis, pp. 140–41.
  11. ^ Ellis, pp. 139–42.
  12. ^ Gustav Storm, "Vore Forfædres Tro paa Sjælvandring og deres Opkaldelsessystem", Arkiv för nordisk filologi (1893) 119–20; cited in Ellis, pp. 143–44.
  13. ^
    OCLC 898959310
    ; cited in Ellis, pp. 142, 144–45.
  14. ^ De Vries, p. 218.
  15. ^ Ellis, p. 146.
  16. ISBN 9780812217148
    , p. 75.
  17. OCLC 977866293
    , p. 128, cited in de Vries, Volume 1, p. 79, note 2.
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