If you are from a Norwegian background, wouldn’t you have a sort of profound knowledge of Norse culture and possibly Viking history?
Hello, Mike – glad to see you’re still around, and I hope you’re well.
Now, to answer your question:
No – you wouldn’t. Certainly not if "profound" is the key term.
An average person educated in Norway back in KQ’s day would certainly have a basic knowledge of Norse mythology (Odin and Thor and whatnot) – more than the case would be today (for an average high school student, say). But even in his day, that knowledge would not extend beyond basics.
And – as I’ve said before – an average person (in KQ’s school days – and even more so today) would definitely NOT have a profound knowledge of Old Norse language. The latter is very different from modern Norwegian (or Danish, or Swedish).
If you’re looking at an average person – who happens to be a Zodiac suspect – who is likely to be aware of certain Old Norse terms, that person would be Icelandic (modern Icelandic is much closer to Old Norse than modern Norwegian).
As for slaves (in the afterlife) and a possible connection to "Norse culture", the only thing that strikes me as relevant would be the practice of killing slaves who served a particular person (of power) so that they would accompany said person into the afterlife. This is a common enough concept: the king dies – and his personal slaves have to die too, because he needs servants in the great beyond, etc. But the concept, as such, is very different from killing random people in order to make them your slaves (in the afterlife). The unfortunate souls who were killed in order to accompany their Master (or Mistress) on the journey to the Great Beyond were already slaves (in the here and now).
I believe this has been discussed before – but there are, apparently, some precedents for the particular concept of killing people in order to make them slaves (in the afterlife). However, those aren’t to be found in Norse culture/mythology: the slaves who went into the afterlife along with their masters/mistresses in Viking culture were already slaves.
Other than that, we have the concept of Valhalla – of course. But that doesn’t fit the bill either. Those who went to Valhalla were warriors who died (bravely, honorably) on the battlefield and were "recruited" (so to speak) as Odin’s special soldiers (meant to fight in the "final battle", Ragnarok and so forth). They weren’t "slaves" in any meaningful sense.
Oh – and the "Sla" letter wasn’t sent by Z.
SLAVES IN THE AFTERLIFE
I feel like this is just something creepy sounding the poison pen-pal made up to sound spooky.
Norse cultures would indeed sacrifice animals and even humans to be buried along with their dead VIPs. Presumably the VIP would continue have use for them en route to Valhalla. But the people the Viking presumably killed do not appear anywhere. Apparently, a Viking had to wait until he actually died, and then if he were popular enough his friends would kill some things to bury along with him (maybe in his boat, too). Not exactly collecting slaves for an afterlife.
Headhunters on several continents believed that by controlling the head a person’s soul could be trapped (to do no further harm). Not slave collection. That’s damage control.
I have never seen documented in any mythos that a killer collects his victims as slaves in the afterlife.
Keep in mind antiquity tells us quite a bit about warriors who made great careers by killing humans. If slaves were to be had, these warriors would have plenty.
But great Achilles was a harmless shade wandering pointlessly in his afterlife with his fellow dead heros.
That was too much!
It was likely motivated by the very popular Egyptology/King Tut from the time. With a Zodiac twist.
It was likely motivated by the very popular Egyptology/King Tut from the time. With a Zodiac twist.
I always fancied slaves in the afterlife, as being a reference to Ancient Egypt. Between 3100 BC and 2900 BC, Pharaohs were buried with their slaves so that they might serve them in the hereafter.
Ancient Egyptian retainer sacrifices
Furthermore, Egypt is origin of the astronomical zodiac—the solar calendar with its 12 divisions or radians, which they also used for navigational purposes––see below. As a point of interest, Daniel Khan in The Codebreakers, spends an early chapter on the use of encryption in hieroglyphics as a way to memorialise the Pharaohs (and imbue them with mystery). Therefore, the Egyptian connection ties in more than few of Zodiac’s references. However I would also say that, Zodiac seems to be an autodidact and managed to combine a number of esoteric myths and beliefs, common to other secret societies and religions.
See reference to Egyptian navigational astronomy here (The Dendera zodiac): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_E … #Astronomy
Also worth considering, is that a recently deceased Pharaoh was supposed to transit to the afterlife in a ‘solar barque‘, a celestial funerary barge. Upon his death, the Pharaoh would travel on this barge through the underworld on their journey to the afterlife. The barge itself, was similar to the one sailed by Ra, the sun god (and of course, the zodiac is simply the celestial or solar wheel). The stars themselves were representations of ascended deceased Pharaohs.
Solar barques were the vessels used by the sun god Ra in ancient Egyptian mythology. During the day, Ra was said to use a vessel called the Mandjet (Ancient Egyptian: mꜥnḏt) or the Boat of Millions of Years (Ancient Egyptian: wjꜣ-n-ḥḥw), and the vessel he used during the night was known as the Mesektet (Ancient Egyptian: msktt).
[…]
Ra was said to travel through the sky on the barge, providing light to the world.[1] Each twelfth of his journey formed one of the twelve Egyptian hours of the day, each overseen by a protective deity. Ra then rode the barque through the underworld, with each hour of the night considered a gate overseen by twelve more protective deities. Passing through all of these while fending off various destructive monsters, Ra reappeared each day on the eastern horizon. He was said to travel across the sky in the Mandjet Barque through the hours of the day, and then switch to the Mesektet Barque to descend into the underworld for the hours of the night.[2]
