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De Vikingen Achterna * Johan Nowé (2009)

I saw the author speaking a while ago and decided to get another book about the runes. “Following the Vikings” is not a book giving all kinds of interpretations of rune-signs, but more a purely historical book like that of R.I. Page that I recently reviewed. Nowé uses runestones to get firsthand information about the history of the writers of runes. He gives a history of the runes and their authors and when there is a stone available of shedding light on a part of that history, it is portrayed and translated. Nowé even explains how to translate the texts, giving a word-list, explaining grammar, etc. This way you will get a history of mostly the Vikings (but the runes are both older and more recent than the Vikings) that may be known for the larger part, but since runestones were raised mostly for personal reasons, such as commemorating a dead, telling people whose land the stone is on, etc. you will get quite intimate stories and not so much the larger information. In doing this, Nowé manages to give an overview of the development of the runes and the way the stones look (art historical). The approach is both original and refeshing, besides, I do not think I ever saw a book that actually explains the language of the runes itself. However Nowé shows and explains a large number of stones, also less easy ones such as the Rök stones (including an explanation of the cipher runes), I do have the feeling that the author picked only the stones that contribute to his story. I have not really looked into this, but this probably means that stones without historical information (which might (or might not) be more interesting) are not spoken about. Overall a very nice book about the runes. Currently only available in Dutch. I do not know if there are plans for a translation.
2009 Davidsfonds, isbn 9058265919

Anglo-Saxon Verse Charms, Maxims & Heroic Legends * Louis Jerome Rodrigues (1993)

I stumbled upon this nice little book by Rodrigues which opens with an introduction into Anglo-Saxon literature and then information about the texts featured. The texts themselves are printed in the original language on the left pages and translated on the right. As the title suggests the book contains heroic legends, such as of course Beowulf, but also the Finnesburg fragment, Wolf And Eadwacer, Widsith, Waldere and Deor, complete or a fragment. Some of the “maxims” or “gnomic verses” are printed (from the collections “Maxims I” and “Maxims II”) and a all twelve “metrical charms” (think about “The Nine Herbs Charm”, “Against A Dwarf” or “Against A Wen”). Personally I find the maxims and charms a lot more interesting than the heroic legends, but in both cases it is nice to be able to see the original texts next to a translation. It seems that Rodrigues published more of these little books, as there is a a lot more Anglo-Saxon material available, so I might go and look for these other booklets too. A tip for when you are interested in this one: look around a bit before ordering it. I am sure I did not pay the $ 45,- that Amazon.com has this book listed for. Amazon UK has it for £ 8,-, that is more like it. Other antiquarian websites have it for about € 12,-.
1993 Llanerch, isbn 1861430876

John Dee * Gerard Suster (2003)

The second book in the Western Esoteric Masters series that I review is about John Dee (1527-1608), well known to you if you have followed my website for some years. However I have quite some material of Dee myself, this book by Suster is the thinnest volume of the series. There are only about 100 pages with texts of Dee and Suster put a lot of his own commentary through the texts. Suster wanted to give a good overview about the whole figure of Dee, so the texts not only include small parts of Dee’s massive writings, but also parts of Dee’s diaries, including his personal ones. This makes that Suster’s book more gives an historical view of Dee than that the reader learns a lot about Dee’s ideas. What you can read are parts of Dee which are less well-known and/or not often available not as commentary of another writer: his preface to Euclid, Propaedeumata Aphoristica (an astronomical/astrological text) and his writings on navigation. Besides this, letters, the (spiritual) diaries and of course the Monas Hieroglyphica inspite that being but a short text, only in part. However gives a full-round view of Dee, Suster is genuinely interested in Dee’s best-known and darker side, so much even that the last part of the book gives other people’s ideas of John Dee and information about Aleister Crowley (including two texts of him!), the Golden Dawn and their use of Enochian magic. If I would have made the selection, I think I would have come to another one. If you have an historical interest in Dee, this is a nice addition to what is already available. Personally I hoped to read more of Dee’s “western esoteric” ideas.
2003 North Atlantic Books, isbn 1556434723

