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Possible Iron Age past life?

W.A. HEART

W.A. HEART

Senior Registered
Hi all!

Lately I started researching into European history, began with researching through the kings of the Scots, got to Kenneth MacAlpin, then Alfred the Great and then the Vikings and by now I think I made a big mess of it all :tongue:

The thing is I am really at a loss here, and I would love to get some hints to guide me.

"Facts" I remember (very little):

- My father was a king (probably a petty king or a local landlord).
- My husband was another king, but younger.
- They were allies, probably of different nationalities
- My husband wore breeches (I described them here) and that fascinated me...:eek:
- He wore a sort of tunic that reached halfway down his thigh.
- He had a beard, though not a long one, and his hair was cut just above the shoulders. He had blue or grey eyes, and darkish hair.
- I saw myself wearing a long tunic in some sort of natural fabric, and a shawl over the shoulders.
- He liked to gather his men in what I think of as "the kitchen".

Besides these "facts" I feel that:
- I was my father's only daughter, and mom wasn't around since my early years;
- My husband to be felt somewhat like a stranger to me, but I'm not sure if that is the result of being from a different culture as Tanguerra suggested, or if maybe I was just young and shy of men.
- The wedding was an important ceremony - I have no idea how it was carried out, but we didn't just "get together".
- I had a child, but I died soon after - I am not sure wether it was a boy or a girl.
- There was no "big" war going on, but some sort of military tension was in the air;
- My husband and I were in love.
- It feels like somewhere around the 8/9th or 10th century - but I am not sure.

Now I know how strange and fragmented this seems. I have been searching the web but mostly found dead ends - there's always something that doesn't "fit". I must confess that I saw a lot of Vikings portraid with horned helmets and it didn't make a lot of sense to me, I kept thinking "I don't remember those :rolleyes:" Well, it seems there is probably a good reason for that ;)

.... any hints? :confused:
 
Since I am into viking age - although I have but a little knowledge, especially compared to Sunniva - don't you mind if I ask you a few questions?


Don't you remember anything about traces of your religious life, how ceremonies (e.g. wedding you already mentioned) carried out?


Do you have any information about the landscape and power symbols the men, your father and husband wore or what their weapons looked like?


Was it rather the main land, or did they (or you) travel a lot amongst islands (Iceland, Faroe Islands, Orkneys, etc.)?


I enjoyed your post a lot, so be welcome amongst us.


Skarphedinn
 
Hello Welsh,


To find out the era it could be useful to focus on the clothing you remember. You think it could be around 8th to 10th centuries, so do any of these costumes look familiar?


Karoliina
 
Skarphedinn, thanks so much for the welcome! The Viking Age was always an interesting period for me, since childhood. But I had never really considered it in PL researches until just now.


I loved your questions and I am waiting for the answers to come :D - I know they are at the back of my head, but I don't want to rush, I'm afraid of leading myself on. You know what I mean :rolleyes:.


Later on I'll try some intuitive writing on the subject and let you know what I come up with.


May I ask what the meaning of your username is? :eek:


Karoliina, hi!


Well, some of the depictions from the 10th century are the most familiar. Also some from the 9 th century. I think I can rule out the 8th century.


One thing though: I did not cover my head - all the pictures of ladies from that period in this link show head shawls, or something similar. I did not wear any of that kind of thing.


Could this help narrow it down?
 
Hiya Welsh and thank you for sharing :)


Do you have any intuitive feeling as to where this was?


I'm not sure I can tell you much unfortunately. The clothes we have from this period are mainly tunics (without pants) for the men and long dresses for the women. However the clothes preserved in peat bogs and graves are most likely only a fragment of what was around. We know that they coloured their clothes in bright colours, wore lots of jewellry. It does seem that the women did not wear any kind of head shawls.


Please do update us when something pops up. I'd love to help you with your research :)


Ps. Thank you Skarphedinn for your nice words :)
 
Sunniva said:
Do you have any intuitive feeling as to where this was?
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I think in her earlier thread Welsh said it was in Scotland, or at least her husband was a Scotsman.


Karoliina
 
Hi girls!


I am not sure anymore.... I think my husband was a scotsman - or maybe I was? - or perhaps we were in Scotland for some reason when we got married.


I am at that point in which, between research and meditation, I still feel like I'm missing something. :confused:


Skarphedinn, the only (and very clear) image I have of the wedding is actually before the ceremony proper - the night before, not the same day. My hair was spread all about my shoulders, it was dark brown and lustrous from a lot of combing. I felt warm and clean, as if I had just been bathed in warm water, in a heated room. Very comfortable.


