What are the sacred texts of our kind? Here I am looking for things that are not explicitly Christian or non-Christian, but things which expore and exemplify the Aryan.

For starters:

1- Illiad
2- Odyssey
3- Aeneid
4- Niebelungenlied
5- Chanson de Roland
6- Beowulf
7- [edited] Nordic epics..? Saga of the Volsungs?

Other thoughts? I'm looking for epics with the scale of MYTH. Not philosophy or mere history; nor epics from other racial-national origins such as Gilgamesh for example, or the Hebrew Scriptures.

I am weak on Indian-Aryan-Hindu classics, but certainly representative epics could be includible. Please state which and why if you are knowledgeable in this area. Somebody channel Dr Oliver on this!

Ah, this is a great thread!

Once we have a definite list we can post links. I would add for now

8 - Mahabharata
9 - Ramayana
10-(Persian epic, title escapes me at the moment)
11-Ab Urbe Condita - Livius, or history of Rome by Livy. It tells what happened after th Aeneid and changes from mythology into "real history"
12-Histories of Herodotos. Also the connection between myth and history, but for Greece
13-Mabinogion or something. Some Celtic mythology (about which I know nothing, I'm afraid)
14 History of the Kings of England by Geoffrey of Monmouth
15 Those books about purgatory, hell and heaven, by Dante. Can't remember the name right now.
16 Kalevala or something. The finnish epic.
17 Irish epics
19 History of the Danish Kings (or something like that) by Saxo Grammaticus

Isn't there some slav epic? I don't know really. Also, I didn't consider books that were too heavily theological like the Rig Veda and the Theogeny by Hesiod.

Ah, this is a great thread!

Once we have a definite list we can post links. I would add for now

8 - Mahabharata
9 - Ramayana
10-(Persian epic, title escapes me at the moment)
11-Ab Urbe Condita - Livius, or history of Rome by Livy. It tells what happened after th Aeneid and changes from mythology into "real history"
12-Histories of Herodotos. Also the connection between myth and history, but for Greece
13-Mabinogion or something. Some Celtic mythology (about which I know nothing, I'm afraid)
14 History of the Kings of England by Geoffrey of Monmouth
15 Those books about purgatory, hell and heaven, by Dante. Can't remember the name right now.
16 Kalevala or something. The finnish epic.
17 Irish epics
19 History of the Danish Kings (or something like that) by Saxo Grammaticus

Isn't there some slav epic? I don't know really. Also, I didn't consider books that were too heavily theological like the Rig Veda and the Theogeny by Hesiod.

I'm not talking history. You have a couple of history books in there. Such as Herodotus. That is required reading and EPIC in scope, but it is very much history not fiction.

You could start another thread for history. That would be a long one considering the usual high level of interest in these parts.

Dante's Inferno. An excellent edition that should not have escaped me.

You two are making me feel stupid. Out of all those, I've read the Iliad, Odyssey, Beowulf, and Dante's Divine Comedy.

The Ulster Cycle

Tolkien's Silmarillion.

what is the ulster cycle?

silmarillion and LOTR are "maybies" due to their recent origin. same thing Wagner's Ring Cycle. But, if I had to pick one EPIC for the 19th century and one for the 20th-- it would be Wagner's Ring and the LOTR plus Hobbit and Silmarillion.

Note that Wagner's Ring is three dramas and a prelude (prelude is Das Rheingold; others are Siegfried Die Walkure and Gotterdamerung) and that the LOTR is three dramas and a preface-- the preface being the Hobbit.

Alright, skip the heavily historical material. I will use them for a new thread anyway. :) Livy and Herodotos, you're history.

What about History of the Kings of England by Geoffrey of Monmouth? Have to check it.

Would Tolkien's work be included? Maybe also R.E.Howard's Conan books then...but nothing more modern than that, please.

