ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

I still like "all before man" best:

The grand and rugged landscapes of Northern 
Europe, the midnight sun, ther flashing rays of 
the aurora borealis, the ocean continually l
ashing itself into fury against the great cliffs 
and icebergs of the Arctic Circel, could not bit 
impress the people as vividly as the almost 
miraculous vegetation, the perpetual light, 
and the blue seas and skys of their brief 
summer season. It is no great wonder, therefore, 
that the Icelanders, for instance, to whom we 
owe the most perfect records of this belief, 
fancied in looking about them that the world was 
originally created from a strange mixture 
of fire and ice.


Myths of the Norseman From the Eddas and Sagas, 
H.A. Guerber (pg 1)
Dover, 0-486-27348-2

>From pg 2 of the same:

South of this dark chasm, and directly opposite 
Niflheim, the realm of mist, was another world 
called Muspells-heum, the home of elemental 
fire, where all was warmth and brightness, and 
whose frontiers were continually guarded by 
Surtr, the flame giant.

Now, as we are surely aware by now, the "elemental" might as well be oil or 
coal, elemental properties found in the earth. More to the point, the Myths of 
Niflheim & Muspellsheim, stories of Ice and Fire from Iceland, they are all 
creation stores, pre-human creation stories, tales of trolls and dwarves and 
Giants and Gods, but not of men.

At the same time "bending=mancy" is on the same language map as "weik=bending" "weik=sorcery". And lord only knows there's plenty of shamanism coming down the pike.


David Casseres:
So, Vormance = "forward divination."  Or varmints, I like that!

On 4/3/07, Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com > wrote:
--- David Casseres <david.casseres at gmail.com > wrote:

> Alden Vormance.  All' den vor Mann's.  Can any of
> our German-speakers do anything with that?

Using ...

http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en 

All' den vor Mann's = All' before Mann's

Alles den vor Mann's = Everything before Mann's

However ...

vor = fowards (Ger.)

ENTRY:  wer-
DEFINITION:     Conventional base of various Indo-European 
roots; to turn, bend....

http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE571.html

-mancy = divination, prophecy (Gr.)

http://www.bartleby.com/61/26/M0072600.html

http://www.wordquests.info/cgi/ice2-for.cgi?file=/hsphere/local/home/scribejo/wo
rdquests.info/htm/L-Gk-mancy-A.htm&HIGHLIGHT=mancy 

   "'It was some sort of prophesy, then?' asked Dr.
Vormance.
   "'Not quite as we're used to thinking of it,'
Throyle replied. "For us it's simple ability to see 
into the future, based on our linear way of regarding
time, a simple straight line from the past, through
present, into the future. Christian time, as you might
say. But shamans see it differently. Their notion of 
time is spread out not in a single dimension but over
many, which all exist in a single, timeless instant.'"
(AtD, Pt. II, p.

Also ...

Vormance --> varmints?