Talk:Seiðr

Seidr and Siddhi

It seems plausible to relate 'Seidr' to Sanskrit 'Siddhi', as the meaning of these concepts also are similar; together with the fairly close relationship between Sanskrit and the Norse language. I believe it is fairly uncontested that the Norse faith is perceived as a western branch of the old vedic philosophy.

I hope there are someone who may help me to substantiate this seemingly empirically fit theory of an etymological relation between 'Seidr' and 'Siddhi'. Or at least explain the premises of substantiation in regard of etymological references at wikipedia. I'm curious of what would actually be regarded substantial, cause to give etymological substantiation is pretty dubious in any case. I am very well aware of the rule of thumb that we are not to produce theoretical material first hand here at Wikipedia. But I find it a bit strange that theoretical suggestions of this kind are looked upon as a problem, as long as it is clearly stated that it is a suggestion, a possibility, a theory. I cannot see such suggestions as dangerous. I regard it as spice. It is to my mind a much graver problem that theories are presented as facts, no matter how well cited the statements are.

as the word 'seidr' is no longer in popular use. The only thing that really may substantiate the possible connection between the two concepts is to show the magnitude of links between Sanskrit and the Norse language, and other evident cultural similarities. --Xact (talk) 00:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

you might look into the Audhumla / Brahma connection. Quite literally, Aesier were the eastern gods of asia, so far as I was taught. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au%C3%B0umbla Rqpaine (talk) 20:33, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

@Xact and Rqpaine: You speak of "the magnitude of links" between Old Norse and Sanskrit. Old Norse belongs to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages, while Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch. I don't think you're acquainted with the relevant science.

The evolutionary chronology of the Indo-European languages is far from clear, but there is agreement that the separation between the Germanic and Indo-Iranian branches is at least 3,000 years old. (See Indo-European languages# Diversification.) In Ringe & Warnow's analysis of the data, Proto-Indo-Iranian separated from the larger Indo-European family about 2000 BCE; Anthony puts it only about 200 years earlier but calculates the split-off of Pre-Germanic at circa 3300 BCE. Seiðr and siddhi are almost certainly false cognates.

--Thnidu (talk) 02:02, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

It is not so that I'm not aware of the linguistic science and historiography. But. To suggest that there are scientific agreement, and not huge and sincere contrasting arguments is quite ignorant. There are no consensus regarding the evolution of languages. One thing is to see diversification of languages going long way back, as mentioned above, but that doesn't imply that the dialectics of separate linguistic mutations doesn't exist. I find it rather unscientific to imagine languages as "pure". Different regimes of civilizations imply different rules and grammars and habits, but the evolution of languages appear as much in the encounters of differences than in repetition and refining. Words and concepts, myths and symbols traverse the languages. Often it seems to me that people forget that peoples and people haven't been just settlers; that migration has been the rule rather than the exception of the rule. The habitual mindset of thinking the evolution of language, and evolution in general, to be following an arborescent structure: The structure of the tree, that is, with stem and branches etc. that are making us think in terms linguistic families, is problematic, in spite of it being a dominant feature in much academic theoretical practice, up til more recent developments. I'm not here referring to alternative science, but to the effects of semiotics and grammatology, post-structuralism and so on, in historiographic research and on scientific methodologies. An example of connection is the spread of the Bubonic Plague: the Black Death that first appeared in Ankhor and the Yunnan province in AD 1320, reaches Bergen on the other side of the Globe 29 years later, AD 1949 killing more than half the population of Norway. The rodents were essential for the Virus, but it is the increased intercultural connection that were the main cause of the rapid spread, not the rats. The statement that language is viral, not a tree, has great actuality in contemporary linguistic science and philosophy of evolution. In short, the argument that languages have structurally separated as early as claimed by Thnidu, is not contested by the argument of a "viral" evolution of language, nor the other way around. --Xact (talk) 15:25, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Seidr and Zijde

Couldn't Seidr be related to the Dutch word zijde which means silk? Silk is often described as an almost-godly substance, and the words are pretty similar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.190.253.146 (talk) 19:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Not really. According to Wiktionary (Etymology: sense 2):

From Middle Dutch side, from Old Dutch *sīda, from Latin saeta.

[Sense 1 is "side, face (of an object)"; sense 3 is "(Brabantian) Contraction of zijt gij."]

There are all kinds of word pairs across languages that are "pretty similar" purely by coincidence and are not related at all. See false cognate.
--Thnidu (talk) 02:47, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Note

This article is currently being used by me (in my capacity as a member of the Task Force/Improving Community Health group) as a case study of an article which has declined in quality over time despite having several hundred edits since its highwater mark in or around early 2005. Sjc (talk) 05:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks to me like it was a ho-hum article in 2005 and remains a ho-hum article today. Now it's got a bunch of nag-tags. Like you, I think these are overused. Other than that, what's bothering you about it? Haukur (talk) 19:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Well let's start with the intro. It's dumbed down considerably and just wrong; we only discover that seid might possibly have something to do with shamanism in the final paragraph.

