ancient Germanic peoples Archives - Tales of Times Forgotten

Why Are Dragons Obsessed with Treasure?

The trope that dragons are naturally obsessed or infatuated with treasure is absolutely pervasive throughout modern fantasy literature. You can pick up just about any modern book that has dragons in it and, more likely than not, the dragons will be obsessed with hoarding treasure of some kind. In this post, I will discuss where this trope originates from and how it became so ubiquitous.

In ancient Greece and Rome, drakontes (the ancient precursors of dragons) were primarily thought to serve as guardians, sometimes of treasure. The notion that dragons are obsessed with treasure seems to have arisen in classical antiquity or earlier as one of several different explanations for why they guard it. Thanks primarily to the Old English epic poem Beowulf and J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1937 children’s fantasy novel The Hobbit, which drew extensive inspiration from Beowulf, this explanation has now become accepted as standard in western popular culture.

No, Santa Claus Is Not Inspired by Odin

I’ve spent a lot of time debunking the perennially popular misconception that modern Anglophone Christmas customs are of ancient “pagan” origin. My most thorough article on the subject remains this one I originally posted two years ago. One of the more popular claims associated with this misconception is that Santa Claus is actually somehow inspired by the “pagan” Norse god Óðinn, who is closely associated with wisdom, war, death, and the runic alphabet. I already debunked this claim in this article I posted two years ago about the history of Santa Claus, which I highly recommend reading, but I did so only briefly and I feel that this notion is so common that it deserves a more thorough rebuttal.

Jackson Crawford, who has a PhD in Old Norse studies, spent many years teaching the subject at various universities, and is now a professional public educator on the subject, posted a video on his YouTube channel last year explaining why Óðinn is not Santa Claus. Crawford’s video is excellent, but it is, for the most part, merely a simple comparison of Óðinn and Santa Claus and it does not take into account the history of Santa Claus. In this article, I intend to give this misconception the proper, in-depth refutation it deserves—one that fully takes into account Santa Claus’s complicated history.

A DNA Test Cannot Tell You Your Ancient Ancestors

For many years now, companies like Ancestry and 23andMe have been selling DNA tests that they claim can tell people where their ancestors came from. Their tests have become quite popular, despite the fact that they often present results in misleading ways that appeal to popular racist ideas about “blood quantum.” Now, some companies are trying to convince people that they can use DNA tests to trace a modern person’s genetic ancestry back to specific ancient cultures.

One such company calls itself “My True Ancestry.” This company does not conduct DNA tests of its own, but allows users to upload their DNA test results from other companies so that their software can automatically compare their genomes to those sequenced from ancient remains. The software then generates a pie chart showing what percentage of a person’s DNA supposedly comes from each ancient culture. This company, however, and others like it, are blatantly misrepresenting both how genetics works and what ancient populations were like.

Yes, Loki Is Genderfluid in Norse Mythology!

On 9 June 2021, the streaming service Disney+ released the first episode of the series Loki, which is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The series stars the English actor Tom Hiddleston as the Marvel character Loki, who is very loosely based on the Norse god Loki. In the show, there is a shot of an official document which clearly lists Loki’s gender as “fluid.” This means that the Marvel character Loki is now officially genderfluid in the MCU. Some people are upset about this revelation, claiming that it is a shoddy attempt to shoehorn unneeded gender diversity into the MCU.

What these people don’t seem to realize is that Loki has always been what a modern person would describe as genderfluid—even in the original Norse myths. In Norse mythology, Loki can shapeshift and, although they are most commonly male, they sometimes adopt female forms. For instance, in one Old Norse poem, Loki is said to have lived on earth as a woman for eight years, during which time she milked a cow (which the Norse saw as a feminine chore), had sex with a man, and gave birth to children. The Prose Edda tells another story that Loki once turned into a mare, had sex with a stallion, and gave birth to a foal. Additionally, the Marvel character Loki has also been explicitly genderfluid in the comics for nearly a decade now, so Loki’s genderfluidity isn’t even a new thing for Marvel.

Why Were Women Prohibited from Fighting in Most Ancient Societies?

Someone on Quora recently asked the question “Is there a real reason why ancient armies didn’t have female soldiers, or was it just sexism?” This question immediately triggered a whole flurry of defensive replies from various male military history buffs proclaiming all the reasons why women are supposedly naturally unsuited for ancient warfare and why it was supposedly perfectly logical for ancient militaries to exclude women.

The most upvoted answer to the question is this one, written by a man named Alex Mann, arguing that women are naturally physically shorter, weaker, and smaller than men, that pregnancy and menstruation would hinder them from fighting, and that they would be an overall detriment to any ancient army. The answer currently has 2,722 upvotes and hundreds of comments, many of them showering praise on the author for his supposed clarity and perceptiveness.

Other men have provided answers drawing similar conclusions. The arguments that these men present, however, are demonstrably quite shoddy. In this essay, I intend to demonstrate that there is, in fact, no logical reason for an army to have a rule categorically excluding all women and that the real reason why women were excluded from ancient militaries is indeed simply sexism.

Here’s What the Costumes and Flags on Display at the Pro-Trump Insurrection Mean

On 6 January 2021, a mob of violent, pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol building in Washington D.C., forcing both houses of Congress to evacuate. These insurrectionists wanted to force Congress to overturn the vote of electoral college, which voted in favor of Joe Biden becoming the next president of the United States. Thankfully, after several hours of fighting, the rebels were eventually driven out of the Capitol. Congress has now ratified the votes of the electoral college, confirming Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January 2021.

Many of the insurrectionists at the Capitol were dressed in unusual costumes and carrying various flags. Many people are confused about why they dressed in this manner and what their costumes signify. Obviously, the real concern here should be the fact that these insurrectionists literally attempted a coup. Nonetheless, I think it is worth examining some of the iconography that was on display in order to get a sense of the kind of narrative that these people are trying to promote.

How Historically Accurate Is Netflix’s ‘Barbarians’?

There have a been a lot of Netflix originals related to ancient history recently. One such show is the German historical drama series Barbarians, which was first released on Netflix on 23 October 2020. The show is very loosely based on the historical events leading up to and surrounding the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, in which an alliance of several Germanic tribes won a crushing victory against the Romans and destroyed three whole Roman legions.

A lot of people have commented on Barbarians’ similarities to the History channel series Vikings, but there are a couple factors that differentiate it. One is that Barbarians is set about eight hundred years earlier than Vikings in the world of antiquity rather than the world of the Middle Ages. The other factor is that Barbarians is overtly a German show that is clearly made for a German target audience with German concerns; whereas Vikings was clearly made with British and North American target audiences primarily in mind.

Barbarians is mostly fiction, but, so far at least, it does generally stick more closely to the broad outline of historical events than Vikings. (There are, for instance, no bizarre scenes in which historical figures who actually lived centuries apart are portrayed as meeting in person.) In this article, I want to talk about aspects of the show that are historically accurate and other aspects where the makers of the show have taken some creative license.