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64 Cards in this Set
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Edda |
one of two Old Norse texts. One consists of poetry (poetic Edda) dealing with mythological matters. The other, the Prose Edda, is the work of the scholar Snorri Sturlesson, dating from about 1200 CE. Though written in christian era, it describes, the key myths of pre-christian Icelandic culture |
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Snorri Sturlesson |
An Icelanding historian and scholar of the early 13th century CE, who collected pre-christian tales of the Norse gods in his Prose Edda |
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Gylfi (aka Gangleri) |
central in the myth-telling of the Prose Edda: the king whose questions the three figures High, Just as High and Third inspire the telling of Norse maths in Prose Edda |
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Ginungagap |
meeting place of fire and ice where the world began |
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Muspell |
land of fire, whose flames were part of the binary creation, and whose flames also destroy the world at ragnarok |
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Asgard |
home of the gods |
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Bifrost |
the rainbow bridge that leads to Asgard |
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Utgard |
home of the giants |
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Midgard |
where humans live |
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Yggdrasill |
the world tree, with roots in Asgard, Utgard and Hel, which represents all life in a state of entropy |
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Elfheim (Alfheim) |
where elves live |
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Valhalla |
Where warriors who die bravely in battle spend eternity fighting and feasting preparing for Ragnarok |
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Gimli |
another realm of the dead, populated by bards and keepers of knowledge |
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Hel |
gloomy dark cold afterlife realm, presided over by goddess of the same name |
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Freyja's realm |
never elaborated |
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Aesir |
Race of goods about whom most of the Norse myths tell, among them Tor, Odin, Balder, etc. |
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Vanir |
Race of gods associated with land and its fertility; not as common in Norse yyths with the exception of Freyr and Freyia |
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Odin |
chief of the Norse gods, known as a wanderer, distinguished by having only one eye, having lost the other to gain the wisdom of the well of mimir; often a trickster and shape changer; the god of kings in warfare |
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Thor |
Thunder god, popular in the Norse world; straightforward and trustworthy; often portrayed as strong but slow, although he is capable of craftiness. His hammer was a sign of protection into the christian era |
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Frigg |
Wife of Odin; name means Fate |
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Baldr |
beloved god who was killed by mistletoe through the connivance of Loki; he will return to rule a world of peace and plenty when this one is destroyed |
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Freyr |
god of agricultural fertility |
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Freyja |
Goddess of agricultural fertility, sexuality, and mysterious knowledge; owner of one-third of the dead |
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Tyr |
one handed warrior god, best known for bringing Fenrir |
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Loki |
The half-Gd, half-giant trickster whose antics threaten the gods' very existence at some times, and at others preserve them from their enemies the Giants |
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Norns |
the fates, three women who guard and tend to Yggdrasil |
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Ymir |
Giant from whose body the earth was formed |
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Giants |
(frost giants) the constant opponent of the Norse gods |
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Fenrir (Fenris) |
son of loki, a giant, tricky, evil wolf, now safely bound in Hel but sure to break free from Ragnarok |
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Hel |
Another child of Loki, the guardian of the afterlife realm of the same name. |
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Iormungand |
the serpent at the base of the world, Thor's particular enemy. |
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Ragnarok |
the battle of gods and giants that will end the world as we know it |
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Mythos |
words, speaking, telling of a story |
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Folktale |
fantastic stories with no specific living person |
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xenophanes |
Homer and hesiod ascribed to the gods al that is shameful and reprachful among mortals -always want your gods to be similar to you -One god, greatest among gods and mortals, not at all like them, either in body or mind |
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Hubris |
not knowing your place; arrogance -Croesus thinks he's the most fortunate, but Solon sets him strait |
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Ate |
state of blind infatuation; don't notice that everything's falling apart |
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Nemesis |
result of hubris |
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Miasma |
pollution with blood; pollution incurred by killing -guilt |
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Espiate |
paying back for miasma |
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Hesiod vs Ovid |
Hesiod claimed divine inspiration -ovid didn't say it was literal -Hesiod was sung at festivals -Hesiod was believed -Ovid was for educated and more emotional effect and humorous -Hesiod- oral poetry, small-town perspective -ovid- Roman, first century AD -Hesiod- Greek 7th century BC |
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Athena |
-aegis -mourn for loss of life in war -has a snake -has an owl -prometheus had the prophecy of her birth |
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Metis |
Athena's mother, cunning intelligence |
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Innana and EReshkigal |
-mirror images of one another -Ereshkigal's fate is to be exiled from the rest of the gods in the realm of death -Inanna high-living |
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Sumerians |
The people who inhabited the Fertile Crescent whose cities flourished in the 3000's -100 BCE |
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Babylonians |
The people who inhabited and dominated this area following the sumerians from the 1000s BCE until the 700's BCE |
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Cuneform |
wedge-shaped writing they used, in which the texts used in this section of the course are preserved |
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Inanna (Ishtar) |
Goddess of love, sex, sometimes warfare and the communal storehouse, patron deity of unmarried women, wife of Dumuzi; one of the most significant deities in the Sumerian pantheon though less important and more destructive in Babylonian mythology |
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Dumuzi |
Inna's husband, a shepherd, most significant as her consort |
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Utu (Shamash) |
sun god, brother of Inanna (Ishtar), often defender of the masculine principle (Utu saves Dumuzi, Shamash helps Gilgamesh); Shamash is particularly a god of justice |
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Enki |
god of wisdom, close to Inanna although she stole the me from him |
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Enlil |
Chief among the gods |
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Nanna (Sin) |
The moon god, father of Inanna and Utu |
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me |
powerful tokens of rule that Inanna won fro her city of Uruk, representing the blessings of the natural and civilized worlds |
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Ereshkigal |
Inna's sister, goddess of the underworld |
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Ninshubur |
Inanna's "executive assistant" |
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Uruk |
home city of Inanna and where Gilgamesh is king |
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Gilgamesh |
King of Uruk, 2/3 mortal and 1/3 god but also subject to death |
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Ninsun |
Gilgamesh's mother, minor goddess who is close to shamash and takes a direct interest in Gilgamesh's fortunes |
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Enkidu |
the "Wild Man" created by the gods to become Gilgamesh's friend and alter ego |
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Humbaba |
Auperhuman creature the gods have set out to guard the cedar forest |
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Dilmun |
the sumerian/Babylonian equivalent of Eden, a land beyond time |
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Utnapishtim |
the Sumerian Noah, who survived the flood with Enki's help and achieved immortality |
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Siduri |
the barmaid at the end of the universe and avatar of Ishtar |