Then there's the greek epic Argonautica.

what is the ulster cycle?
It's probably the oldest of four Irish myth cycles. The best known story from it is the Cattle Raid of Cooley (Tain Bo Cuailnge), with Cu Chulainn and Queen Medb (Maeve).
silmarillion and LOTR are "maybies" due to their recent origin. same thing Wagner's Ring Cycle. But, if I had to pick one EPIC for the 19th century and one for the 20th-- it would be Wagner's Ring and the LOTR plus Hobbit and Silmarillion.
I'll admit Tolkien's work is iffy because of how new it is, but the Silmarillion is on par with Ovid's Metamorphoses for the amount of detail in the stories.
QUOTE]

Volsunga Saga

Metamorphoses

Le Morte D'Arthur

Leatherstocking Tales (Not sacred but great American frontier myth--love JF Cooper!)

Probably will get some arguments with this, but I say the Rig Veda, The 'Horse' Veda- all the Vedas. Does it get more Aryan?:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rvi01.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/

Probably will get some arguments with this, but I say the Rig Veda, The 'Horse' Veda- all the Vedas. Does it get more Aryan?:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rvi01.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/


I'm not sure which is which when it comes to Hindu-Aryan epics. Can somebody explain?

Volsunga Saga

Metamorphoses

Le Morte D'Arthur

Leatherstocking Tales (Not sacred but great American frontier myth--love JF Cooper!)

Volsung Saga overlaps with the Niebelungenlied, doesnt it?

Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory is the best compilation of Arthurian legends for sure. That is epic stuff.

Natty Bumpoe, er, good stuff but not exactly what I'm getting at in this thread...

Metamorphoses by Ovid is a compilation of myths, and so I would not necessarily call it an Epic, which suggests unity of time place and action. But good classical stuff to be sure.

Volsung Saga overlaps with the Niebelungenlied, doesnt it?

Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory is the best compilation of Arthurian legends for sure. That is epic stuff.

Natty Bumpoe, er, good stuff but not exactly what I'm getting at in this thread...

Metamorphoses by Ovid is a compilation of myths, and so I would not necessarily call it an Epic, which suggests unity of time place and action. But good classical stuff to be sure.
Aye, Niebelungenlied does overlap the Volsung Saga, but it's a more continental Germanic rendering of the stories. Very close.

A few sources say Ovid wanted Metamorphoses to be read as a continuous epic, that's why I included it.

Sorry about Cooper. I just wish more people would read him.

A list like this is bound to devolve to personal taste. Even so there should be no question about the Vedas -- these are Aryan works, period. The Pelikan translation of the Vedas is as good as white scripture as you're going to find anywhere.

And since it's about personal taste, my own includes the Corpus Hermeticum:


http://www.gnosis.org/library/hermet.htm


They've been arguing about the provinence of this one forever, and a renegade scholar (William Theaux) has argued that the works ascribed to "Hermes" are actually the underground utterings of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten after he was booted out of Egypt.

Whether that's true or not (and it's typical of the legends that have sprung up around Hermes) the fact is many white men have been inspired by the Hermetic writings for centuries. To this day smart neopagans skip wicca and go right to the Grand Old Man, not a bad thing.

What are the sacred texts of our kind? Here I am looking for things that are not explicitly Christian or non-Christian, but things which expore and exemplify the Aryan.

For starters:

1- Illiad
2- Oddysey
3- Aeneid
4- Niebelungenlied
5- Chanson de Roland
6- Beowulf
7- Icelandic Sagas..? _____________________

Other thoughts? I'm looking for epics with the scale of MYTH. Not philosophy or mere history; nor epics from other racial-national origins such as Gilgamesh for example, or the Hebrew Scriptures.

I am weak on Indian-Aryan-Hindu classics, but certainly representative epics could be includible. Please state which and why if you are knowledgeable in this area. Somebody channel Dr Oliver on this!

That is a fine list and I am not sure if I can surpass that although I may add the works of Julius Evola to that list. ;)

Aye, Niebelungenlied does overlap the Volsung Saga, but it's a more continental Germanic rendering of the stories. Very close.

A few sources say Ovid wanted Metamorphoses to be read as a continuous epic, that's why I included it.

Sorry about Cooper. I just wish more people would read him.

