Old Norse Traditions

[angela146]

Does anyone know of an old Norse tradition of wife sharing among brothers? Is there any way we can re-activate it?

OK, imagine four men, all blond, tall, athletic in varying degrees, intelligent in different ways - kind of like a four-man Swedish ski-team - guys who I love like brothers. Three of them are my brothers-in-law, the other one I get to fuck on a very regular basis.

They aren't carbon copies of each other, but they were certainly poured from similar molds. The notion of making out with my husband and three somewhat-younger versions of my husband - each of them different in pleasant ways - kinda trips my trigger.

For the first few years of our marriage, his brothers were all really young. But now that I'm 32 and the three of them are well into their twenties... they're adults... old enough and grown up enough that they aren't off-limits (age wise).

Sometimes I wish that there was an ancient tradition from the old country of brothers sharing wives on a cold mid-winter's eve.

That's the kind of old Norse tradition I could get into.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

Does anyone know of an old Norse tradition of wife sharing among brothers? Is there any way we can re-activate it?

OK, imagine four men, all blond, tall, athletic in varying degrees, intelligent in different ways - kind of like a four-man Swedish ski-team - guys who I love like brothers. Three of them are my brothers-in-law, the other one I get to fuck on a very regular basis.

They aren't carbon copies of each other, but they were certainly poured from similar molds. The notion of making out with my husband and three somewhat-younger versions of my husband - each of them different in pleasant ways - kinda trips my trigger.

For the first few years of our marriage, his brothers were all really young. But now that I'm 32 and the three of them are well into their twenties... they're adults... old enough and grown up enough that they aren't off-limits (age wise).

Sometimes I wish that there was an ancient tradition from the old country of brothers sharing wives on a cold mid-winter's eve.

That's the kind of old Norse tradition I could get into.

at the very least, it's a story idea.

 

[neonlyte]

Does anyone know of an old Norse tradition of wife sharing among brothers? Is there any way we can re-activate it?

OK, imagine four men, all blond, tall, athletic in varying degrees, intelligent in different ways - kind of like a four-man Swedish ski-team - guys who I love like brothers. Three of them are my brothers-in-law, the other one I get to fuck on a very regular basis.

They aren't carbon copies of each other, but they were certainly poured from similar molds. The notion of making out with my husband and three somewhat-younger versions of my husband - each of them different in pleasant ways - kinda trips my trigger.

For the first few years of our marriage, his brothers were all really young. But now that I'm 32 and the three of them are well into their twenties... they're adults... old enough and grown up enough that they aren't off-limits (age wise).

Sometimes I wish that there was an ancient tradition from the old country of brothers sharing wives on a cold mid-winter's eve.

That's the kind of old Norse tradition I could get into.

Angela,
I think the origin of the tale comes from a Muslim script. It concerned the passage of Norsemen down the rivers of what now is Ukraine, from Novgorod - the Viking base in Rus (now Russia) heading down to what now is Kiev. It was an early trade route between Northern Europe and Constantinople. The Muslim text was written by an emissary of the Sultan of Constantinople charged with establishing records of trade between the Muslims and the 'pagans'. He recorded in detail an encounter where the leader of the Norsemen died at the camp where the Muslim's effectively established a 'custom post'. The Norse leader was traveling with a female companion, assumed to be his wife, though Norse texts indicate wives usually remained 'at home'. After his death, each of the Norse clan 'brothers', in the emissaries words, raped the woman in the cabin of the longboat. The longboat then became the funeral pyre for both the Norse leader and his female companion, she was burnt alive. The text is believed to be authentic as it also records in detail the goods exchanged between both parties, taxes and exchange rates for different types of merchandise. From memory, it dates from the mid-800's, before the Norse had a comprehensive written language other than 'runes', and it is regarded as one of the few factual accounts of Norse behaviour. The Muslim was appalled by their behavior.

However, don't let that spoil a good tale.

 

[gauchecritic]

The Muslim text was written by an emissary of the Sultan of Constantinople

However, don't let that spoil a good tale.

Was he a contemporary of Ibn Fadlan? Take it all with a pinch of salt.

 

[Guest]

Does anyone know of an old Norse tradition of wife sharing among brothers? Is there any way we can re-activate it?

OK, imagine four men, all blond, tall, athletic in varying degrees, intelligent in different ways - kind of like a four-man Swedish ski-team - guys who I love like brothers. Three of them are my brothers-in-law, the other one I get to fuck on a very regular basis.

They aren't carbon copies of each other, but they were certainly poured from similar molds. The notion of making out with my husband and three somewhat-younger versions of my husband - each of them different in pleasant ways - kinda trips my trigger.

For the first few years of our marriage, his brothers were all really young. But now that I'm 32 and the three of them are well into their twenties... they're adults... old enough and grown up enough that they aren't off-limits (age wise).

