Baldr and Achilles

[Steerpike]

I was thinking about the story of Baldr yesterday, and of couldn't help musing over some of the similarities, broadly speaking, between the myth of Baldr and the myth of Achilles. There is also a Hindu equivalent, though I don't know the name of the hero.

My question to those more knowledgeable than I: does the historical evidence show any actual connection between these mythologies, in that any of them can be shown to have been derived from the other? It seems like this might be more likely between the Greeks and Hindus than between either of them and Norse, but I don't know. Or, does it look more like these arose independently, reflecting some kind of universal unconscious or at least addressing such basic aspects of the human condition that multiple societies developed the myth independently?

 

[Reaver]

Excellent post, SP! I think it's Krishna who died from an arrow through the heel (or his foot, I'n not entirely sure). I'm also pretty certain that Joseph Campbell mentions the similarities of these hero legends in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

 

[Ankari]

From a college course I took many years ago, I learned that the aristocracy of India originated as people immigrating from central asia through Iran to India. The theory is that these people, once part of a civilization 0, separated and migrated east. Many settled in Iran and, later, India.

Shockley will know more of this, but there is the Graeco-Aryan theory if you want to read up a bit on it. FYI, Iran means "land of Aryans."

There is an ancient link between India, Iran, Central Asia, and Greece. It wouldn't surprise me to find their folklore/legends are linked as well.

 

[Shockley]

Ankari sent this thread my way, and luckily enough, this is related to my main field of study (migratory peoples).

The ruling class of ancient India was of Indo-European stock, much like the Greeks and the Norse. So yes, bluntly said, you are correct in making a connection here.

The core of this connection are Proto-Indo-European peoples, from which the later Indo-European tribes are descendant. These people had their own language (there are still cognates between English and Hindi-Urdu, fascinatingly enough), their own governing institutions, their own religion and yes, their own myths. We know some of these connections - for instance, the reigning theory is that Shiva = Odin and Agni = Thor, though with thousands of years of separation between them leading to different characteristics and myths.

The similarity between Achilles and Baldr is interesting, but it's just part of a larger mythos of death and dying and, of course, the mortality of the invulnerable. Talos is pierced in his heel by Jason and killed, for example, and Siegfried is killed by a spear blow to his one vulnerable spot. Krishna is shot in the leg and dies, yes, but Krishna may or may not have been invulnerable elsewhere.

One of the interesting things about the western and eastern split between the Indo-European people is that there seems to have been a religious inversion - the names of the evil forces are cognate to the good forces and vice-versa. For example, the Asura are evil in Hinduism and the Aesir are good in Nordic religion. Working on this idea, I decided to take a look at what Krishna actually means.

Krisha: Darkness, blackness, etc.
Baldr: Lord, King, Brave, etc. put also related to baldeag, which means 'brightness, the day.'

So, at the very least, we have some linguistic evidence pointing to the idea that this is just one part of the inversion tradition. Throw in that both Krishna and Baldr have reincarnation aspects (undertones of a full-fledged reincarnation theory were developing with the German Pagans at the time the religion was exterminated), and you have a clear relationship.

 

[Devor]

Although Achilles and Baldr are fairly extreme cases, it's pretty common in ancient cultures for mythological beings to have weird weaknesses, and there are many lesser examples of the phenomenon, like vampires with garlic. I don't know if there's a connection or not, but it seems to be a common enough theme regardless.

 

[Butterfly]

There is an ancient link between India, Iran, Central Asia, and Greece. It wouldn't surprise me to find their folklore/legends are linked as well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this basically the route of Alexander the Great's conquest, barring Egypt?

 

[Leif Notae]

Well, let's keep this in mind (speaking from the Nordic side as a representative of my gods), Snorri invented a lot of these myths on his own.

The religion itself was free form and changed between villages. When it came to the poetry they wrote, it had quintuple meaning buried into it and took studied contemplation to understand all the real meanings.

Snorri inserted what he thought was best to interest the Prince in his heritage instead of chivalry. Yes, he salvaged some of what the Norse people passed along, but in the end it can be influenced by other people when it was created.

Due to the massive trade routes established by the Norse (and quest for fame and fortune by our pirates), they easily could have brought back stories from other cultures and the word-of-mouth transmuted them into something more akin to what we see today.