Yes and unlike the Volsunga Saga it is highly xtianised.

Alright, skip the heavily historical material. I will use them for a new thread anyway. :) Livy and Herodotos, you're history.

What about History of the Kings of England by Geoffrey of Monmouth? Have to check it.

Would Tolkien's work be included? Maybe also R.E.Howard's Conan books then...but nothing more modern than that, please.

Then there's the greek epic Argonautica.

Monmouth is fiction and should not be interpreted in an historical way.

Those Hermetic writings are not epics-- so far as I know. When I use the word epic, I think of a quasi-historical, quasi-mythical story about a heroic quest of sorts, that has the Aristotelian unities of time place and action. I have read an epic defined as a long narrative poem as well. I think all of these on my list are in fact poems in the original....

Here's my list updated:

1- Illiad
2- Oddysey
3- Aeneid
4- Niebelungenlied & Volsung Saga
5- Chanson de Roland
6- Beowulf
7. Le Morte de Arthur
8. Argonautica
9. Ramayana
10. Mahabharata

That is a fine list and I am not sure if I can surpass that although I may add the works of Julius Evola to that list. ;)

Well Evola wrote philosophy or something; he commented on these works quite a bit but I am looking for epics in the sense of long narrative poems which have the Aristotelian unities of time, place, and action.

As for Christianization, the Chanson de Roland is Christian, so is Le Morte de Arthur; going back farther in time, Beowulf is set in a Christian frame, and the Niebelungenlied is Christianized as you say.

Wagner's Ring Cycle I think, is epic stuff; transcending all literary and artistic categories-- I think he called it gesamkunstwerk-- you Germans tell us what that means--

take a look at this folks, definition and comment by James Lynch:

http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/epic.html

An epic or heroic poem is:
A long narrative poem;
On a serious subject;
Written in a grand or elevated style;
Centered on a larger-than-life hero.
Epics also tend to have the following characteristics:
An opening in medias res;
An invocation to the Muse;
A concern with the fate of a nation or people;
A correspondingly large scale, often ranging around the world (and in Milton's case, beyond the earth and into heaven);
The intervention of supernatural figures, who are interested in the outcome of the action (the system of gods, demons, angels, and such is often called machinery);
Extended similes, generally called epic similes;
Long catalogues, whether of ships, characters, or places;
Extensive battle scenes;
A few stock episodes, including a visit to the underworld.
Homer wrote the oldest surviving epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, from around the eight century B.C. To be precise, change wrote to composed: Homer, even if there was a single individual called Homer, was probably illiterate, and probably composed orally. (There's a huge literature on this; you'll find a swell overview in Bernard Knox's introductory material in Robert Fagles's translation of the Iliad.) Virgil, although thoroughly literate, consciously imitated many of Homer's techniques, and produced the most famous epic poem of Augustan Rome, the Aeneid. Many of the characteristics of later epic derive from the quirks of oral composition.
In both Greek and Latin, the most common epic meter was dactylic hexameter. That's a difficult meter to pull off in English, though; English epics aren't associated with any one meter, though most of them beginning with Spenser are in pentameter. Famous English epics include the Old English poem Beowulf (written in alliterative meter); in the Renaissance, Spenser's Faerie Queene (with its complicated Spenserian stanza) and Milton's Paradise Lost (in blank verse). In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, heroic couplets were considered the best form for epics; Dryden's translation of Virgil and Pope's translation of Homer use heroic couplets.

The history of the epic is worth studying in some detail. The Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid are the most famous epics of antiquity, but not the only ones; Statius' Thebaid, for instance, is worth reading. In the Middle Ages, the dominant long narrative form is the romance, which is epic's kissin' cousin. Exactly what to call Beowulf is unclear, but Dante's Divine Comedy is probably best described as an epic

As you get into the Renaissance, the familiar pattern of the classical epic becomes more visible: Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1516) mixes romance with epic, but Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata (1575) is clearly modeled on the epics of Homer and Virgil. Camoens's Lusiads are the great Portuguese epic. The first great English epic of the Renaissance is Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590-96), followed by Milton's Paradise Lost (1667-74).

