Talk:Tharapita
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Information from "Estonia" article
[edit]This information from Estonia, which is of too great depth for that article, could be of use here. Quibik (talk) 23:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Estonia retained a pagan religion centered around a deity called Tharapita. The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia mentions Tharapita as the superior god of Oeselians (inhabitants of Saaremaa island), also well known to Vironian tribes in northern Estonia. According to the chronicle, when the crusaders invaded Vironia in 1220, there was a beautiful wooded hill in Virumaa, where locals believe the Oeselian god Tharapita was born and from which he flew to Saaremaa. The hill is believed to be the Ebavere Hill (Ebavere mägi) in modern Lääne-Viru County. Lennart Meri has proposed the name Tharapita is a mix of two words: Taara (Thara, might originate from Thor, although one has to wonder which one came first, because thunder, fire and iron were very tightly connected symbols to Kaali meteor and pikne (which means lightning and fire). He theorized the birth of Tharapita is a direct result of a meteor (the biggest and only one of its size known to land in Europe region on known history time), that flew over the Ebavere hill and landed to Saaremaa and created the Kaali crater abour 2300 years ago, when the whole area was already densely populated. The blast of the 450 ton meteorite was heard and seen all over Baltic Sea region. The dust covered the sun for a day or two. A catastrophe of unexplainable proportions to the people of that time probably left its mark into the culture. About 1.5 kilograms of iron from this meteor has found thus far, but iron items of space/meteor origin metal have been found all around Scandinavia and Baltic Sea region. Estonian blacksmiths were widely known back then for producing excellent quality iron. There are also children songs in Estonian folklore that go something along the lines "I give you trade items, you give me iron;", that are hundreds or more years old.
Use of Latin
[edit]There is far too much use of Latin in this article, without any translation. For those of us who don't speak Latin all that text is useless. --Hibernian (talk) 05:36, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- True, but without the Latin it would be even more useless. :p — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 13:22, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, but it would be immensely improved if we translated it into the language which this Encyclopaedia is supposed to be in (unfortunately I can't translate Latin, so we need someone who can, or else put it through some translation software). --Hibernian (talk) 15:30, 22 March 2012 (UTC)