The Jaets were the Aesir's hereditary enemies, it is said. But that did not rule out marital relations.
The Jaets were the first and the original, and they were created independently of the Aesir's lineage. On the other hand, the Aesirs are partly descended from the Jaets.
Odin and his brothers, Vile and Ve, were born of an unknown jaet woman. Thor was born of the jaet woman, Hlodyn, who was the daughter of the jaet Annar and his wife Nott. Heimdal had nine mothers, all of whom were jaet women, and Loki and Ægir were themselves jaets and naturally born of jaet women. The fertility god Frey was hopelessly in love with the jaet woman, Gerd, and sacrificed his good sword to get her.
1. The Jaets
Jaets are found everywhere in Old Norse myths and later folk tradition. Their origin is described in detail in "Gylfe's Blindness", which is part of Snorri's "Younger Edda".
They were the hereditary enemies of the Aesirs, but this did not preclude marital relations. Several Jaets lived among the Aesirs, including Ægir and Loki.
Gangleri talking with the kings Harr, Janharr and Thridi. The kings lack everyone an eye, telling that they are all Odin. From an 18. century Icelandic manuscript that is stored in the Arni Magnusson Institute of Iceland. Wikimedia Commons..
The Swedish king Gylfi was amazed that "The people of the Aesirs were so knowledgeable that everything went as they wished. He considered whether it had its cause in their own nature, or whether it was because of the gods to whom they sacrificed." Therefore, he disguised himself as an old man and made a journey to Asgard. He called himself Gangleri.
He came to a "hall so high that one could hardly look up over it. Its roof was covered with golden shields". He was invited inside and was presented to three chieftains sitting in three high seats, one higher than the other. Their names were Harr, Janharr and Thridi. They agreed to answer his question.
Gangleri asked: "Who is foremost, or oldest, of all the gods?" - "Harr answered: He is called Allfather in our speech" - "He lives throughout all ages and governs all his realm, and directs all things, great and small". Janharr added: "He fashioned heaven and earth and air, and all things which are in them." Thridi added: "The greatest of all is this: that he made the man, and gave him the soul, which shall live and never perish, though the flesh rot to mould, or burn to ashes. All men, who have the right faith will live and be with him in the place called Gimle, but evil men will come to the Misty Hel and from there down to Nifelheim, and that is down in the ninth world." Later in the story, it becomes clear that Allfather is Odin.
Odin hangs in the world tree Yggdrasil, marked by a spear, sacrificed to himself. This is the part of Norse mythology that is very similar to Christianity, namely where Jesus hangs on the symbolic tree, marked by a spear.
During the peoples migration period It is fairly certain that the Goths in Italy had more or less constant contact with their Scandinavian homeland. Procopius says that some of the Heruli returned to Scandinavia after the dramatic events of the period. But there must undoubtedly have been much happening in Europe that Jordanes and Procopius did not know about. Some Goths must also have returned to Scandinavia around 500 AD, bringing their Aryan Christianity with them. Drawing by Lorenz Fröhlich.
However, the three chiefs' description of the Allfather and his deeds clearly reminds of the Christian God. One can believe it originates in either remains of Aryan Christianity, brought to Scandinavia by returning migration people, or it is a section inserted by Snorri to appease the priests, who were not happy that he wrote about the pagan gods, or that the Christian faith is not as original as we would like to believe.
The chiefs Janharr and Thridi explained Gangleri that at the beginning of times there was nothing, no earth and no heaven, no cooling waves and no grass. There was only a great void called Ginnungagab. The northern part of Ginnungagab was filled with ice and radiated cold, while the southern part was burning hot. But where the cold and the heat met each other "was as mild as the still air", and there a human-like creature, called Ymir, was formed, and from him, all Jaets descent, also called the races of the Rime-Turses, as it is said in Völuspa:
All V lves
spring from Witolf.
But from Vilmeid
all magicians;
Wizards all
from Svarthøfde.
All Jaets
are Ymir's offspring.
The first Jaet, Ymir, sucks the cow Audhumbla that licks the man Bure out of a salt-stone. Painting by Nicolai Abraham Abildgård 1743-1809. Photo Wikitrans.
