Although his Christian affiliation made him stop short of fully tracing back the lineage of revolutionary general and first president of the Republic George Washington to the Norse pantheon of gods, late nineteenth century genealogist and theologian Albert Welles, taking a cue from saga writer and fellow Christian Snorri Sturluson who demoted the gods to larger-than-life versions of good marshals and stewards of the tribe, essentially linked the individual also romanticised as Roman statesman and embodiment of civil virtue Cincinnatus, across thirty-two generations of Viking ancestors to Odin. Of course these myth-making sessions are important for the cohesion of a people and serve to legitimise leaders and their actions, and while this claim garnered no significant traction nor created pretensions of divine and ordained right, such Teutonic twists have in other milieu led to catastrophic conclusions.
Sunday, 12 February 2017
semi-legendary
Although his Christian affiliation made him stop short of fully tracing back the lineage of revolutionary general and first president of the Republic George Washington to the Norse pantheon of gods, late nineteenth century genealogist and theologian Albert Welles, taking a cue from saga writer and fellow Christian Snorri Sturluson who demoted the gods to larger-than-life versions of good marshals and stewards of the tribe, essentially linked the individual also romanticised as Roman statesman and embodiment of civil virtue Cincinnatus, across thirty-two generations of Viking ancestors to Odin. Of course these myth-making sessions are important for the cohesion of a people and serve to legitimise leaders and their actions, and while this claim garnered no significant traction nor created pretensions of divine and ordained right, such Teutonic twists have in other milieu led to catastrophic conclusions.