Sometimes I wish that there was an ancient tradition from the old country of brothers sharing wives on a cold mid-winter's eve.

That's the kind of old Norse tradition I could get into.

I'd be happy with the one norseman, thank you...



Maharat

 

[neonlyte]

Was he a contemporary of Ibn Fadlan? Take it all with a pinch of salt.

It's attributed to Ibn Fadlan, 922. As Magnusson says, 'the funeral was proceeded by some gruesome rituals for which no parallels can be found in Viking literature'. I wouldn't necessarily regard it a fact, but it might be regarded as the source for the myth... to some extent perpetuated still through the UK's impression of 'loose' Scandinavian women.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Somewhere I read a lovely series of tales featuring a pair of redheaded brothers and the girls they got up to together... Not here, though, I just checked!

 

[gauchecritic]

Somewhere I read a lovely series of tales featuring a pair of redheaded brothers and the girls they got up to together... Not here, though, I just checked!

I just searched the stories using 'red' and 'up together' and all I found was a story called "Stella: Fisting of the fortunate"

 

[gauchecritic]

It's attributed to Ibn Fadlan, 922. As Magnusson says, 'the funeral was proceeded by some gruesome rituals for which no parallels can be found in Viking literature'. I wouldn't necessarily regard it a fact, but it might be regarded as the source for the myth... to some extent perpetuated still through the UK's impression of 'loose' Scandinavian women.

I don't doubt his value as a story teller, in fact I'll be quoting him in a novel as a source of unicorn eye-witness.

 

[neonlyte]

I don't doubt his value as a story teller, in fact I'll be quoting him in a novel as a source of unicorn eye-witness.

3 Chapters

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I think there is some confusion here.

"However, the Ibn Fadlan account is actually a burial ritual. Current understanding of Norse mythology suggests an ulterior motive to the slave-girl's 'sacrifice'. It is believed that in Norse mythology a woman who joined the corpse of a man on the funeral pyre would be that man's wife in the next world. For a slave girl to become the wife of a lord was an obvious increase in status.

Note the woman in the Ibn Fadlan was a slave girl, not his wife. Secondly, there is a reference to the "practice of Sati" where the wife is thrown on the husband's funeral pyre which is a Hindu tradition, not norse.

 

[neonlyte]

I think there is some confusion here.

"However, the Ibn Fadlan account is actually a burial ritual. Current understanding of Norse mythology suggests an ulterior motive to the slave-girl's 'sacrifice'. It is believed that in Norse mythology a woman who joined the corpse of a man on the funeral pyre would be that man's wife in the next world. For a slave girl to become the wife of a lord was an obvious increase in status.

Note the woman in the Ibn Fadlan was a slave girl, not his wife. Secondly, there is a reference to the "practice of Sati" where the wife is thrown on the husband's funeral pyre which is a Hindu tradition, not norse.

Lot of similarity between Norse and Hindu tradition, the Yinglinga Saga tells of the Æsir, the Norse Gods, coming out of Asia. I looked up the Ibn Fadlan passage and as you say, a slave girl volunteered for 'the duty'. She was killed by an 'unkempt woman' before the burning.

The authoritative passage, agreed as a an 'accurate translation' despite argument over its meaning is:

"I was told that when their chieftains die, the least they do is to cremate them.[39] I was very keen to verify this, when I learned of the death of one of [13] their great men. They placed him in his grave (qabr) and erected a canopy[40] over it for ten days, until they had finished making and sewing his <funeral garments>.[41]

[14] In the case of a poor man[42] they build a small boat, place him inside and burn it. In the case of a rich man, they gather together his possessions and divide them into three, one third for his family, one third to use for <his funeral> garments,[43] and one third with which they purchase[44] alcohol which they drink on the day when his slave-girl kills herself[45] and is cremated together with her master.[46] (They are addicted to alcohol, which they drink night and day. Sometimes one of them dies with the cup still in his hand.)[47]

When their chieftain dies, his family ask his slave-girls and slave-boys, “Who among you will die with him?” and some of them reply, “I shall.” Having said this, it becomes incumbent upon the person and it is impossible ever to turn back. Should that person try to, he is not permitted to do so. It is usually slave-girls who make this offer.

When that man whom I mentioned earlier died, they said to his slave-girls, “Who will die with him?” and one of them said, “I shall.” So they placed [15] two slave-girls[48] in charge of her to take care of her and accompany her wherever she went, even to the point of occasionally washing her feet with their own hands. They set about attending to the dead man, preparing his clothes for him and setting right all he needed. Every day the slave-girl would drink <alcohol> and would sing merrily and cheerfully.[49]

On the day when he and the slave-girl were to be burned I arrived at the river where his ship was. To my surprise I discovered that it had been beached and that four planks of birch (khadank) and other types of wood had been erected for it. Around them wood had been placed in such a way as to resemble scaffolding (anābīr).[50] Then the ship was hauled and placed on top of this wood.[51] They advanced, going to and fro <around the boat> uttering words which I did not understand, while he was still in his grave and had not been exhumed.