They told that Ymir came to sweat while sleeping "and there grew under his left arm a man and a woman, and one of his legs begat a son with the other; and thus the races came that are called the Rime-Turses."
The king Harr told further that Ymir lived on milk from the cow Audhumbla "- from its udder ran four rivers of milk and they nourished Ymir."
Gangleri asked further: "But what did the cow live on?" The chief Harr explained that the cow licked salty stones, thus producing the ancestor of the Aesirs, the man Bure: "She licked the rime-stone, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the stones, there came forth from the stones in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there. He is named Bure: he was fair of feature, big and strong. He begat a son called Borr."
Odin, Vile and Ve create the World of the original giant Ymir's body. Drawing by Lorenz Fröhlich.
The three chiefs do not tell how the man Bure got his son Borr, but as the Jaets - called the Rime-Turses - were the only ones that existed besides himself, Bure must have had his son with a Jaet-woman. Borr was the father of the god Odin and his brothers: "he wedded the woman named Bestla, daughter of Bölthorn the Jaet; and they had three sons: one was Odin, the second Vile, the third Ve."
Bors three sons killed the original giant Ymir, and in the flow of his blood all Rime-Turses drowned except one: "But when he was killed there gushed forth so much blood out of his wounds that therein all the race of the Rime-Turses drowned, except one, who escaped with his household. The Jaets call him Bergelmir; He entered his "ludr" and his wife with him, and they were saved there; From them, the lineages of Rime-Turses descend."
Of Ymir's body Odin, Vile and Ve created the World. His blood became the ocean, his flesh became solid land, the bones became rocks, his skull became the sky, his hair became trees and the brain became clouds. "It is told in ancient poems that from that time we distinguished between day and night and counted years."
It is said in V luspa:
Of Ymir's flesh
the earth was fashioned,
of his blood the sea;
rocks of his bones,
trees of his hair,
And of his skull the sky.
2. The Chinese original giant
Both in Younger Edda and even more directly in Ynglinge Saga, Snorre tells that the Aesirs came from Asia. In addition, we must put some meaning in the resemblance of the words Aesirs-Asia. It is further supported by the fact that the Chinese have a very similar myth that the world was created from the body of an original giant.
The Chinese original giant Pan Ku.
They can tell that in the beginning, everything was chaos. But when the two opposing forces, ying and yang, met each other, the original giant, Pan Ku, was created. From his own body, he created the earth. The head became a mountain, his breathing became the clouds, and his voice became the thunder. The skin became the plains, the hair became trees, the bones became metals, and the blood vessels became rivers. Of the insects that crawled on his body, humans were created.
Therefore, we must believe that the creation myth of the Aesirs came into being in their original home in Asia.
Today we have difficulty reconciling ourselves with such a cultural and ethnic connection between Scandinavia and Asia, because in the present we associate Central Asia with Turkic and Mongolian peoples.
But it has not always been this way.
Perhaps four thousand years ago, the Eurasian steppe lay empty and desolate, at least for humans. It was inhabited by fast-galloping animals that were very difficult to shoot. And even if one managed to plant an arrow in them, they would simply run away and lie down to die in a completely different place. Humans lived at the transition between steppe and forest.
It was Indo-Europeans who were the first to domesticate the horse. It is believed that this happened in southern Russia. Then, on horseback - with historically furious speed - they populated the steppe from the Hungarian Pusta to Inner Mongolia, probably within some hundred years.
Therefore, some thousand years ago, the Eurasian steppe was mainly inhabited by Indo-European peoples. There may have been hundreds of rival kingdoms. In Central Asia we know of the Yuezhi, Saka, Tocharians, Sogdians, Massagetes, Kushans, Alans, Saka, Sarmatians and Scythians and others.
The ancient Roman geographer Strabo, who lived around the year 0 AC, wrote: "Now, the greater part of the Scythians, beginning at the Caspian Sea, are called "Dahae", but those who are further east are called "Massa-getae" and "Saka", whereas all the rest may be included under the name of Scythians, although each people has a distinct name for themselves. They are for the most part all nomads. But the best known are those, who took Bactria from the Greeks. I mean the "Asii", "Pasiani", "Tochari" and "Sacarauli", who originally came from the land on the other side of the Jaxartes river." (Strabo, Geography, 11.8.1)
The Mongol conquests of the 13th century. The Mongols destroyed Persia, the Sogdian city-states in present-day Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, and many Indian nations. The Mongol armies completed the destruction of the Indo-European nations of central Eurasia. They destroyed everything in their path on an unprecedented scale, killing the men and breeding their own children on the women. The net result of the Mongol conquests was a Muslim Central Asia. Photo Minneapolis Institute of Art.