Compare and contrast:

Seid (also seiðr, seidhr) was the form of shamanism practised by pre-Christian Norse and other Germanic cultures and continued in modern times by people who practice the reconstructionist beliefs of Ásatrú or heathenry. Practitioners of seid were predominantly women (Volva, or seidhkona, lit seidh-woman), although there were male practitioners (seidhmadhr, lit seidh-man) as well. The gods of Norse mythology were also practititioners of seid. In Anglo-Saxon tribes, practitioners of seid were referred to as wicca (m.) or wicce (f.). The Church opposed such activities and wicce evolved , as did the völvas, into the modern witch.

with

Seid or seiðr is an Old Norse term for a type of sorcery or witchcraft which was practiced by the pre-Christian Norse. Sometimes anglicized as "seidhr," "seidh," "seidr," "seithr," or "Seith," the term is also used to refer to modern Neopagan reconstructions Or Emulations of the practice

In the contemporary version the reader is led immediately into a number of flabby misconceptions: that it was an exclusively Norse practice and has more to do with Harry Potter than with what it primarily was about, at least according to all the supporting evidence that follows, which is divinatory magic, often predicated by trances of varying provenance. It's all downhill from there. It won't take you long to work out which is the contemporary cut. What it gains in concision it immediately loses in its inaccuracy and imprecision.

Seid is always going to be, as you so neatly pin it, a ho-hum sort of article, which is precisely what makes it interesting for my purposes for a very specific reason which is a close examination of things which need documenting but which are open to considerable interpretation and consequently present a fertile playing field for the multiplicity of edit-tinkerers, policy-warriors, and the like. The very nature of seid, being practiced clandestinely by adepts means necessarily that very little is documented and that all corroboration or assertions of corroboration are implicitly suspect. We can make intelligent constructions about what seid was from supportive documentation, mainly secondary or tertiary evidence or evidence which is circumstantial, or illustratively and explicitly fictionally narrative in nature Völuspá, the Saga of Erik the Red, or, in fact, the narration of Odin's direct experience of seid (albeit not usually recognised as such) in Hávamál whilst hanging from the tree for nine days. Sjc (talk) 20:25, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The quality of this article has been poor from the start. It remains so. It needs a rewrite on par with GA standards. Are you saying you are up to doing this? :bloodofox: (talk) 20:43, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no intention of touching this or any article, I am definitively retired from WP; I have personally had it up to here with the BS policy and interminable infighting & policy-oriented Nazitubbies which currently characterise WP, and I am working on the Task Force with a clearly defined objective which is to make WP & other wiki projects better and more amenable environments in which to work. What I will say is what I said at the outset, that it is now several hundred edits on and that the article really is no better, and in some/many respects is worse, than it was heretofore. I have set out in fairly mild terms a few of the reasons why I think this to be the case when asked. This is not, let me emphasise, in any sense a witchhunt, I am looking at it in general terms as a case study, and it is fairly representative of a broader trend. If you really want to make it better then imo someone needs to fix the intro so that it is inclusive of Germanic cultures wherein the practice was fairly widespread, and also has other forms and manifestations e.g. as symbel, and make it apparent that it is what it is, shamanic, divinatory and very little to do with waving wands and pulling rabbits from hats. I personally have no particularly strong feelings about the article itself, since I already know what seid is and it isn't what it says in para 1, the first point of interface between the reader and the subject.

Seid was, is and always will be a difficult article, a watershed article on the cusp of directly atributable knowledge, circumstantial evidence and intelligent contemporary interpretation. It could also have been a whole lot worse. It will never be a GA quality article under the current terms of reference, nor could it be as I have already stated above, the degree of evidence and the reliability of the evidence just isn't there to support it. Sjc (talk) 21:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Just like any other article on Germanic paganism, there isn't much stopping anyone from just gathering the sources needed and writing the article to GA specifications. Rather than talk about how the article has deteriorated, your time would be far more productively spent doing exactly that. I have now done exactly this and successfully reached GA status for 43 articles on similar subject matter and am knee deep in bringing several more up to GA status. It's quite possible. It just takes time and effort. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Step back a minute and look at the article history, the time & effort which has already been expended, and its previous and current lamentable state. I am convinced that in WP's shape and form that this, like so many others, is an article which will limp along, being poked and prodded at by all and sundry and never really progress. There are now 3m+ articles in en.WP. You may very well be doing your bit, as in fact have I over a period > 9 years, but I have long since come to the conclusion that the number of editors capable of getting an article anywhere near GA is very few, and as policy proliferation and consequent abuse, vituperation and and extremist activity flourish, increasingly the real issues need addressing. Which is precisely why the Task Force is a necessary process. It's not, as you say, just time and effort. I used to think that was the case myself but it isn't. Decent editors. new and old alike, are exiting WP and articles are frequently being tinkered or policy driven into homogenous and unreadable slush. I would invite you to take a breath and take a look at some of the work currently being undertaken over at [1] to look at some of the debates currently taking place. There is some very serious work going on over there. Sjc (talk) 04:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Found an error in the translation of Eric the Red Saga. Kattskinnsglófa literally means cat-skin gloves, not gloves made of ermine-skin. Can anyone verify and fix this error? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.72.110.167 (talk) 01:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

