Paganism: Part XIX - Comparative Mythology, my RPG & Europe

When I say that all the European gods are the same, that the different names of the gods and goddesses are but different faces of the European divine concept, I am often met with ridicule and aggressive contempt. For some reason many refuse to accept that the same divine being is called by different names in different parts of Europe – including in those areas that used to be European or ruled by Europeans, such as Ancient Egypt, Sumer, Persia and the Indus Valley.

The origin of our European religion lies of course in the European race, and tribes belonging to this race have moved about for ages, in Europe, in Asia and even in Africa. They all had their preferences in relation to deity names, they were all influenced by different natural forces, social events, alien races and ideas, so it is no wonder that they all, by the time the settled down somewhere, called the deities by different names. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. We all speak different languages for the same reason – and I would be surprised if I was met with ridicule and contempt for claiming that. We all know that as a fact.

E.g. love is love, no matter what language you use to describe it. However, some might name a deity of love after her beauty (Roman Venus, "beautiful") or fairness (Celtic Aine, "brightness, radiance, beauty, glow"), some might name her after the way she was born (Greek Aphrodite, "risen from [sea] foam"), some might name her after the word for love (Scandinavian Freyja, "love, liberty, free"), and others might name her after her other properties, such as one of the animals associated with her, or perhaps some other characteristic of hers (like the Slavo-Scythian Shieba and the Sanskrit Shiva, both meaning "auspicious one"). Love can also be either seen as masculine or feminine, or perhaps both.

We have the word ven (as in Venus) in Norwegian as well, and naturally it means "beautiful" in Norwegian as well, as found in the (Old Norwegian) description of Freyja as a "vana-dis" ("beautiful goddess"). To understand this name you need to know the Greek myth about Paris, who gives an apple to the most beautiful goddess, Aphrodite (Freyja). So why would she not be called the "vana-dis"? She won the contest and is the most beautiful goddess! And why would love not be the most beautiful concept? And is it common to all Europeans or is it a purely Scandinavian concept? Of course it is common to all Europeans! Our goddess of love is the same wherever we live, whatever language we speak and however we build our temples!

In the roleplaying game I am working on I describe what I picture as the cradle of Europe, a realm called Þulê ("land of the sages"), and for the sake of simplicity all the nations of that realm call the deities by the same (proto-Indo-European [PIE]) names (and these PIE reconstructed names are based on the Scandinavian names). Now, the game is not yet complete, so I add and remove parts and bits every now and then, and one of the alternative rules I removed was a rule suggesting that the (9) different nations in Þulê called the deities by different names. Rather than just throw this information away I figured I should write this article and include the table of names to share with you my perception of the different names of the deities, and how they correspond. Unfortunately I fail to make complete lists of the Baltic, Finnish, Etruscan, Magyar, Thracian/Dacian, Sumerian, Sanskrit, Egyptian or Illyrian names of our old deities, but I hope the lists below will be helpful nevertheless – and I have included a suggestion on what names would be closest to their names. The first list include the sympathetic deities; the second the other deities. From the rejected Alternative Rule 21 of my RPG;

When a deity is listed with a different gender than the PIE original deity this simply means that in this particular culture this particular deity was seen as of a different gender. It is however still the same deity. This can play a role for characters born in this particular culture, because the deity will be of a different gender in his culture. See Birth Date (Character Generation & Development).

A few of the names (such as Scandinavian Íðunn from PIE Eduno and Celtic Epona, probably also from PIE Eduno) unveil themselves as being basically the same name, even though they are from different regions and tribes of Europe, but most of the names and their different sound and meaning can be explained by what I wrote in the first part of this article. Naturally this list only includes the names of deities included in the RPG, but you can also find a more comprehensive list of (only the) Scandinavian, proto-Nordic and Greek names in SRAS, if you care to.

To me it is obvious that all the Europeans had a common culture and religion in the past, and I hope that more and more of you begin to share this view with me. This will be important after the soon-to-come (i.e. in the coming years) collapse of the Judeo-Christian civilization, when we (or rather those of us who survive) are to rebuild Europe and reconstruct our common Pagan heritage, for use as our new European culture, world view and religion. We must make sure that we unite as a race, in a European tribal confederacy, and for all future stop all slaughter of racial brethren. Our race is our nation, and Europe is our homeland!

May I add that there is no reason to reconstruct what is lost just for the sake of reconstructing it. We must do so because we have very good reasons indeed to reconstruct our ancient culture, our world view and our traditions; Paganism was really valuable, positive and good for us, because it was in accordance with our European blood and spirit, and it generated positive energies and cultivated honour in us. If we want any form of harmony and peace of mind we need to have a mind working with our European nature, not against it.

Varg Vikernes
Bergen, 19.12.2012

In other languages: Italiano