I was asked which tattoo I would choose, if I wanted to represent our folk and our relationship to our Gods. Straight away, the Mannaz rune came to mind. Continuing my series of short blogs on runes and symbols that are important to Odinism, the following, are my thoughts regarding the Mannaz rune;
Mannus the First King
Mannaz is the conventional name of the rune ᛗ of the Elder Futhark that makes an ‘m’ sound when spoken aloud. It is derived from the reconstructed proto-Germanic word Mannaz. In the later Younger Futhark ᛘ is maðr ("man"). It took up the shape of the algiz rune ᛉ, replacing Elder Futhark ᛗ. All of the words derived from Germanic ‘man’ evolved from this word e.g. Woman, mankind, and Latin human etc.
The rune is recorded in all three Rune Poems, in the Norwegian and Icelandic poems as maðr, and in the Anglo-Saxon poem as man.
Norwegian Man is an augmentation of the dust; great is the claw of the hawk.
Icelandic Man is delight of man and augmentation of the earth and adorner of ships.
Anglo-Saxon The joyous man is dear to his kinsmen;
yet every man is doomed to fail his fellow,
since the Lord by his decree
will commit the vile carrion to the earth.
The Mannaz rune is very special in that it joins a small privileged group of runes that also represent a person or God. The first King Mannaz:
Mannus is considered the "First Germanic King" or the first noble King among men. Tacitus wrote that Mannus was the son of an Earth-born God called Tuisto which may mean twin referring to the twin Gods of the Germanic creation story. Mannus was the first king to teach the people how to maintain the eternal circle of sacrifice e.g. give to the Gods/universe and the Gods/universe will give back allow you to grow crops, hunt game etc etc. He had 3 sons who were the progenitors of the three Germanic tribes, Ingaevones, Herminones and Istvaeones that later split to form all of the Germanic tribes across the north from Scandinavia to Germania and later England etc.
Interestingly, the First King legends for the ancient Scythians, Atlantians, Slavic, Hellenic and even the Egyptian people all share many similarities with the Germanic origin myth. These myths share certain common traits. They all talked of a God having a child with a woman and that this child would become the first king who has 3 sons who would become the progenitors of the 3 tribes that would later split and form all of the tribes of our folk. This suggests that the legend is not just a Germanic origin story but that it has its roots in our shared European Aryan beginnings. The similarities with the myth of the First Egyption king may be coincidence or it may bolster the theory that the earliest Egyption empire was at least in part formed by ancient Europeans.
A being with the same name etymologically appears in the Vedic traditions brought to India 4000+ years ago by our European Aryan ancestors. मनु (Manu) is the progenitor and first man to worship the Gods. The Sanskrit word for human मानव ( mānava) means "Children of Manu". The laws of Manu explain that from the head of Manu comes the priest, the heart the warrior, the hands the craftsman and the feet the slave.
The road from consciousness to super-consciousness is to balance the mind, heart, hands, and feet in ourselves in our society and in our cosmos. The caste system accommodates the priest, the professional soldiers, the tradesman, and the service workers where a person is exceptional at one thing at the expense of everything else. However, society finds balance in that we can all complement each other without all being the same. This Vedic system is very similar to the European / Germanic system with our 3 castes given to us by Heimdallr.
It's such a shame that so many of our ancient European ancestors went to India, Iran and other far-off places (4000 yrs+ ago). Little of them remain there now other than remnants of our ancient European Aryan traditions, faith and language that we gave them. In part, It inspired Indias Hindu faith.
Fortunately, most of our Aryan ancestors chose wisely and migrated throughout our native Europe, mixing with the WHG folk (who were like us anyway) and completely dominating it rather than going south across the med etc. It's always better to stick with your own folk. This reminds me of the quote that “All empires are born of blood & that All empires perish when they betray that blood.”
The Slavic tribes have an origin story which talks of 3 brothers splitting up to form 3 tribes which then form all of the later Slavic tribes. When Alexander the Great encountered the Scythian people they told his scribes of their origin story which also included a first king born of a God who had 3 sons. Plato in one of his texts tells of the Atlantian legends. In these stories, there is a king born of God who has 3 sons etc etc. Minos the great Helenic king was said to be born of a God and a human woman, they had 3 sons etc etc. Menes was the First King of the Egyptian empire who was the first to bring all the tribes around the Nile together with the help of his sons. Admittedly the idea regarding the Egyptian legend being connected to our European myths would need more evidence before being taken seriously.
Regarding Mannaz being the son of Toisto, the Mannaz rune represents the bond between humans and gods, for we are descended from the gods. Even when we have forgotten this, the divine spark is hidden inside us. Mannaz is the rune of human consciousness which ever seeks wisdom and insight to continue its evolutionary progress toward perfected human. Mannaz is the rune of human intelligence and the rational mind because we are self-aware and intelligent due to that divine spark given to us by the Gods. This example shows us how Tiwaz gave us this gift but let’s not forget Odin and Heimdallr have also given these gifts to their children – Odin and his brothers breathed spirit into Ask and Embla and Heimdallr as Rig, fathered a child which is the first thrall, karl, and jarl respectively, representatives of the three Germanic castes.
With all this in mind, we can see that the children of Mannaz / Mannus are the main Aryan tribes of Europe and their descendants (no one else). This is uncomfortable to a lot of people because it means that the words human, man, woman and mankind do not include any people that are not descendants of the main European Aryan tribes………. Words have a meaning and a history. Is it right that the original meaning of a word is discarded, just for the sake of politics? I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.
As always, do your own research, I am not an academic historian. I am learning as I go. I write these blogs to help collect my thoughts on topics that are important to mes I research the history and heritage of our folk. Think for yourselves and continue the search for knowledge as we all should.
Hyperborea Rising!
FFF
Hail the Gods!
References:
Plato
The Poetic Edda
Tacitus Germania
Bede - the history of the English
Teutonic Mythology by Grimm
Monumenta Germania Historica by Oswald holder eggerand and Bernard
Myths of the Pagan North by C Abram.
The Arctic Home in the Vedas by Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Rune Lore by Thorolf Wardle
