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everyone in the UK and in much of Europe, are all talking about
the horse meat scandal. the supermarket Tescos and uh...
findus
brand frozen foods and a variety of other
food outlets have been found to have been selling
horse meat labeled as beef
and then more recently
it was revealed that the Swedish store Ikea
was also selling horse meat in its meatballs
which wasn't labeled and even taco bell in the united states have now been found
to be
Selling horse meat
and
this is more of an issue around labeling food correctly then actually
Whether or not people should eat horse but
one thing that's interesting in America
and in England
is the
general distaste for the idea of eating horses. That taboo goes back to the
pagan past
of the Anglo-Saxons.
Catholicism
regarded consumption of horse meat in northern Europe; places like iceland and
sweden and england
as being an aspect of heathen
worship and heathen sacrifice. Pope gregory III wrote to the Anglo-Saxon saint
Boniface when he was a missionary among the pagan
Saxons in Germany.
and he wrote
You say, among other things, that some have the habit of eating wild horses and very many
eat tame horses. This, holy brother, you are in no wise to permit
in future but to suppress it in every possible way with the help of christ and
impose suitable penance upon the offenders.
It is a filthy
and abominable practice. When the people in
England and Iceland
Converted to Christianity they also banned the eating of horse meat
you get examples of this in Njals saga, the icelandic viking saga...
Where the Christians say: "this will be the foundation of our law
That all men in this land
are to be Christians and believe in one God, the father the sun and the
holy spirit, and give up worship of false idols and the exposure of children and
The eating of horse meat." In seventh century England, Theodore of Tarsus, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, specifically says
the consumption of horse meat should not be banned. This diplomatic decision, which
was trying to sort of
Ease the Anglo-Saxons from paganism into Christianity, was only temporary.
Eventually horse meat was out of the question. I've got some
horse meat myself right here. I'll use this horse meat to show you a story
from the Viking book
Heimskringla, written in the thirteen Century. It's about a Christian king, Hakon
the Good, and he attended frostaþing, which was like a meeting of
heathens in Norway. These meetings were called þing
and they were very important to the heathens. they would initially have a
Toast. The first toast was drunk to Odin
That was drunk to victory and to the power of the king. The second toast
was to Njörðr, god of the sea. The third toast was
to Freyr, for prosperity and peace. These are all pagan gods and of course the
Christian king would not be happy about drinking toasts to Odin or anything
like that but the
other aspect of this meeting which is made clear is that they all ate horse meat
and that was somehow an aspect of
this pagan ritual. King Hakon
said to all these
pagans that they had to convert to christianity and they were not happy
about that at all, saying in reply "what we farmers thought King Hakon
when you held the first assembly here at Thrandheim and we had accepted you as king and received
from you our ancestral rights, was that we then had heaven in our grasp, but now we are not
sure which is more the case; that we will have received freedom
or that you will have had us enslaved anew in an amazing way
that we should abandon the beliefs that our fathers held before us and all
our forefathers, and they have been far more noble than we and yet these
beliefs have served us well." eventually the farmers ask the king to sacrifice
for their prosperity, to prove
his loyalty to them despite the religious differences. The king isn't
happy about this of course because he doesn't want to go to hell for
taking part in these pagan rituals
but if he does upset all these pagans then they're probably not gonna accept him as king anyway
the king attends a sacrificial feast
the first toast was served at the feast and Jarl Sigurðr announced it and dedicated it
to Odin and drank from the horn to the king. The king takes the toast and made the
sign of a cross over it
Then Kar of Gryting spoke, "why does the king do that
does he not want to worship Odin?" Jarl Sigurðr replies "the king is doing what
all those do, who trust in their might,
and dedicates the toast to Thor. He made the sign of the hammer before he drunk."
So this is kind of tricking the pagans Into thinking the sign of the cross is the sign of
Thor's hammer. Then for the rest of the evening its more peaceful. The next day the people went
to the table, the farmers rush up to the king
saying that he must now eat the horse flesh
The king said he would not do that, so They said "OK, how about you just have a little bit of the
gravy?" "i'm not gonna do that." at this point the pagans were on the brink of
attacking and killing the king because they're pretty fed up with him refusing
all the horse meat, they kind of
come to an agreement. Jarl Sigurðr told the king
to lean with his mouth open over the pot where the steam from
the cooking of the horse flesh had risen up and the handle was covered with fat.
then the king went up
Wrapped a cloth
around the handle and opened his mouth over it
then he went back to his throne
and neither side was pleased with this. this horse meat
Was not just about food
Eating horsemeat was definitely associated With paganism
and that Christian would never even so much as put his mouth
Over the handle of a pot
which had the fat of a horse on it. So hopefully
i won't go to hell for having this steak
if you want to learn more
About pagans and horses
click the link in the description of this video
To see my dissertation on the subject
of horses in
Pre-Christian Northern Europe.