But then the form seems to disappear, or at least to trasform itself radically. In the late seventeenth century, most writers were convinced that epic was the highest form — and yet, according to most conventional histories of English literature, no one succeeded in writing a great one. There are good translations of the classical epics by Dryden and Pope; there are also brilliant mock epics. Henry Fielding incorporates many epic features into his novels (he calls Joseph Andrews a "comic epic-poem in prose"). In the early nineteenth century, Wordsworth tries to write a kind of epic, The Prelude, but it's a very loose fit with the traditional definitions.

Sometimes it's unclear whether a particular work is best called an epic. Gilgamesh, for instance, works on a scale similar to most epics, but it's not directly related to the Homeric tradition, and lacks many of the characteristics of the Western epic. Ditto the Indian Ramayana and Mahabharata. In the West, many works of the Middle Ages and Renaissance blend qualities of the epic with the romance — there were plenty of squabbles between the supporters of Tasso and Ariosto in sixteenth-century Italy over how much romance can be admitted into epic. And after the decline of the traditional epic in the seventeenth century, many works borrow many epic characteristics, though again, it's unclear whether they should really be called epics. Melville's Moby-Dick, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Joyce's Ulysses, Derek Walcott's Omeros — all have epic characteristics, but it's unclear whether they're properly epics themselves.

Whatever you do, though, don't use the term epic loosely for anything large in scope. Although networks will try to convince you every miniseries and telemovie is "epic," don't believe 'em — or, at least, don't use that sort of advertising cant in an English class.

Glossary of Literary
and Rhetorical Terms
By Jack Lynch,
Rutgers University
Last revised 3 August 1999

I just dug that out. Ironic the themes that correspond between our discussion and that professor's comments.

I guess what I was getting at when I said, "Aryan Epics-- Sacred Texts" was that our Epics ARE our sacred texts...... like unto Scriptures... for us as a people...

I just dug that out. Ironic the themes that correspond between our discussion and that professor's comments.

I guess what I was getting at when I said, "Aryan Epics-- Sacred Texts" was that our Epics ARE our sacred texts...... like unto Scriptures... for us as a people...
I think the Greek epics and scriptures would define us best as Western white people. Most of our philosophy, metaphysics and morality spring from that culture. The ancient Jews feared Hellenism, and still do.

I guess what I was getting at when I said, "Aryan Epics-- Sacred Texts" was that our Epics ARE our sacred texts...... like unto Scriptures... for us as a people...

OK as far as it goes, AE, but it's the "sacred" part I was confused about.

"Sacred" seems best used when close to its original meaning ("forbidden", "off limits") and applying that to old poetry might not work well if you're also trying to use it on a mass scale.

I'll submit one even I think odd, but it fits: Evangeline by Longfellow:


http://www.acadiana.org/longfellow.htm


Why:

Evangeline is a story of the French Acadian expulsion from Nova Scotia by the British. So it's an epic written by an American about events in Canada that include activity by French and British. More specific to North America you cannot get, nor much more European. Also let's everyone know where the Cajuns came from, which can't hurt either.

Evangeline also uses as its central metaphor Evangeline's separation from her lover -- the part that makes it a love story is actually driving home how awful it was for these rooted French peasants being thrown off their lands and driven into exile. Longfellow makes the European's connection to their land (and loss of it) the epic theme.

Evangeline is almost stricty limited to the Eastern Woodlands of North America. Some familiarity with the area is a must to grasp some of what Longfellow is putting down. This would make it race & even region specific so it would satisfy the use of the word "sacred" in this case.

It's considered dated now but lots less so than the Vedas.

At one point Evangeline actually was considered a great epic. One critic (I forget who) compared Longfellow's opening lines ("This is the forest primeval") with Virgil's "arms & the man" opening, not faint praise.

This isn't the one where Longfellow calls Jews "a tribe accursed". That was in one of the final stanzas of Hiawatha.:D

For an "american epic" to be included in this series, it would have to be an epic about the Vikings that carved an empire out of the America's around 1000 AD. It is a mythological story, but like all white mythology it has a basic in fact.

