Viktor Rydberg och germansk mytologi

Rydberg hos Runeberg.

UNDERSÖKNINGAR I GERMANISK MYTHOLOGI / AF VIKTOR RYDBERG. DEL 1 - 2. - Stockholm : Bonnier.

• VIKTORS SIDOR / AV TORE LUND

• HEIMSKRINGLA.NO.      Mytologisk namnförteckning.
  

• 
  

• VIKTOR RYDBERG SKRIFTER (archive.org)

• Teutonic mythology i fulltext : Alla delarna på engelska och något tyskt.  Spec Vol 2.

• Rydberg, Viktor: Undersökningar i germanisk mytollgi (archive org) 1. (alt), 2.

1. Rydberg, Viktor: Fädernas gudasaga archive org.  1887

2. Om hjältesagan å Rökstenen . - 1883 / av Viktor Rydberg (Litteraturbanken) Annan digit.

3. 
   Rydberg: Den siste athenaren.  d 1;   d 2
   
   Rydberg: UNDERSÖKNINGAR I GERMANISK MYTOLOGI Runeberg
   
   THE SWORD OF VICTORY / William P Reaves
   GERMANIC MYTHOLOGY / William P Reaves
   
   Sejrssvaerdet / Översatt av Otto Burchenius. Danska versionen med Bevisförelsen. - 1885.
   Sejrsvaerdet
   En kort essä "Til Bevisförelsen" skriven av Rydberg 1884 avslutar den danska utgåvan av Sejssvaerdet ovan. Rydberg skrev essän 1884, den publicerades i Sejrssvaerdet 1885. Detta är första gången som Rydberg försökte presentera de resonemang och de bevis som låg till grund för hans Undersökningar i germanisk mytologi.  "Sejssvaerdet "essay titled "Til Bevisförelsen" ('Toward the Evidence'), written by the author in 1884, appeared at the end of the Danish translation of this work known as Sejrssvædet (1885). It was the first time that Rydberg attempted to demonstrate the reasoning and evidence behind his presentation of the Germanic mythological epic.  In it, Rydberg sought to prove two of the primary points of his work: the outline of the story about Freyja's husband Oðr, and the identification of the elf-smith Völund of Völundarkviða, with Idunn's kidnapper, the giant Thjazi. Rydberg believed that if these two points were proven, the rest would be automatically accepted. This essay, only published in Danish once, did not appear in Swedish. It became obsolete the following year with the appearance of the first volume of Rydberg's masterwork: Investigations into Germanic Mythology (1886). The essay is of interest, in that it serves as a precursor to his later efforts, and shows the state of his research in 1884, two years before the publication of  UGM I. I hope to present that essay here in the future.
   Sångerna om Svipdag
   Sången om Fjölsvinn.

Rydberg : Vapensmeden

Författarens namn

Underlig text av Anna Linden

Viktor Rydberg and the comparative study of the history of Indo-European religion. (Lychnos 2004)

 By Anna Lindén.

In the United States of today, there is an increasing interest taken in the books on comparative religion written by the Swedish poet and scholar Viktor Rydberg (1828–95). Last year two of his major works, Researches in Teutonic mythology (Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi, I) and Magic of the Middle Ages (Medeltidens magi), appeared in English reprint. At the same time Rydberg’s Our father’s god saga (Fädernas gudasaga) was translated into English. In this essay, I have studied Rydberg’s mythological research of the 1880s – especially his Indo-European comparisons – in its scholarly context and asked why it did not attract as much attention as one would have expected. Rydberg’s research is, of course, far too fanciful for our modern taste; yet, I think it deserves better than being ignored as a mere curiosity. Even today, Rydberg’s Indo-European comparisons in the second part of Undersökningar (not yet available in English translation) can give the Indo-European scholar much inspiration. Characteristic for Rydberg as a scholar of comparative religion is his independence. The main thesis in Undersökningar is that the originally individual myths were arranged in an epical chain, starting with chaos and creation and ending with Ragnarök and the new creation, during the Neolithic period (the oldest Indo-European age, according to Rydberg). Rydberg sees the epical chain as the essence of the Teutonic and Indo-Iranian mythologies. He probably got this idea from the Old Norse poem Völuspá, which contains a kind of eschatological epos. The focus on apocalypse and eschatology in the ancient Iranian religion probably also inspired him. Rydberg’s mythological research had little influence on his contemporaries, since comparative religion was dominated by schools that Rydberg did not belong to. He was in fact sometimes very critical of them, and the representatives of those schools were of course as critical to Rydberg as he was to them. Rydberg’s Undersökningar was written in the Swedish language. Although the first part of this work was translated into English in 1889, the from a scholarly perspective most interesting Indo-European comparisons were to be found in the second part, not available in any of the world languages. This fact surely diminished Rydberg’s international influence.