Then they produced a couch and placed it on the ship, covering it with quilts <made of> Byzantine silk brocade and cushions <made of> Byzantine silk brocade. Then a crone arrived whom they called the “Angel of Death” and she spread on the couch the coverings we have mentioned. She is responsible for having his <garments> sewn up and putting him in order[52] and it is she who kills the slave-girls. I myself saw her: a gloomy, corpulent woman, neither young nor old.[53]

When they came to his grave, they removed the soil from the wood and then removed the wood, exhuming him <still dressed> in the izār in which [16] he had died. I could see that he had turned black because of the coldness of the ground. They had also placed alcohol, fruit and a pandora (ṭunbūr)[54] beside him in the grave, all of which they took out. Surprisingly, he had not begun to stink and only his colour had deteriorated. They clothed him in trousers, leggings (rān), boots, a qurṭaq, and a silk caftan with golden buttons,[55] and placed a silk qalansuwwah <fringed> with sable on his head. They carried him inside the pavilion[56] on the ship and laid him to rest on the quilt, propping him with cushions. Then they brought alcohol, fruit and herbs (rayḥān)[57] and placed them beside him. Next they brought bread, meat and onions, which they cast in front of him, a dog, which they cut in two and which they threw onto the ship, and all of his weaponry, which they placed beside him. They then brought two mounts, made them gallop until they began to sweat, cut them up into pieces and threw the flesh onto the ship.[58] They next fetched two cows, which they also cut up into pieces and threw on board, and a cock and a hen, which they slaughtered and cast onto it.[59]

[17] Meanwhile, the slave-girl who wished to be killed was coming and going, entering one pavilion after another. The owner of the pavilion would have intercourse with her and say to her, “Tell your master that I have done this purely out of love for you.”

At the time of the evening prayer on Friday they brought the slave-girl to a thing that they had constructed, like a door-frame. She placed her feet on the hands of the men and was raised above that door-frame. She said something and they brought her down. Then they lifted her up a second time and she did what she had done the first time. They brought her down and then lifted her up a third time and she did what she had done on the first two occasions. They next handed her a hen. She cut off its head and threw it away. They took the hen and threw it on board the ship.[60]

[18] I quizzed the interpreter about her actions and he said, “The first time they lifted her, she said, ‘Behold, I see my father and my mother.’ The second time she said, ‘Behold, I see all of my dead kindred, seated.’ The third time she said, ‘Behold, I see my master, seated in Paradise. Paradise is beautiful and verdant. He is accompanied by his men and his male-slaves. He summons me, so bring me to him.’”[61] So they brought her to the ship and she removed two bracelets that she was wearing, handing them to the woman called the “Angel of Death,” the one who was to kill her. She also removed two anklets that she was wearing, handing them to the two slave-girls who had waited upon her: they were the daughters of the crone known as the “Angel of Death.” Then they lifted her onto the ship but did not bring her into the pavilion. The men came with their shields and sticks and handed her a cup of alcohol over which she chanted and then drank. The interpreter said to me, “Thereby she bids her female companions farewell.” She was handed another cup, which she [19] took and chanted for a long time, while the crone urged her to drink it and to enter the pavilion in which her master lay.[62] I saw that she was befuddled and wanted to enter the pavilion but she had <only> put her head into the pavilion <while her body remained outside it>.[63] The crone grabbed hold of her head and dragged her into the pavilion, entering it at the same time. The men began to bang their shields with the sticks so that her screams could not be heard and so terrify the other slave-girls, who would not, then, seek to die with their masters.[64]

Six men entered the pavilion and all had intercourse with the slave-girl.[65] They laid her down beside her master and two of them took hold of her feet, two her hands. The crone called the “Angel of Death” placed a rope around her neck in such a way that the ends crossed one another (mukhālafan) and handed it to two <of the men> to pull on it. She advanced with a broad-bladed dagger and began to thrust it in and out between her ribs, now here, now there, while the two men throttled her with the rope until she died.[66]

[20] Then the deceased’s next of kin approached and took hold of a piece of wood and set fire to it. He walked backwards, with the back of his neck to the ship, his face to the people, with the lighted piece of wood in one hand and the other hand on his anus, being completely naked.[67] He ignited the wood that had been set up under the ship after they had placed the slave-girl whom they had killed beside her master. Then the people came forward with sticks and firewood. Each one carried a stick the end of which he had set fire to and which he threw on top of the wood. The wood caught fire, and then the ship, the pavilion, the man, the slave-girl and all it contained. A dreadful wind arose and the flames leapt higher and blazed fiercely.