A vague (and weird) image came to my mind of something to do with blood during the ceremony - blood on my palm and my husbands - nothing gory or anything, just symbolic.


again, :confused:


Be patient with me, guys......
 
Hail Welsh,


thank you for the information. Unfortunately I couldn't identify neither the place, nor the time of your Viking life. At least it was an excellent lesson of modesty, as a consequence I had to face my ignorance about Viking age, in spite of my eagerness to study the period. Most of my knowledge originates from Icelandic sagas, and back to your previous question, my user name refers to an Icelandic saga-hero, Skarphedinn Njalsson (Skarpheðinn Njálsson in original transcription). He was easy to provoke and got angry easily, just like me, and it caused a lot of troubles.


Just to add, even if head shawls were not in fashion in Denmark in the Viking age, the Laxdæla saga writes a lot about a famous head dress (coif, as it was referred to), supposed to have been stolen by Gudrun Osvifsdottir. But that happened in Iceland, and provides no information whether head dresses were in everyday use, or just at special occassions.


I hope we shall have once enough details to narrow it down to a concrete time and place.


Sunniva, I enjoyed your story about the Viking family you had drawn a lot!


Kind regards, Skarphedinn
 
W.A. HEART said:
A vague (and weird) image came to my mind of something to do with blood during the ceremony - blood on my palm and my husbands - nothing gory or anything, just symbolic.
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This can be very valuable in your validating process. :thumbsup:


Karoliina
 
Skarphedinn, this could never be a lesson of modesty at all, the information I gave you is so scarce it could hardly suffice for anything.


And thanks for the information on your name!


Sunniva, aren't the thornsberg (sp??? ) trousers from that period? Or I am completely off???


Karoliina, I think this kind of detail can be useful for validation, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find any indications (serious ones, anyway) as to how this kind of ceremonies were conducted...


Don't give up on me, guys :eek: I'll try the bathtub during the weekend - the symbols of power ring as a good focal point - thanks again Skarphedinn!!


:)
 
Sunniva, aren't the thornsberg (sp??? ) trousers from that period? Or I am completely off???
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I think you mean


The trousers from Thorsbjerg?


They scare me for some reason :laugh:: angel


Anyway, they are somewhat older, around 400 AD. In Denmark that's what we call the Roman Iron Age (despite the fact that the Romans were never in Denmark tsk tsk). I'm sure however that the style of these pants was timeless. You see the same kind in the middle ages, so I would make a safe and say that they were also around during the Viking age.


You may find this interesting too:


Tunic from Thorsbjerg


To me it looks like undergarments of some sort. I wonder, who wore it...
 
I have found an article interesting in the topic of reincarnation by Kirsten Wolf from the University of Wisconsin, and her study is titled "The unconquered dead in Old Norse-Icelandic tradition". Here you can read the above mantioned case about the death of Thorolf from the Eyrbyggja saga.


„The neighbors could drag him no further than the brink of the headland. Accordingly, they dropped him onto the beach and cremated him. But even this was not the end of Þórólfr: a lean cow went down to the beach and licked the stones onto which ashes had drifted and was soon in calf. The calf was a bull of abnormal size and strength. Long before he was full grown, he gored his master to death and then left, only to sink in the marsh the story of Þórólfr is interesting in that it contains two conceptions of death: on the one hand, there is the living corpse and, on the other, the evil man is reborn as a bull. The story shows that the Norsemen knew of the belief in reincarnation, but it is doubtful if metempsychosis ran deep in pagan Scandinavian religion.”


I am curious about your comments.


Skarphedinn
 
The story shows that the Norsemen knew of the belief in reincarnation, but it is doubtful if metempsychosis ran deep in pagan Scandinavian religion
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I disagree ;) Certainly I have some academic reservations, but through the last years much research has been made into the religion of the Scandinavian Bronze Age and everything there shows that they certainly knew about reincarnation. Being born again was completely integrated within their belief system. It makes sense. Watching the sun set and rise every day must be interpreted somehow. As must the seasons that comes and goes, etc. etc.
 
Sunniva said:
I disagree ;) Certainly I have some academic reservations, but through the last years much research has been made into the religion of the Scandinavian Bronze Age and everything there shows that they certainly knew about reincarnation.
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Well, if you read the text carefully, it shows, that the Norsemen really did believe in reincarnation, the author only doubts if it ran deep into their religion.


