O Freyja, guide of the Rat's Enemy. Herder of the Mouse-Catcher.

Truth.

Thus began the rumor Freya was a witch... 🙄

Have you ever seen someone try to walk a cat? That's what I picture when I imagine Freya, her chariot, and her cats

I live with two norwegian forestcats. It is easy ... They are following you like dogs if they love you.

That or lynx

@@DangerNoodl3 He said, stupidly, under a video that explains the lynx idea is silly and random. They were probably meant to be domestic cats. Twenty seconds of googling suggests Norwegian forest cats probably hadn't been bred until later in the middle ages. Why on Earth anyone would think "lynx" is beyond me.

@@fartsofdoom6491 Despite all the evidence that they couldn't have been lynxes, no one can be 100% sure when it comes to myths that are over a thousand years old. And I didn't watch the whole video when I commented this.

@@DangerNoodl3 Sure, but no one can be sure they weren't meant to be jaguars, either (a far-fetched comparison, but you get what I'm saying, I hope). Why make a random assumption like "They were lynxes" when there's nothing at all to suggest as much? I'm sorry for my harsh tone earlier, however.

@@fartsofdoom6491 I think this is actually not such a random assumption, since the people who created these myths, before the Viking Age, probably thought that lynxes were the largest cats there are, because they were the largest cats in Europe at that time (and still are). These cats are also described as pulling Freyja's carriage, so larger cats make a little more sense to me.

I've seen a bunch of art of her having giant cats but this is much funnier

Hahahahha

Yes, Hail Freya

Same

I chose to equate her to Parvati with the obsession of Shiva from Indian myth, mainly due to the characterization she has with Odr and the falling in love with divine madness/disappation. If you haven't looked into the Land of A Thousand God's stories, Parvati often changes appearance based on the role in a story. Such as becoming her fearsome counterparts Durga or Kali (Both of whom ride giant cats if I remember rightly.) With Indo-European migration, there is a chance that pieces of Freyja and the Vanir came from India, much like the Roma peoples did later in the timeline. Especially if you look up Kunlan jewelry pieces. It's where jewels are made to pop by putting thin layers of gold behind the gem. They are often layered in patterns of teardrop shapes to circle the entire neck and are gorgeous. Yes. I was trying to write Freyja and find an adequate Brisigamen. A torc was my first choice given the time period but considering how often I read it described as the chain breaking and being so fascinating that it can hide Thor, I searched through Indian bridal jewelry. Anyway, considering travelling motifs, looking to Hinduism is a good place to go for certain personality parallels.

I wonder how much of that is an accident of preservation. There might have been a Freya Cycle and maybe Snorri wasn’t interested in it or maybe it didn’t come to Iceland. Maybe it says something that Freya is not named it runes from the mediaeval period though.

@Phantom86d I mean it seems undeniably true that stories spread across the Indo-European world (although I would assume out from the stepp to both N. Europe and India rather than from India, which doesn't seem to be the migration pattern!) So I think she includes a bunch of different motifs, sort of like how memes on the Internet spread. For example, it's fun and notable that Isis has a falcon thing going on and Freya has a falcon suit but whether that's just a coincidence seems unknowable. You could equally say that the Dawn goddess character of Indo-European mythology is sort of Freyalike but that's, if anyone from Egyptian myth at all, Hathor, not Isis. My point being it probably isn't possible to say, in a neat and tidy way, which bits of Freya's mythos come from where, who she equates to and what is just a coincidence, etc.

I'm going to assume the Snorri comment is sarcasm. It can be hard to tell in written text. I don't think it matters if Snorri knew about Linx personally or not, because there was (and still is) a word for Linx in his language. The one that Dr.C commented on. Gaupa. If the original story had been Gaupa I think Snorri would have used that word. If he knew the meaning he would have assumed the reader does to and used it. If he didn't know the meaning he would not know to translate it to cat.

When did Greek astrology arise?

@@kimfleury My understanding is that Greek astrology is an amalgam of Mesopotamian Astrology mixed with the Herculean (or Heraklesian) mythology. I don’t know the exact time line of the blending. Claudius Ptolemy wrote, ‘Tetrabiblos’ from the Greek perspective about 100CE, it was by then an established system. Depending on your dominant theory for the migration of the symbols that inspired the runes, it may be there was mythological /astrological lore that migrated as well, and was similarly integrated.

Tyrfing actually means something like “From the turf”. It might also be related to Tervingi, which was the name of a Gothic tribe

@@louismarlow53 In Nafnaþulur, it is translated as "Tarry", though that might just be the Icelandic translation.

Sabre-tooth is "sverðköttur" in icelandic ("swordcat"") 😊

Freyja would be pronounced with a /øy/ diphthong. And no, I don't think they are. Freyja goes back to a Proto-Germanic word *frawjǭ which becomes Frau in German.

he went to norway a couple of times

Here's where background knowledge fills in the gaps. One of the Jewish laws governed the specifics for what kind of animal could be permitted to enter through the gate considered to be the most holy. Jesus only rode one beast at a time, but he first rode one that would be denied entry through that gate, then switched animals to ride the second through the gate. It was common knowledge, and it's been preserved in other cultures, but this Western one is self-centered, where people think everything, everywhere, at every time, is exactly as we see it in our culture today, except they wore robes and relieved themselves in trenches.

@@kimfleury got any sounds on that one? I spent a few minutes searching and can’t find anything at all that mentions such a law. It makes much more sense that the author didn’t understand the usage of parallelism and thought two donkeys were necessary and it didn’t occur or didn’t matter to him that it was impossible. Also doesn’t explain why the other gospels only show a single donkey. And considering how much I’ve heard apologists talk about this recently, I find it hard to believe such a law existed because if they knew about it, they would be mentioning it.

Hungarian post riding? That's what it's called here (with horses...)

@@johanneswerner1140 I didn't know that was a thing, it looks awesome! I was more thinking of her doing the splits between the cats(somewhat jokingly) but the hungarian post seems may be more likely.

@@BlackReaper0 yeah the van Damme would indeed look TFA (totally f'ing awesome)!

As I understand it, that was just an old Hebrew literary device (though the gospels are in Greek) of referring to something twice in slightly different words.

Or Jean Claude van Damme-style

@@janach1305 "When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied AND a colt with her [emphasis mine]; untie them [conjugated as plural] and bring them [the verb "lū́ō" is conjugated in a plural form as "lū́santes", referring to multiple things being untied, in this case both donkey & colt] to me....The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey AND the colt [emphaiss mine] and put their cloaks on them [the donkey and the colt], and he sat on them [the donkey and the colt]."

@@ACruelPicture Exactly.

@@robertborland5083 Matthew describes it as a donkey AND colt, as you say, but he is probably basing this on the language in the Old Testament Book of Zachariah (9:9). "Behold your king...riding on a donkey, even on [Hebrew: ve 'al] a colt, the foal of a donkey." This is a literary device in the Old Testament, which either refers to the same thing twice using different words, or intensifies something by referring to it again with a more specific word. The author of Matthew probably misunderstood the literary device, either because their Hebrew was poor or because they read it in the Greek Septuagint. So Matthew was not using the literary device @janach1305 describes, but he likely based his two animal account on a passage that does use it.