I have some books about that, but no one wrote an epic yet.
the Book of Mormon comes closest to it probably (but isn't nearly good enough to be included).

OK as far as it goes, AE, but it's the "sacred" part I was confused about.

"Sacred" seems best used when close to its original meaning ("forbidden", "off limits") and applying that to old poetry might not work well if you're also trying to use it on a mass scale.

I'll submit one even I think odd, but it fits: Evangeline by Longfellow:


http://www.acadiana.org/longfellow.htm


Why:

Evangeline is a story of the French Acadian expulsion from Nova Scotia by the British. So it's an epic written by an American about events in Canada that include activity by French and British. More specific to North America you cannot get, nor much more European. Also let's everyone know where the Cajuns came from, which can't hurt either.

Evangeline also uses as its central metaphor Evangeline's separation from her lover -- the part that makes it a love story is actually driving home how awful it was for these rooted French peasants being thrown off their lands and driven into exile. Longfellow makes the European's connection to their land (and loss of it) the epic theme.

Evangeline is almost stricty limited to the Eastern Woodlands of North America. Some familiarity with the area is a must to grasp some of what Longfellow is putting down. This would make it race & even region specific so it would satisfy the use of the word "sacred" in this case.

It's considered dated now but lots less so than the Vedas.

At one point Evangeline actually was considered a great epic. One critic (I forget who) compared Longfellow's opening lines ("This is the forest primeval") with Virgil's "arms & the man" opening, not faint praise.

This isn't the one where Longfellow calls Jews "a tribe accursed". That was in one of the final stanzas of Hiawatha.:D

funny you should mention that, I halfway expected some clown to say Hiawatha. I had entirely forgotten about Evangeline.

Another good lesson from the story of the Acadians is that people can be expelled and replaced by another ethnicity. Which is what's happening to Whites-- as a composite of European ethnicities-- and it's what we're going to have to do to the OTHER to survive as intact groups. Like the Zionists said, a group has got to have a homeland! Why not us?

Apart from "Evangeline", two other "aryan american" epics that could make the list are "Tom Quick, the Indian Slayer" and the "Old Shatterhand" books by Karl May.

There is a portugese epic called "Lusitania" about which I don't know more than its title.

Did I mention the "Oera Linda" book?

The whole of the Poetic eddas fits the bill.

http://www.northvegr.org/lore/poetic/index.php

The whole of the Poetic eddas fits the bill.

http://www.northvegr.org/lore/poetic/index.php

Great find, einzelwesen. Had no idea this translation was online. Now this is scripture that soothes the soul:


27. The ship’s-tents soon the chieftain struck,
And waked the throng of warriors all;
(The heroes the red of dawn beheld)
And on the masts the gallant men
Made fast the sails in Varinsfjord.

28. There was the beat of oars and clash of iron,
Shield smote shield as the ships’-folk rowed;
Swiftly went the warrior-laden
Fleet of the ruler forth from the land...

Yeah. Posting links to Northvegr isn't a good idea at certain Asatru/Odinist websites. It seems that the Northvegr owners screwed some fellow Asatruar, and more than once, in a business deal or some-such, and as such aren't the most popular of folks.

http://logretta.org/3.htm

But it really is an bloody excellent resource.

Go back to www.northvegr.org/lore/ (http://www.northvegr.org/lore/) and you'll find yourself in hog heaven. There's EVERYTHING you could possibly want in this department. EVERYTHING, I swear.

The whole of the Poetic eddas fits the bill.

http://www.northvegr.org/lore/poetic/index.php

Do the Poetic eddas consist of one identifiable whole or a compilation? that is why I left my #7 "Icelandic Sagas" open-- I am ignorant of exactly what would best fit this as most appropriate.

The Poetic eddas are a compilation of different poems written and compiled over time, some of them further divided into poems within poems.

For example, the Havamal is divided into the Hovamol, Malahattr, Loddfafnismal, Runattal thattr Othins, and Ljothatal.

