Introduction To Northern Medieval Cultures Transitioning From Druidry To Lordified and Dualist Paganism

(February 6, 2024)  By the time we get to the written records of the Greeks and Romans the cultural lordification process was in full swing everywhere. All sorts of spiritual powers were being personified but they still were all based upon the Ancient Pagan Paradigm. All the Celtic and Nordic/Germanic deity "names" were actually composed of short Akkadian phrases. This practice became especially creative in the bardic courtly tales of the medieval period.

A good example is the Nordic/Germanic god Thor and his hammer. "Thor" is Old Norse Þórr  which is Akkadian DaR meaning "form" with an Indo-European -R word ending. Together they mean "Former" or Form-Maker." 

His hammer is called  Mjöllnir which is Akkadian M.IL.N plus Indo-European -R. This means "Fertility-Fluids.High-Powers.Revealer" or the "Revealer of the high-power's fertility-fluids." As a revealing or manifestation power the hammer is responsible for manifesting forms on earth, that is, by giving the object its final visible shape.  Consequently Thor and his hammer represent the life power class of the Ancient Pagan Paradigm with Thor himself mostly representing the sun/storm god Hu. Consequently, Thor is not an Aesir motion power god despite what some later Norse sources say. This mistake came about because of his storm and thunder correspondence made some people assume he was an air/motion power. Thor only begins to appear as a deity after 950 BCE   

More on Thor here: https://norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/the-aesir-gods-and-goddesses/thor/

(July 2, 2023, updated December 26, 2024) Most European culture and the standard writing style of their native languages was created by the stories composed and written down by court bards of medieval times. Their stories ranged from propaganda for their employing lord to subtle nationalist resistances against the the existing order. Various names have been applied to them. These are some (Dyfn Pencerdd April 2014)  : 

1. Ireland: file (higher status than a bard; poet and seer. Pronounced ‘feel-uh) seanchaí/shanachie (storyteller; later-period successor to the fili) - 800's to 1300's (appeared during Viking raiding era, amplified by Norman conquest, ended by Black Death) 
2. Anglo-Saxon: scop (pronounced shawp), glēoman (socially inferior to the scop) - c 800's onward (started by Viking raiding and conquest, never ended as it led to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales written around 1390 and then developed into theater companies epitomized by Shakespeare)
3. Wales: pencerdd (chief bard, pronounced pen-kerth), bardd teulu (poet of a warband or lord’s household), cerddor (wandering bard) - 800's to 1300's (started by Viking raiding, amplified by Norman conquest, ended by Black Death. This led to the King Arthur tales) 
4. Scotland: makar (sparce examples from later period because bards were considered troublemaker by the lords)
5. German: minnesinger - 1100's to 1300's (started by Northern Crusades, ended by Black Death)
6. Scandinavia: skald - 800's to 1300's (started by Viking raiding, amplified by Northern crusades, ended by Black Death) 
7. France: Minstrel (originally a court singer; later a wandering musician, female version is a trobairitz), jongleur (sometimes used to denote performer who didn’t compose), trouvères (northern France equivalent of troubadour), troubadour  - 1100's to 1300's (started by English-French wars instigated by Norman conquest of England, ended by Black Death) 

The more nationalistic bards commenting against the existing orders began using complex language forms based upon old Druid Akkadian phrases which they hid within epic romance and adventure stories. These are like using Latin or Greek derived phrases for names which moderns use to form new scientific labels instead of names for people, deities, and monsters in epic tales). Such even is the case for the word "Bard." It probably derives from the Akkadian phrase BaRu.Du meaning "Seer of life." via Gaulish which also was the source for the Greek bardos and Latin bardus,  https://www.etymonline.com/word/bard

The most popular stories were commissioned by medieval wealthy nobles to be written down on vellum in the local native language. These written tales essentially defined the standard literary forms of the native local spoken languages of that era in a way similar to how Shakespeare and the King James Bible defined modern English. More general writing for the public only began after the invention of the printing press and cheap paper in 1450.

Bards had great respect among the Welsh but were generally held in contempt by the Scots who considered them itinerant troublemakers. Ironically, they were subsequently idealized by the early Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771 – 1832) as being the first modern poets and singer. Scott is best known for his novel Ivanhoe (1820). 

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