We remind ourselves prologue to Pompey Trogus' book XLII, where it says: "Reges Tocharorum Asiani interitusque Saraucarum", "Asiani became kings of Tochari and then wiped out the king of Saka". It may mean that the people "Tochari" chose as their kings a group of experienced and hardened warriors, "Asiani", and then they won victory over their enemies. As Snorre wrote about the æsirs: "Odin was a great army-man."
For thousands of years, the steppe was inhabited by Indo-European peoples organized into many small kingdoms, who often waged wars against their closest neighbors.
But by the 7th century, Indo-European dominance of the steppe ended. First came the Muslim-Arab conquests, which swept across Asia and Africa from Spain to Persia over modern Afghanistan and Pakistan all the way to Khotan in the Tarim Basin.
In the 13th century, the Mongol conquests of Persia, the Middle East, North Africa, India and China came. The conquerors followed ancient custom and killed the subdued men and fathered their own children on the women, and it is their descendants, who populate these areas today. In this way, Europe and eastern Asia were isolated from each other.
3. Jats in India
In India and Pakistan, there are 20-30 million people, who identify themselves as "Jat". In India, they live mainly in the northwestern Punjab province.
Being a Jat has nothing to do with religion or politics. It is a matter of race and tradition within the family. Special family names characterize a Jat.
Garhwal Rifles marching on La Bassee Road, France, August 1915.
A typical Jat has, after Indian standards, rather light skin, he is tall and strong with caucasian features. In India, they are considered as industrious and rather fast-witted. The Englishmen used many Indian soldiers during the first and second World War, they were very mainly recruited from the Jats in the Punjab province, as they were considered to be the best soldiers.
A Jat can be Hindu or Muslim, he can have one or another political belief. Most Jats are working with agriculture, but they can be found in all professions, for example as lawyers or businessmen.
In general, the "Jats" consider themselves descendants of the Indo-European "Yuezhi" people, who created the Kushan Empire around 30 AD in present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India. Or from the "Massa-Geata" people, who came from the area at the Jaxartes River and, according to tradition, crossed the Indus River around 400 AD. "Massa" means "large" or similar - also in several European languages - and "geata" is a different spelling of "Jute", they say. The latter is difficult to see.
According to the Indians' own tradition, the Hephthalites, also called the "White Huns", invaded northern India around 400 AD together with the Massageates. The Hephthalites originally lived on the steppe as the Yuezhi's northern neighbors north of the Tien Shan mountains in present-day Chinese Xinjiang province.
We remember that the Yuezhi were also called "Yue-te". The letters Y and J can represent the same sound in different languages, and the same applies to Y and U, and therefore it is not unreasonable to believe that Jat or Jætte is derived from Jye-te, which is the name of the first and original, namely Yuezhi.
Indian Jats.
From left to right:
Chaju Ram - a Jat.
Kiran Choudhury - a Jat.
Malika Sherawat comes from a conservative Jat family.
Jat Sijh.
Therefore, Indian Jats believe that they are so called because they are descended from Jats, who in the past came from Central Asia. Which brings to mind the Aesiers, who like so many other Indo-European peoples of Central Asia may have thought of themselves as descended from the Yuezhi, whose real name may have been something like Jat, Jut, Juti, Jyte, Jæt or Jæti.
4. Yuezhi - the oldest and original
The Kushans, Sogdians and Massagetes all claimed descent from the Yuezhi, who were thus also for them the first and original. The Aesirs came from Asia to Scandinavia, and they claimed descent from the Jaets. Therefore, one can believe that the Yuezhi, who are also called Yüeh-Chih, Yue-te or Jue-te, were the Jaets - the first and original.
The Edda says:
"I remember Jaets
born in ancient days
those who in the past
raised me;
nine worlds I remember,
nine Jaet-women,
and the widely famous tree of destiny,
hidden underground."
(Vøluspa in Older Edda)