The standard belief is that, when you die, you get to the Underworld, ruled by Loke's daughter, Hel. Or if you are a warrior and died in a battle, the Valkyries bring you up to Valhalla and become an einherjar.


The same is true in the ancient Greek religion, where one can get to Hades or the fields of Elysium, but according to the religious beliefs of Pythagoras and Socrates/Platon there is place for reincarnation. In the Platonic version even the system is described.


The periodicity of night and day was explained in a way, that Nat, Loke's granddaughter rides on her horse Hrymfaxe, followed by her son Dag, as they represent night and day. Hrymfaxe is also the horse dragging Måne's cart in the sky every night, and his sister Sol's turn is during the day. Måne is chased by the wolf named Månegarm. Quite interesting that the Moon is male and Sun is female, it is vice versa in almost every mythical tradition (including alchemy).


It is known, that different, sometimes excluding explanations exist within a belief system, just another Greek example: Robert Graves enlists four different and non-compatible stories of the origins of Pallas Athena. So there is place for reincarnation in the Old Norse religion, even if the mainstream belief is something else.


Skarphedinn
 
Hello!


I have a few questions:: angel


- What does "borea" mean? Is it even a word?


- Is Gudrun or more likely Guthrun a name of viking origin?


- Symbols of power (ha! Skarphedinn, I got something! ;) ) - does a large bracelet shaped like a snake or a dragon in some kind of silver metal make any sense to you? I saw something like it twisted around my husbands arm - just below the elbow.


Feedback needed please!! :D


Thanks guys!
 
Hi W. A. Heart,


Yes, Borea is a word, as far as I know it was a name of a Northern province of the Roman Empire, but this is a very uncertain piece of information, please be skeptic and double check it!


Gudrun is spelled this way (Guðrún in Icelandic transcription), and it is a name of Scandinavian origin, as Gudrun is a main figure in the Nordic version of Nibellungenlied. In the German version her name is Kriemhild. I have also referred to Gudrun Osvifsdottir in a previous post, her story you can find in the Laxdæla saga.


Bracelets you describe were really in use in the Viking age Denmark, sometimes they were also used as money, and it could be cut to pieces for goods of lower value. Presumably it was Midgard Serpent, mithological figure, son of Loke and Angerboda. It was quite common, so it cannot identify your husband. Neither the exact place or time.


Skarphedinn
 
Skarphedinn:


I have been rummaging about for the "borea" thing. It took me to very strange places that I just can't understand or place - I have to think about it...


I also found this:


Borga Short form of feminine names in Borg- or -borg. The first element Borg- is an alternate form of Berg- and thus derived from the OW.Norse verb bjarga "to save, to help." The first element Borg- is sometimes assumed to be derived from OW.Norse borg "castle, fortified place". Runic forms appear in the nominative case as borha, burka. NR s.v. Borga, Borg-, -borg


Could be "Borha". I don't know. :confused:


More later... :eek:
 
Hey!


Yes, it did!! Only it was not so closely coiled, it "spiraled" around his arm. But the snake head was exactly the same.


And he had some sort of ring too.


Yes, I'm all worked up about this!


Now let me ask a question that probably makes no sense: is there any sort of connection between the norse and the greek mythology? Or anything (concepts, mythological figures) the vikings might have that originated from ancient Greece?
 
Very interesting W!


This particular item is actually a fingerring, but they also come as arm bracelets - I couldn't find a picture of that unfortunately. But it is true that the bracelet is more 'spiraled', because it's larger than the fingerring.


These rings were symbols of status worn by both men and women somewhat before the vikings in what archaeologists call the younger Roman Iron Age (ca. 200-500 AD). This is not to mean that the Romans were in Denmark, but they influenced 'us' as they influenced the rest of Europe. Now, what makes me even more curious about your question about the Greeks. What are you basing it on? Have you seen something? It's very interesting. I don't want to lead you on, but I'm beginning to form a theory possibly.
 
:eek:well, it's something to do with the word Borea. Boreas is the greek persona of the North Wind. I saw some depictions which are so incredibly similar to the images I had on my head when the word came up. I saw my husband with his bracelet and I, loving each other - it's really weird, I know, but I'm sure I had no previous knowledge of the depictions I'm refering too.


But I can make no sense of it at all...
 
That's understandable :)


There aren't any connections between the vikings and the ancient Greeks unfortunately. At the time of the vikings even the Roman Empire was long gone and Europe was going through the 'dark middleages'.


