In the pedigrees of the kings of Wessex, and of Northumbria, we find the name 'Bældæȝ' is given for a son of Woden. But in the Chronicon Æthelweardi (British library handwrits - Cotton Otho A.x and Cotton Otho A.xii.) [here] we find the same son of Woden is there called "Balder" ("...cuius pater fuit Elesa, ... octavus Balder, nonus Vuothen"). Now those who know their "Norse myths" will all readily acknowledge that it is indeed Balder or Baldur who is the name of the son of Woden, or Óðin as the Northmen call him, and not 'Bældæȝ'. Amazingly Snorri Sturluson (1179 - 1241) had already sorted this out when he wrote in the Prologus to his Edda:
“Annarr son Óðins hét Beldegg, er vér köllum Baldr, hann átti þat land, er nú heitir Vestfal.”
"Second son of Woden is called Bældæȝ, that we call Baldur, he had the land, that now is called Westfale."
In Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum we will find his name written as "Balderus".
From what Snorri says about him in Gylfaginning there can be little doubt that he is a "sun-god", notwithstanding that all our Northern fathers mostly acknowledged the sun as a goddess. But here I think we are dealing with a specialist "poetic-mythology", if I may put it that way, that has grown up inside the greater vehicle of the common mythology shared by the whole folk. Of Balder then, Snorri writes (awending Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur):
“Hann er svá fagr álitum ok bjartr, svá at lýsir af honum, ok eitt gras er svá hvítt, at jafnat er til Baldrs brár. Þat er allra grasa hvítast, ok þar eftir máttu marka fegurð hans bæði á hár ok á líki.”
“... he is so fair of feature, and so bright, that light shines from him. A certain herb is so white that it is likened to Baldr's brow; of all grasses it is whitest, and by it thou mayest judge his fairness, both in hair and in body.”
Of his death and, somewhat delayed resurrection we can read in Snorri Gylfaginning 49 and 53 [here]. Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum Book 3, has a much odder tale wherein Höðr "Høtherus" is seemingly preferred over Baldur by Saxo, and will have Höðr kill Baldur for love of Nanna. For Baldur is Höðr's love-rival. Höðr kills Baldur by acquiring a special sword together with the good-will of three "nymphae" (3.3.4) who are outwardly meant to be Balder's followers.
That our own English forefathers in Britain knew something of this tale we can glean, as Brian Branston said long ago, from “The Dream of the Rood”, a poem from an Old English handwrit kept in the Basilica di Sant'Andrea of Vercelli, in northern Italy. Therein we find the wording
“Wēop eal gesceaft”
“All things shaped (created) wept” (line 55)
and
“eall ic wæs mid strǣlum forwundod”
“I was all wounded to death with shafts” (line 62).
These things are rightly said of Balder, but not really of the Christians’ Jesus.
And in Bēowulf moreover, (lines 2425 to 2459) there is a dim minning of the tale about the rival brother-athelings Herebeald and Hæðcyn. By Herebeald we should understand Beald-here, Bealdere or Balder, and by Hæðcyn we should understand Höðr. [here] Furthermore, I also mark that what befalls another "Herebald or "Heribald" in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Bk. V, chap. 6, has an uncanny resemblance to the plot of the "Second Merseburg Charm". Now I am well aware that Balder in Old English should be Bealdor, an old poetic word meaning "lord", and that Bealdere (>beald+here) is not strictly the same name at all. But here I think we can well believe that things became a bit muddled up, so that the two names were misunderstood as synonyms. And it is my belief therefore, that Bawdeswell in Norfolk and Bawdsey in Suffolk are named for the god, the former being 'Baldereswella' in Domesday Book, the latter 'Baldereseia' in th'ilk. And as B(e)aldere in both these seems to be contracted to B(e)ald (whence the "Bawd-" bit) it opens the way for Baldslow ('Baldeslei' in Domesday Book) in Sussex to also to be thought of here, the meeting stead of a Hundred.