The Lombard Laws * Catherine Fisher Drew (1973)

I am looking a bit into non-Scandinavian sources about the prechristian faith and ran into this little book with an introduction to and translations of the 8th century laws of the Lombards, a tribe that more or less took over nowadays Italy. Fischer Drew gives a nice, historical introduction, but also highlights elements of the “barbarian law codes”. The laws concern “Rothair’s edict” which are later completed and adjusted by his followers-up Liutprand, Ratchis and Aistulf. The laws are quite similar to those of more Northern European Germanic tribes, nice in their details and it seems as if any situation is thought of (upto a ferryman that transfers a thief, or what happens to the inheritance of a man without sons). There are compensation tarifs for wounds, regulations around marriage and sums to be paid for almost anything. Especially the later laws are much like what we nowadays call jurisprudence with new situations. Also the tone gets more and more Christian and anti-pagan with high fines for people who consult witches or who worship idols. The laws themselves are not always too great a read, but the book overall is a very nice read.
1973 University Of Pennsylvania Press, isbn 0812210557

By Weapons Made Worthy * Jos Bazelmans (1999)

I stumbled upon this book in a book discount and it happened to be a title that I needed to read for a little project that I am working on when I did not yet know that (speaking of coincidence). Another strange thing is that I paid € 12,- for this book, while I can only find it for about € 50,- or $ 60,- on the internet!
Jos Bazelmans (born 1963 close to where I live) is an antropologist and archeologist with an interest in Northern European culture. The present book is subtitled “lord, retainers and their relationships in Beowulf” and contains six essays. These texts have similar subjects, but different angles of approach. Bazelmans compares different systems of “the antropology of exchange”, mostly the ideas of Mauss and his followers and that of Dumont and his followers. These texts are way too scholarly for me, diving deep into details in the systems of different schools. The system of gift-giving and relations is treated too and that is the subject that I have current interest in but also here Bazelmans goes into details and different viewpoint too deeply for me. The Beowulf story is also dissected and ideas about how pagan and how Christian the poem is are dealt with. As a true antropologist Bazelmans also ‘maps society in Beowulf‘.
The book sure has some interesting information and it is a suggested reading for people scholarly interested in the Beowulf poem, but I personally found the book a bit too heavy and too much focussed on other details than I care about myself.
1999 Amsterdam University Press, isbn 9053563253

Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer vol. 1 * Jacob Grimm (1899)

So here is the (weird) deal. The first volume of Grimm’s Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer is also available as printing on demand, but from another publisher that on their turn do not seem to have volume 2 in their catalogue. The good news is that this volume 1 and volume 2 are scans of the same printing, but somehow Nabu Press sells it in a larger book than the Michigan University… At least I have the work complete (for about $ 90,-…), but if you ask me, you better look for a complete set of two of the old printing or the 1955 reprint.
1899/2010 Nabu Press, isbn 1143501012

Bloodtaking And Peacemaking * William Ian Miller (1990)

  • history

The great work Lichaam, Eer en Recht, Han Nijdam refers a lot to this classic on Icelandic law, so I wanted to read it. William Miller has written a great book about “Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland” as the subtitle goes. Combining subjects in a very readable style and with many references to and lengthy quotes from Icelandic sagas, Miller portrays a society in which honor was the highest of goods and the workings of that society based thereon. Extremely detailed laws, the ways of Þhings, the considerations whether to take revenge or walk juridical paths, when balance was restored, how people could be friends, even though feuding, groups involved in disagreements, Miller sheds a light on those highly interesting systematics that a ‘modern man’ might find barbarious. On the contrary I think that we can learn a lot from these dealings of old. “Honor” has become a hollow word and we would not even connect it to something else than an individual. As for justice and law, we (are) depend(ant) on third parties (police, judges) while there could be a lot to do ourselves and about individualism, in Miller’s book you will find a way of bonding people by exchanging gifts and different relationships. Of course, it is the violence that mostly found its way into the sagas and which is interesting for a historian as Miller, but as a historian of law, he is also very interested in the systematics of bloodtaking and peacemaking. A great view on the early Icelandic society.
1990/7 University of Chicago Press, isbn 0226526801)

Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer vol. 2 * Jacob Grimm (1899)

What a bad joke! I have been looking for this title for some time. It is either unavailable or very expensive to get second hand. When I checked again a while ago, I noticed that the University of Michigan has a photographic reprint available. Excited I ordered the book from Amazon even though the book is not really cheap. When I received the book and opened it, my eye immediately fell on the words “Band II” on the title page… Neither the cover, nor the information on Amazon says that this is only the second volume, so my guess was that this book contained both volumes together. Now I have a book that is one-third index and bibliography, so I miss about two-thirds of this work. Looking further at Amazon to see if I missed something I cannot find the reprint of volume one of Michigan University. What could be the reason to republish half a book? After a bit more of searching I found volume one available from another publisher, again more expensive, but of course I ordered a copy. What is funny, by the way, is that this book is scanned by Google Books and available as printing on demand. With such a structure more old books might become available for personal libraries. I like that development.
And you wondered what this book is all about? As the title says, this work is about ancient laws of Germanic peoples, not the texts themselves, but Grimm made a relatively readable text of it all.
1899/2010 University of Michigan, isbn not available, asin: B0036MDAF6

Do Ut Des * Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld

Subtitled “gift-giving, memoria, and conflict management in the medieval Low Countries” I wanted to read this book since I hoped to learn about ‘the glue of society’ in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately the subject mostly concerns the relation of people with the Church, how they give land or gifts for salvation of the soul and such. There seem to be quite a few scholars in different fields who work with this subject, but inspite of the fact that the Low Countries have plenty of material to investigate, the focus of the scholars seems to lay at neighbouring countries. One of Bijsterveld’s reasons to write his book in English was to draw the attention of scholars in the field for our own parts.
What I personally hoped to find is how people within a community created bonds and solved their quarrels. Fortunately the last part is about honour and several things tell me about how certain things survived. When someone wanted to give something to a monastry (s)he had to have consent of relatives; things were given in order to be remembered; Bijsterveld says a few things about repercussions and feuding, so all in all the book is informative, but I would have like to get some more specifics about the prechristian period.
2007 Uitgeverij Verloren, isbn 9789065509581

De Heidenen * Ugo Janssens (2009)

“The Heathens. Rites, cults and religion in the Low Countries. From primeval times to Christianity.” The title and the cover of this Flemish book are quite pretentious. A history of paganism starting in times immemorial. Actually, and of course, the book is mostly about religion and not necessarily of what nowadays usually receives the term “heathenism”. Janssens indeed starts in primeval times. The first 100 pages are about prehistory, Great Mothers, enormous stone formations, etc. Janssens proves himself as a historian, not a historian of religion. He pays a lot of attention to archeological findings, large and small. Around page 100 things become more interesting when the focus shifts to proto-Celtic and proto-Germanic religion, but also here Janssens takes long sidepaths. After this follows a large part about Celts. Being a Belgian and of the opinion that the Belgae were Celts, I think maybe the author has a natural tendency to puts the magnifying glass on the Celts. Only a short chapter is dedicated to the Germanic tribes of the Low Counties and Janssens presents a strange mix of Icelandic and continental Gods and Goddesses. An exceptional number of pages is dedicated to foreign religions that were professed here for a short time: the mysteries of Isis, Mithras and Serapis.
“De Heidenen” is not really a good book. The author mixes his story with long lists of findings and his playfull chapter titles do not always cover the content all that well. The point is that he names so much findings and regardless the current border between The Netherlands and Belgium that he names plenty of new and interesting things to go and see and read more about, which indeed is very nice, but I feel that he might have better split up the story and the listings of findings and give a bit more information about the latter. You probably guessed that the book is written in Dutch and even though the book is not too good, I still recommend it to Dutch pagans or interested people. You might have to distill the valuable information, but there are clues for further investigations here. For the rest, an easy-to-read history of religion.
2009 Lannoo ISBN 97820983210