John Presco and Mary Ann Presco nee’ Tharaldsen
Where Art Thou?
Heligoland is the home of Forseti, whom Radbod followed. He appears to be a Nazarite Judge. When my future wife saw my drawings of Atlantis, she fell in love. Her ancestor come from Greenland, and mine from Helgoland.
Archaeological Evidence
Archaeological evidence for the worship of Forseti is limited but significant. The most notable archaeological connection comes from Helgoland, an island in the North Sea, which was known in Old Norse as Fositesland (Forseti’s Land). According to historical records from the 8th century CE, particularly those concerning Saint Willibrord’s mission to Frisia, the island was considered sacred to a deity called Fosite, who scholars generally identify as being identical with Forseti.
According to Alcuin‘s Life of St. Willebrord, the saint visited an island between Frisia and Denmark that was sacred to Fosite and was called Fositesland after the god worshipped there. There was a sacred spring from which water had to be drawn in silence, it was so holy. Willebrord defiled the spring by baptizing people in it and killing a cow there.
Forseti (Old Norse “the presiding one”, “president” in modern Icelandic and Faroese) is the god of justice and reconciliation in Norse mythology. He is generally identified with Fosite, a god of the Frisians.
Name
Grimm took Forseti, “praeses, princeps“, to be the older form of the name, first postulating the Old High German equivalent *forasizo (cf. modern German Vorsitzender “one who presides”, Old English fore-sittan ‘to preside’).[1] but later preferring a derivation from fors, a “whirling stream” or “cataract”, connected to the spring and the god’s veneration by seagoing peoples.[2] It is plausible that Fosite is the older name and Forseti a folk etymology.[3] According to the German philologist Hans Kuhn the Germanic form Fosite is linguistically identical to Greek Poseidon, hence the original name may have been introduced before the Proto-Germanic sound change, possibly via Greek sailors purchasing amber (cf. Phol as a cognate of Baldr).[4][5] The etymologist Wolfgang Laur, is highly critical, however, as the names of Germanic gods are composed almost exclusively of Germanic components. According to Laur, the name Forseti remains largely unexplained.[6]
Old Norse Forseti
According to Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda,[7] Forseti is the son of Baldr and Nanna. His is the best of courts; all those who come before him leave reconciled. This suggests skill in mediation and is in contrast to his fellow god Týr, who “is not called a reconciler of men.”[8] However, as de Vries points out, the only basis for associating Forseti with justice seems to have been his name; there is no corroborating evidence in Norse mythology.[9] ‘Puts to sleep all suits’ or ‘stills all strifes’ may have been a late addition to the strophe Snorri cites, from which he derives the information.[10]
The first element in the name Forsetlund (Old Norse Forsetalundr), a farm in the parish of Onsøy (‘Odin’s island’), in eastern Norway, seems to be the genitive case of Forseti, offering evidence he was worshipped there.[10][11]
Glitnir
Glitnir (meaning “one who shines”)[12] is the hall of Forseti, and the seat of justice amongst gods and men. It is also noted to have been a place of dwelling for Baldr, Forseti’s father in Norse and Germanic mythologies. Glitnir is symbolic of the importance of discussion rather than violence as a means of resolution of conflict within the Norse tradition. It has pillars of gold and is roofed with silver, which radiated light that could be seen from a great distance.[13] The stories of Baldr and his son Forseti may have been contaminated with legends about king Guðmundr and his son Höfundr (‘the judge’), who inhabited the otherworld land of Glæsisvellir.
Frisian Fosite
According to Alcuin‘s Life of St. Willebrord, the saint visited an island between Frisia and Denmark that was sacred to Fosite and was called Fositesland after the god worshipped there. There was a sacred spring from which water had to be drawn in silence, it was so holy. Willebrord defiled the spring by baptizing people in it and killing a cow there.[10] Altfrid tells the same story of St. Liudger.[14] Adam of Bremen retells the story and adds that the island was Heiligland, i.e., Heligoland.[15]
There is also a late-medieval legend of the origins of written Frisian laws. Wishing to assemble written lawcodes for all his subject peoples, Charlemagne summoned twelve representatives of the Frisian people, the asega‘s (‘law-speakers’), and demanded they recite their people’s laws. When they could not do so after several days, he let them choose between death, slavery, or being set adrift in a rudderless boat. They chose the last and prayed for help, whereupon a thirteenth man appeared, with a golden axe on his shoulder. He steered the boat to land with the axe, then threw it ashore; a spring appeared where it landed. He taught them laws and then disappeared.[16][17] The stranger and the spring have traditionally been identified with Fosite and the sacred spring of Fositesland.