On the word Seiðr

I just wanted to point out as a born and raised Icelandic, that I found the word seiðr throughout this article very confusing. Seiðr is old norse word for seiður in Icelandic. Seiður here seems to have the meaning of something magical that's etible. Seiður could come from the word sjóða(boil) although becuase of jó in sjóða, seiði should be spelled with y not i. Often when you meet people in Iceland that you know, you'll ask "Hvað er á seyði hér?" or "what's going on here?" or literally "What is on magically-happening here?" if there's a hairy situation going on.

Also when talking about magic folk. We do not talk about magic users and herbal magic users as the one and the same. Galdramaður literally magic man, explains to us a Gandalf type person but can also be used for a illusionists. Seyðkarl would be somebody like Getafix in the Asterix stories were he's brewing seiði/magical potion in a pot. He's called a druid in wikipedia so maybe that's the name for what seiðkall or seiðkona. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.4.113.33 (talk) 06:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Considering interactions with the Gaels throughout Norse history, perhaps the similarity with the Gaelic 'sidhe' should not be overlooked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabhala (talk • contribs) 22:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

@IP commenter and anyone else: Don't make the mistake of equating modern Icelandic with Old Norse. And @Gabhala: that weak similarity should be disregarded as almost certainly coincidental. See my comments above under #Seidr and Siddhi and #Seidr and Zijde about false cognates. --Thnidu (talk) 04:52, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

It is absolutely true that one need to be very careful to draw conclusions about Old Norse and modern Icelandic. When that is said, I'm Norwegian, and do see the difference, but also I know that the Icelandic language is kept incredibly conservative, compared to our other Scandinavian languages. I think it best may be compared to modern Arabian in relation to the Arabian of the times of the Prophet. The Icelandic is quite more different from Norse than contemporary Arabian is to early medieval Arabian on a structural, grammatical basis, but the Icelanders are more protectionist when it comes to loan-words. Therefor is Icelandic a great resource for etymological research. I'm very well aware that the proper meaning of Norse words are more difficult to render than many believe. It becomes obvious when reading the different translations of Norse literature, comparing it to the source material. It is difficult, but I'm able to some extent to read both Icelandic and Norse, although I need secondary literature and tools. I'm careful to not jump to conclusions. It is a mistake to equate, but yet do Icelanders have a greater capacity to understand the Norse literature better than Norwegians, Swedes and Danes because of the similarities and conservation of the language of the Saga-island. --Xact (talk) 15:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

De Origine Actibusque Getarum

The section "Origins" has a paragraph on "hellrúna" - but this isn't explicitly linked to the practice of seiðr in the text. Can the relevance to this article be established through sources? Davémon (talk) 21:11, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

@Davemon: The word "hellrúna" does not occur anywhere in the article; evidently that section was deleted at some time since your comment. --Thnidu (talk) 04:55, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

on the use of cannabis

Id like to open a discussion on the use of cannabis in seidhr.

Rqpaine (talk) 20:31, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

@Rqpaine: That would fit better in an article on modern paganism, with a link to that from seiðr#Contemporary Paganism. --Thnidu (talk) 13:22, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Cannabis seeds have been found on seeress graves, which makes it directly relevant to this article both in a historic and contemporary context (Seeress_(Germanic)#Viking_Age_Archaeological_Record). :bloodofox: (talk) 18:25, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

on the lack of respect toward male practitioners

I just want to know why this point has to be made 4-6 times in this entire article. We get it, sheesh.2601:1C2:1701:4AB0:5543:213B:56E4:55CF (talk) 05:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

The German chunk

I don't know what to make of the chunk of German language two lines at the end of the intro. It seems orphaned, without a lead-in or translation. Should it be in Etymology? Manytexts (talk) 15:11, 24 April 2023 (UTC)