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British Edda

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L.A. Waddell's thesis is that the Poetical Edda has been mistakenly assumed to be the work of Scandinavians or Norse and the gods within the text are Scandinavian or Norse. Waddell proves that the language of the text is actually of British-Gothic origin and composed in Britain. "That the Edda, in its existing mediaeval version, was composed in Britain is now admitted by the leading authorities on the language of the Eddic texts in Scandinavia as well as Britain..." Snorri Sturlason ( 1179-1241) is usualy attributed for translating the text but Waddell believes that Snorri "concoted" the idea that the work is a far out fairy tell in Icelandic venacular. "But we shall find that Snorri's fictitious tale is no Edda at all, and that his purported translations of the Edda extracts, which he sites...show that he did not understand many of the critical words in the Edda, which are British and non-Icelandic. I find Waddell's theory to be important as we witness the revival of Odinism and Wotanism in Europe and America. Some of the "New Age" Norse Religion revisions are based on Snorri's "concoted" interpretations. This book contiues Waddell's theory that the British (not Celts) have their origin in Phrygia or Ancient Troy and that the Edda is a historical story actual people and events. My only problem with his work is that he pulls the biblical Adam and Eve into the historical interpretation which as a result has given the British Israel crowd fuel for their far out ideas. As a result Waddell probably recieves less attention than he deserves.

L.A. Wadell's "British Edda" is the Bible of Odinism.

His use of Adam-Thor and elements from what we call the Bible is a part of his theory that the Bible of the Hebrews is largely a copy of literature existing prior to the time the Bible of the Hebrews was compiled.

He outlines this idea convincingly in his "Makers of Civilization" (where he also makes the connection of ADAM-GAUR-THOR) and it makes its mark in "The British Edda".

This has historical merit. For example, as Ignatius Donnelly points out in his book on Atlantis the word "Noah" is of Aryan derivation -- the root "No" having to do with water and found in Aryan maritime Gods and demigods like Neptune and the Nymphs. This, in addition to the fact that Flood myths far predate the Semitic (and eventually Hebrew) Flood myths would seem to indicate that a large part of "our" Bible is but a rough copying of previous myths.

Thus the fear that "British Israelites" could use the "British Edda"--a Pagan Holy Book--for anything useful in order to back up their worship of the Hebraic Sky God is, in my view, an unfounded fear. And where their Bible is a book of spiritual bondage to the tribal deity Yahweh and, later, to an impotent self-proclaimed demigod, the Edda is a tale of heroism.

It's advantage over the "other" Eddas of the north is that it gives a sense of historical perspective the others lack. HIGHLY recommended!

The marginalisation of Waddell's great works has been quite an achievement. While stating that not all revisionist history is accurate the work of this great man deserves to be heard and assessed in its own right. To equate the author with the white supremacy movement would be laughable if it wasn't so cowardly. As Orwell wrote in '1984' 'orthodoxy is unconsciousness' as the 'reader' below clearly illustrates.

The 'Eindri' European norse God (Thor) from the Edda is the Hindu God Indra, just as King Minos of Crete was Menes of Sumer, the indus valley as Manja, egypt as Manj.

Waddell brought all this real history together and should be considered one of our great global historians. The fact his version of true history has been ignored shows the depth and scale of the global educational fascism that permeates the 'established' schools of thought.

This book has been in my library for about 20 years. When I first read it, I was very impressed and went on to read Waddell's "Makers of Civilization in Race & History." More recently I have been doing a lot of research into the Eddas, copies of which I have in the Old Norse as well as in the best English and German translations. Compared with these, Waddell's translation, if that's what you want to call it, of the Eddas is full of rubbish that he, no doubt, invented in order to promote the stupid Aryan racist agenda, so fashionable among certain members of the British aristocracy in the 1920s. It is very unfortunate, mainly because he does touch on the thesis that the Norse material originated in the ancient Middle East, something not entirely at variance with Snorri Sturluson's Ynglinga Saga. L. A. Waddell was a very unbalanced, hot-headed and eccentric amateur archaeologist and writer in the field of Sumerian antiquities. He came to full blown conclusions far far too easily, considering that he was writing in the 1920s and 1930s, and that to date only a very small fraction of the Sumerian literary relics have been excavated, let alone translated. He writes in a style that is aimed at cowing his ignorant public. I would suggest that anyone who reads his work be very critical and take much with a liberal grain of salt. Waddell's "Makers of Civilization" is a better work than his "British Edda." In it, he reconstructs the entire Sumerian king lists with the help of such texts as the Vayu Purana, but there even, be careful.

Let us be perfectly clear. If the term "crackpot" didn't exist when this book was first published, it would have provided a good excuse to coin it. Comparisons between a variety of mythologies, some obvious, some far-fetched, and some unintelligible, are mixed with some odd variants of racist theories of Nordic supremacy to re-write the history of the world -- or at least as much of the world as mattered to Waddell. Readers who try to sift out the racism will still be left with a great mass of "facts" which are really aren't, but which are so fascinating as to be hard to "un-learn." The "amazing" similarities between some of the Vedic and Scandinavian gods, for example once were truly astonishing -- about a hundred years before Waddell wrote this book.

Re-releasing "The British Edda" with bold assertions that it offers the "real truth," drawn from selected early reviews, reminds me of the nineteenth-century American newspaper editors who eagerly picked up and ran exciting but dubious stories -- but some of them carefully used the discreet heading of "Important, If True."

If not for the affinities to Nazism, "The British Edda" might have amusement value; Robert E. Howard's essay on "The Hyborian Age" (the background of the Conan stories) seems almost modest in comparison. It is somewhat alarming, however, to find people claiming to draw religious inspiration from it.

For those on a real spiritual quest, and wary of any of the established religions (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, or other), there are now available perfectly good translations of the real Edda, of real British (Celtic) literature, of real Sumerian and Babylonian texts, and so forth. There are even some solidly based syntheses of pre-Christian Northern European spirituality (by Alwyn and Brinley Rees, by H.R. Ellis Davidson, and others).