My thought - and this is only a suggestion - was that perhaps you are remembering a life in the Roman iron age. Some of the things you have mentioned makes a lot of sense in that context. The clothes from Thorsbjerg dates from that period, the bracelet too.

Boreas is the greek persona of the North Wind. I saw some depictions which are so incredibly similar to the images I had on my head when the word came up.
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The Romans copied the ancient Greeks enormously. All their nice statues are based on what the Greeks did. As you most likely know their mythology is also the same, albeit with different names.


I'm wondering whether perhaps the Romans also copied Boreas? And what you saw might have been a Greek depiction, but known to you through the Romans?
 
..... it could be! Do you think the blood on our palms thing I mentioned a few posts behind, during the wedding ceremony, would make more sense then?


The depiction I saw is done on an Apulean vase, from that same period (actually it is greek art, in a region where the Romans soon dominated - around 300 BC, in fact.)


The Romans had an equivalent deity, called Aquilo.


As for the language I probably spoke or was hearing:


I am sure of the words


- Bracca (the trousers) - it is originally a latin word, "imported" into several languages, including the germanic based ones.


- Borea (???)


I think the name Gudrun is a possibility but I'm not sure. It could also be a word, for all I know.


My husband "feels" nordic somehow... which also makes perfect sense, I think.


Strange as all this seems, I think so far I have been able to sort of validate the things of which I am "dead sure" - and that is nice!


Don't worry about leading me on, I have always felt that memories mostly surface as a reaction to external influences, but if you let your thoughts "settle" deeply, fiction and fact soon begin to feel different!


Do you know anything about the religious ceremonies back then?
 
This is just a hunch, but as "borealis" means "north" or "northern" in Latin (for example, "aurora borealis" = "northern lights"), maybe "borea" could be a hint of having lived in the northern parts of the Roman empire?


This possibility makes me excited, as I believe I had a past life in that area (Holland, Britain) around that era. :D But I know extremely little about that lifetime, not even if it was in the first or fifth century AD, or somewhere in between :rolleyes: , so I can't probably help you much.


Karoliina
 
Hi friends!


Well, Sunniva, I have no news - yet. This weekend I had many dreams and I can only recall fragments. I know they are related to this PL, but I can't even describe what's in those fragments - for now, I just have that "uh-oh" feeling.... :D

This is just a hunch, but as "borealis" means "north" or "northern" in Latin (for example, "aurora borealis" = "northern lights"), maybe "borea" could be a hint of having lived in the northern parts of the Roman empire?
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Karoliina, I thought of that too! And it makes sense to the feeling I get that my husband and I had different backgrounds. So the north was probably a reference for both us, it would be likely for me to refer to him as "northern man", for instance.

This possibility makes me excited, as I believe I had a past life in that area (Holland, Britain) around that era.
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Wow! It is exciting! What do you remember? :)


I haven't been able to find any references (credible references) to wedding ceremonies from the Viking age or the Roman Iron Age for that matter.


Any suggestions?
 
I haven't been able to find any references (credible references) to wedding ceremonies from the Viking age or the Roman Iron Age for that matter.
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Well, Skarphedinn is really the expert when it comes to the sagas - I'm sure there must be references to weddings there. However, beware, because they are written by Christian monks, so it's very likely that they've changed parts or edited parts as you see with the old Irish sagas. Unfortunately we know nothing of the ritual life in the Roman Iron Age since they left no writings (at least none are preserved) about anything, so I can't help you with that :(


I hope you remember some more about your dreams :) . If you don't mind I want to ask you if you could possibly try to meditate on your own origin in that life? You say you and your husband had different ethnical backgrounds - do you have any clue where you came from? :) (I'm asking for a reason of course :D )
 
If you don't mind I want to ask you if you could possibly try to meditate on your own origin in that life? You say you and your husband had different ethnical backgrounds - do you have any clue where you came from? (I'm asking for a reason of course )
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Ha! :D I will certainly try!


I think that my memories stem mainly from my husband because he probably struck me as different, where my own background was probably just familiar and uneventful...


Perhaps tonight I can find a little time to meditate! :rolleyes:
 
I meant to comment awhile back on the ritual of sharing blood on the palms at the wedding. I've heard of that ritual in the context of boys even in this day and age. Young boys would make a cut on their palms and touch their palms and smear the blood. That meant they were united together forever. Some sort of boyish bonding ritual. I remember hearing kids talk about that when I was younger.
 
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