 

[Shockley]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this basically the route of Alexander the Great's conquest, barring Egypt?

Correct, though this connection we're talking about predates Alexander by thousands of years. These invasions and invasions are mostly pre-historic.

Well, let's keep this in mind (speaking from the Nordic side as a representative of my gods), Snorri invented a lot of these myths on his own.

The religion itself was free form and changed between villages. When it came to the poetry they wrote, it had quintuple meaning buried into it and took studied contemplation to understand all the real meanings.

This is fundamentally correct, and something I try to point out as often as possible.

In addition, Old Norse is one of the most beautiful languages I've ever worked with, and the use of kennings is one of the more difficult aspects of linguistics.

Due to the massive trade routes established by the Norse (and quest for fame and fortune by our pirates), they easily could have brought back stories from other cultures and the word-of-mouth transmuted them into something more akin to what we see today.

This is, of course, correct. We also know of religious ideas migrating over land routes - just for example, the Georgians introduced a saint into the Christian world that is, very obviously, just a rendition of the Buddha. This happened all the time, and we wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of idea borrowing.

That said, we know that the Indo-European invaders of India shared a common cultural ancestry with the Proto-Germans and the Mycenaeans, so it would not be out of the realm of impossibility (and I would say likely) that the idea of a mortally wounded, previously invulnerable/invincible hero is something very primordial to these people.

 

[Tijmen]

simple:

Jezus / Achilles / Baldr / Krisna are sungods.
The sun slowly dies after sep 21 after being hit in the achilles heel.
In this case Jezus was stung by a scorpio ( constellation) and slowly dies.
The stories are in the seasons and constellations.
cheers.

 

[Anders Ämting]

There's plenty of similarities between Norse and Greek mythology, just compare the three Norns and the three Moirai. Some of it is probably due to migrating tribes, some of it caused by word of mouth. It's not that strange; keep in mind that Norse mythology is a great deal younger than Greek mythology.

simple:

Jezus / Achilles / Baldr / Krisna are sungods.
The sun slowly dies after sep 21 after being hit in the achilles heel.
In this case Jezus was stung by a scorpio ( constellation) and slowly dies.
The stories are in the seasons and constellations.
cheers.

Jezus?

Assuming you mean Jesus, as in JC, then non of those guys had anything to do with the sun except possibly Baldr, who was more of a god of light and good things in general. (Sól and Dagr were the actual gods of the sun and day respectively.) Heck, Baldr is the only one of them who actually counts as a god, strictly speaking.

This theory also assumes that A) all these cultures agree that Scorpius is, in fact, a scorpion (did the Norse even have constellations?) and B) that seasons work the same way in Scandinavia and India as they do in Greece, which I'm pretty sure they don't.

 

[Shockley]

The Norse view on constellations is complex - they had them, almost certainly, but they didn't view them in the same way the Greeks did. Now, the Greeks saw constellations as 'star pictures' for lack of a better term; when the Norse saw their mythic figures in the sky, it was usually in one star. Kind of a transplanted spirit, if you would.

As for what 'Jesuz' could be, I assume the above poster is Dutch.

None of those were sun gods (unless you buy the theory that Christianity is just a modified form of the Sol Invictus cult, which isn't as ridiculous as it seems on the surface). Baldr was more a god of conceptualized light (in the same way the Christian god is 'light,' ya dig?), just as his brother was conceptualized darkness. Achilles wasn't even a god, and Krishna was associated with the darkness.

 

[Tijmen]

Hai Anders,
i shall explain:

After sep 21 the sun slowly dies. There are several versions in different sungod stories of how this is (symbolicly) happening.
The arrow in the heel slows you down and after a scorpio-bite you slowly die. Metaphors depending on where you live on the globe. In Norse mythology the tree and the mistletoe are important symbols and in the deserts of Egypt and Israel the mean scorpio is the killer (also in real life). The scorpio bite looks like a (Judas) kiss and the constellation, the one that 'causes' the downfall of the sun, looks like a giant J in the nightsky.

The people on this earth have 1 thing in common: the seasons, the sun, the cold and winter, the spring and happiness etc.
This is the reason that all the stories worldwide show similarities.