One of the Rūsiyyah stood beside me and I heard him speaking to my interpreter. I quizzed him about what he had said, and he replied, “He said, ‘You Arabs are a foolish lot!’” So I said, “Why is that?” and he replied, “Because you purposely take those who are dearest to you and whom you hold in highest esteem and throw them under the earth, where they are eaten by the earth, by vermin and by worms, whereas we burn them in the fire there and then, so that they enter Paradise immediately.” Then he laughed loud and long. I quizzed him about that <i.e., the entry into Paradise> and he said, “Because of the love which my Lord feels for him. He has sent the wind to take him away within an hour.”[68] Actually, [21] it took scarcely an hour for the ship, the firewood, the slave-girl and her master to be burnt to a fine ash.

They built something like a round hillock over the ship, which they had pulled out of the water, and placed in the middle of it a large piece of birch (khadank) on which they wrote the name of the man and the name of the King of the Rūs. Then they left.[69]"

The account is not dissimilar from some of the Saga tales, the ritual of fertility and death, and burial pyres both being closely bound with the tales of Freya and Odin. The problem with burial pyres is they leave no evidence. The dispute over this account, the so called Normanist Controversy, stems from modern (19C) Russian assertion the account relates to Slavic tribes and not Vikings. It fails to acknowledge, that Vikings rapidly assimilated the cultural practice of the lands they occupied. In the four hundred years during which Vikings plied the trade route of the Volga, it was inevitable they would assimilate local custom, which came first will always be a matter of conjecture.

The single thing that strikes me so odd about this account is the passage referring to the 'Angel of Death'. Clearly Fadlan didn't witness the slaughter of the girl, what he describes is the 'blood-eagle', a ritual slaughter attributed to Odin and part of Odin's law pertaining to the ritual burial and burning of men. This Saga wasn't written down until some centuries after Fadlan's account, which to my mind means Fadlan spent considerable time with Vikings, rather than Slav's, and heard the tales of their Gods, or the Saga's pay reference to Fadlan's text - which seems unlikely.

Nothing should be read into the final reference notation of [69].

 

[Guest]

If anyone writes this please, please, PLEASE let me know.

Hmmmm.....

*gets out scratchpad*

I'm partial to redheads, myself.

 

[xssve]

I thought this was going to be about the more questionable Scandinavian practice of eating Lefsa and pickled Herring.

The Inuit share their wives, and there was considerable interaction between the Norse and the Athabascan tribes living above the arctic circle, and likely some cultural exchange - moreover, the Scandanavians have a reputation for being a bit less uptight about sexuality in general, so it wouldn't suprise me to discover that such a thing might not be frowned upon in some circles, even if it isn't standard cultural practice.

It makes perfect sense for small, tightly knit populations living under extreme envionmental conditions to have lower social barriers, and higher levels of co-operation - I suspect, however, that it might cause more problems than it might solve if you brought it up under current social conditions, but I suppose you know them better than I do.

A couple of my brothers girlfriends have made plays for me, one for both of us, but he's pretty much a straight arrow, which is a pity because he seems to attract all the freaks.

Pretty hot idea though, good luck with that.

 

[angela146]

- moreover, the Scandanavians have a reputation for being a bit less uptight about sexuality in general, so it wouldn't suprise me to discover that such a thing might not be frowned upon in some circles, even if it isn't standard cultural practice.

"Less uptight" is a good way to describe it, at least as far as my inlaws are concerned. In particular, their relaxed attitude toward nudity took a bit of getting used to.

It makes perfect sense for small, tightly knit populations living under extreme envionmental conditions to have lower social barriers, and higher levels of co-operation - I suspect, however, that it might cause more problems than it might solve if you brought it up under current social conditions, but I suppose you know them better than I do.

As I said in the initial post, this is a fantasy, not something I could really see doing in reality. There would be too many complications, including girlfriends, sisters, a wife, the parents, and the potential for hurt feelings.

We get along really well means that I don't want to risk that.

When my husband and I found out that we can't have children (sperm count) we *briefly* considered asking one or more of his brothers if they would be sperm donors. But, again, there are just too many ways that things can go wrong.

Pretty hot idea though, good luck with that.

I will probably write it into a story at some point.

It's fun to talk about with my husband late at night. He likes pushing my buttons with ideas of what each of them might be like with me. Of course, we don't have to let reality get in the way of a good fantasy.

 

[xssve]

Well I'm glad to hear he's cool with it, sounds like you've found an understanding man - some fantasies are so hot it doesn't really matter if you never get around to acting out on them.

 

[LoquaciousLady]

some fantasies are so hot it doesn't really matter if you never get around to acting out on them.

Some are even better if you never get around to acting on them.