This hypothesis has not met with universal acceptance.[18]
Reception
Jacob Grimm noted that if, as Adam of Bremen states, Fosite’s sacred island was Heligoland, that would make him an ideal candidate for a deity known to both Frisians and Scandinavians, but that it is surprising he is never mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus.[19]
In modern culture
The German neofolk band Forseti named itself after the god.[20]
In the 2002 Ensem
In 716, Ragenfrid and Dagobert’s successor, Chilperic II, fought deep into the heartland of Peppinid power: the mid-Meuse and Ardennes. Ragenfrid and Radbod converged on Cologne, where Charles Martel had been besieging Plectrude and Theudoald. The Frisians held off Charles, who retreated to the Eifel mountains to regroup. Chilperic and Ragenfrid then besieged Plectrude who was forced to acknowledged Chilperic as king, surrender a substantial portion of the Austrasian treasury, and abandoned her grandson’s claim to the mayoralty.[1] The Neustrians then withdrew.
Ragenfrid (also Ragenfred, Raganfrid, or Ragamfred) (died 731) was the mayor of the palace of Neustria and Burgundy from 715, when he filled the vacuum in Neustria caused by the death of Pepin of Heristal, until 718, when Charles Martel finally established himself over the whole Frankish kingdom.
Life
His original centre of power was the Véxin. The Neustrian nobles named Ragenfrid mayor of the palace[1] in opposition to Theudoald, grandson and heir of Pepin, and his grandmother Plectrude, but he was ignored by both Plectrude and Charles.
They allied with Dagobert’s old enemy, Duke Radbod of Frisia, allied with Ragenfrid in a campaign against the Austrasians. On 26 September 715, Ragenfrid engaged in battle with Theudoald’s forces at the Battle of Compiègne, and defeated them, sending Theudoald fleeing back to his grandmother Plectrude in Cologne.[1]
In 716, Ragenfrid and Dagobert’s successor, Chilperic II, fought deep into the heartland of Peppinid power: the mid-Meuse and Ardennes. Ragenfrid and Radbod converged on Cologne, where Charles Martel had been besieging Plectrude and Theudoald. The Frisians held off Charles, who retreated to the Eifel mountains to regroup. Chilperic and Ragenfrid then besieged Plectrude who was forced to acknowledged Chilperic as king, surrender a substantial portion of the Austrasian treasury, and abandoned her grandson’s claim to the mayoralty.[1] The Neustrians then withdrew.
By April 716, having rallied his supporters, Charles returned and pursued Chilperic and Ragenfrid, and defeated them at the Battle of Amblève, recovering much of his father’s treasure.[2]
After Amblève, King Chilperic and Ragenfrid returned in defeat to Neustria. Instead of following them immediately, took the next several months gathering more men.[3] Both sides spent the winter in preparations.
On 21 March 717, Martel dealt a serious blow to the Neustrians at the Battle of Vincy. The King and Ragenfrid fled to Paris, with Charles following, but as he was not yet prepared to hold the city, he turned back to deal with Plectrude and Cologne. Plectrude surrendered the city and was allowed to retire to a convent. Her grandson, Theudoald, lived under his uncle’s protection until Martel’s death in 741.
In 718 Ragenfrid and Chilperic allied with Odo the Great, duke of Aquitaine independent since 715. French historian Pierre Riché suggests that he may have been offered recognition as king of Aquitaine.[4] The allies were defeated at the Battle of Soissons. Chilperic and Odo fled south; Ragenfrid, now decisively out of power, went to Angers with remains of the Neustrian army. When Paris and the Loire Valley were taken and Odo gave up Chilperic, who Charles finally accepted in 719, Ragenfrid then gave himself up and, deprived of his office, left only with lands in Anjou.
In 724, the Neustrians rebelled under Ragenfrid, who defended Angers so well, that Charles decided to treat with him. Ragenfrid was allowed to keep his county for life, on condition that he give his son as hostage to ensure his conduct. Ragenfrid lived until 731.
The military defeats of the Neustrian army, under the leadership of Ragenfrid, at the Amblève, Vinchy and Soissons marked the shift in the balance of power from Neustria to Austrasia. From then on the Carolingians (the descendants of Charles Martel) would rule the whole of the Frankish kingdom from their heartland around the mid-Meuse, namely Herstal and later Aachen with Charlemagne.
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