Others do not appear elsewhere in any form, at least not nowadays.

Others appear in many, many other sources.

For example, the Saga of the Volsungs (I forget its Old Norse title) appears in poetic form in the Poetic eddas as Fra Dautha Sinfjotla, Gripisspo, Reginsmol, Fafnismol, and Sigrdrifumol. And these poems and the saga is the basis of Wagner's Nibelungen-lied, among other Germanic sources.

(The Saga of the Volsungs is perhaps the most ubiquitous of the Norse/Germanic legends.)

EDIT: As for your category "Icelandic sagas", it's not very useful. (Not to be rude.) I mean, the eddic poems aren't 'sagas', they're poems. A 'saga' is prose, not poetry- do you see?

The Prose edda contains some Icelandic sagas, but others are either from other Scandinavian countries, or a mixture of different Scandinavian legends and stories.

The Poetic eddas are a compilation of different poems written and compiled over time, some of them further divided into poems within poems.

For example, the Havamal is divided into the Hovamol, Malahattr, Loddfafnismal, Runattal thattr Othins, and Ljothatal.

Others do not appear elsewhere in any form, at least not nowadays.

Others appear in many, many other sources.

For example, the Saga of the Volsungs (I forget its Old Norse title) appears in poetic form in the Poetic eddas as Fra Dautha Sinfjotla, Gripisspo, Reginsmol, Fafnismol, and Sigrdrifumol. And these poems and the saga is the basis of Wagner's Nibelungen-lied, among other Germanic sources.

(The Saga of the Volsungs is perhaps the most ubiquitous of the Norse/Germanic legends.)

EDIT: As for your category "Icelandic sagas", it's not very useful. (Not to be rude.) I mean, the eddic poems aren't 'sagas', they're poems. A 'saga' is prose, not poetry- do you see?

The Prose edda contains some Icelandic sagas, but others are either from other Scandinavian countries, or a mixture of different Scandinavian legends and stories.

Like I said, I'm ignorant of some of these distinctions where the Norse literature is concerned. I'm still looking for a simple answer about what from this literary niche best fits our list of Aryan epics. An epic suggests a poetic form not prose, so I guess that narrows it down. Please tell us more and also identify the best Nordic saga.

Also, I have the Niebelungenlied on the list already, so something other than that.

When I get this list optimized, I'm going to get hardbacked copies of every one and put them in a special place in my library and make sure my kids read them as they come of age. My mother gave me Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" when I was little, and I'm going to pass it on that much more.

An American Epic

The Winning of the West
Volumes 1-4
By Theodore Roosevelt

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0803289553.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

I think that's unlikely to be set in poetic form.

Pardon, a saga can be either poetry, or prose.

Check out Snorri Sturluson's "Skaldskaparmal" for more information; it's a bit heavy going, but there's lots of useful literary information in it.

I'd go with the Saga of the Volsungs myself (the 5 poetic eddas I listed above, which I understand to be available in the Penguin Classics range in a single book), because it's the oldest-known and most ubiquitous of the Norse/Germanic myths, but there's poems out there that serve as better overviews of the mythos itself.

EDIT: If it came to a toss-up between Nibelungen-lied, and the Saga of the Volsungs, I'd go for the latter choice- simply because the former was based upon it. I don't see that both couldn't be included, though, because they are significantly different.

I think that probably the libretto to Wagner's Ring cycle might be a "Sacred Epic" of sorts deserving a place on the list, separate and apart from the others.

I will try to get the libretto to Wagner's Rheingold, Siegfried, Walkure, and Gotterdamerung-- in German obviously, but I need to get one with a side by side English translation-- and that could conceivably qualify as an "epic" in itself, separate and apart from its obvious inspirations in the Neibelungenlied, the Nordic Sagas, and also certain Greek dramas. I will have to retrieve my copy of M Owen Lee's book "Athena Sings: Wagner and the Greeks" to find out exactly what Greek works he says Wagner drew upon for his variations on the Germanic-Nordic stories in the Ring cycle.

The Vedas
The Eddas
The Upanishads