• barsoap@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Accusing a man of being “ergi,” which is basically unmanly, was enough of an insult to be answered with blood.

    So is a gay man calling another gay man a faggot. The use as essentially equivalent with “bottom” is only attested since the medieval age.

    On the flipside we have things like shield maidens and the survival of the old gods alongside with the patriarchal Indo-European newcomers, very uncommon, those things don’t happen by accident. People don’t talk about peace treaties between gods out of the blue – And Odin isn’t even the sky father, that’d be Thor (to wit, lightning and thunder) while Odin is engaging in seidhr. Call him a bottom, then! Making a claim such as “most homophobic in history” out of a single word given what else there’s attested about the society is rather rich.

    The truth is that we don’t know much but this: That any contemporary political group leaning it one way or the other is full of shit.

    • holyshitflapjacks@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Please don’t accuse me of making claims I did not. I gave one example of Viking homophobia. It’s also a big example, as “not appearing as an ergi” is pretty much the driving motivation for many of the gods in the tales we have. This means being manly in general, and being penetrated by another is just one thing that immediately labels you as ergi.

      Neil Price did not make his claim that Vikings were severely homophobic from a single word either (no idea where you got this). You are free to read his work yourself for more information.