The spelling ‘Bældæȝ’ both is, and is not, a mistake, and it leads us to uncover another lost bit of old lore. In some ways the spelling ‘Bældæȝ’ is really a simple mistake. Some poor old scop, his head full of all the old name-lists, got himself confused. And specifically he confused "Balder" with ‘Suebdæg’ (O. N. Svipdagr, see Snorri's " faðir Svebdeg, er vér köllum Svipdag") found in some of the genealogies of the Norðhymbrorum (‘Suebdæg Siggaring’ ‘Siggar Uuægdæging’). And I might add here that the name 'Uuægdæg; "wave-day" is another mistake as well along the same lines. But looked at in another way we can see that it isn't so much a mistake as it first seems, for the scop made it under the influence of some higher knowledge bearing down on his thoughts here and causing him to slip up. Because the scop knows that the god or hero Balder hath something to do with the name of ‘dæȝ’ “day”. Now Day or Dag(u)r, is thought of as a god in the North (see Gylfaginning 10), and we learn from Hversu Noregr byggðist ("How Norway was settled...") in the Flateyjarbók ("Flat-island book") that Day was the HUSBAND OF THE SUN:
“Finnálfr inn gamli fekk Svanhildar, er kölluð var gullfjöðr. Hún var dóttir Dags Dellingssonar, er kölluð var gullfjöðr. Hún var dóttir Dags Dellingssonar ok Sólar, dóttur Mundilfara. Sonr þeira var Svanr inn rauði, faðir Sæfara, föður Úlfs, föður Álfs, föður þeira Ingimundar ok Eysteins.”
“Finnálfr the old took Svanhildar, that was called gold-feather. She was daughter of Dagr Dellingssonr, that was called gullfjöðr. She was daughter of Dagr Dellingssonr and Sól, daughter of Mundilfari. Their son was Svanr the red, the father of Sæfari, the father of Úlfr, the father of Álfr, the father of Ingimundr and Eysteinn.”
However separate Balder and Day might have started off, is it not conceivable that they might well have blended into one in the folk-mind over time?
Dagr or "Day" by Peter Nicolai Arbo - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dagr_by_Arbo.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=378305
If we look back to Snorri’s words about Balder (above) we will see he doth mark out for us that there was a well-known wort or plant named for him. In Norway it seems this was a kind of wild chamomile (Matricaria perforata, earlier Pyrethrum inodorum) which is now called ‘Balderbrå’ (Ivar Aasen has ‘Ballebraa’ ‘Baldurbraa’), and ‘Baldersbrå’ in Swēoland (“Sweden”). It is however, its seaside kindred (Matricaria maritimum) which is known as ‘Baldursbrá’ in Iceland, and this is what Snorri must have meant in his Edda. Mark however, the change of flower with the change of clime.
Baldersbrå by Rolf Engstrand - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2708131
For a long while I thought it a great shame that the English did not have any folk name like this. How could we have forgotten it? Then the thought struck me that, bearing in mind the above ‘Bældæȝ’ /Balder confusion, and allowing for the unlikeness of time and of lands, this same old mythic belief is belike going to underlie our own dearly beloved “Daisy” (Old English ‘dæȝes ēaȝe’ "Day's Eye"), and Chaucer’s:
“The daisie or elles the eye of day”
And both the daisy and the Baldersbrå etc. belong to the ‘Asteraceae’ wort-kindred. So here we see that Balder and Day blend into one again.
This leadeth us then to the famous rune-stave cleped “Day”. In the Old English rune leeth (Cotton Otho B.x. fol.165) lost in a fire of 1731, but living on in a printed copy by George Hickes (1614-2-1715), in his Grammatica Anglo -Saxonica from his Thesaurus (1705) we have the following fit:
“⋈ [dæȝ] byþ drihtnes sond, dēore mannum,
mǣre metodes leoht, myrȝþ and tōhiht
ēadgum and earmum, eallum brice.”
“Day is the Lord’s Angel/Messenger/Gift, dear to men,
The Famous maker’s light, mirth and hope
To wealthy and poor, to all useful. ”
Now the shape of the Dæȝ-rune stemmeth, or gave rise to if you wish (though few scholars would agree with this last), from the Greek bookstave ‘Theta’ (Θήτα) (upper Θ, nether θ or ϑ (Cyrillish fita (Ѳ, ѳ)) ), the eighth stave of the Greeks’ staverow, and which had the earlier shapes: ⊠⊞⊟⊡, ⊕⊗⊖☉. This is usually said to have its beginning in the Phœnish bookstave Teth (Hebrew טֵית ṭēth) now said to mean “wheel”, although older books give the meaning as "snake". It is obviously a token of the sun and we find that the Ægypt-folk long drew a dot within a circle (☉) to betoken the sun or "Eye of Ra". The link to a snake would then be to the uræi
they show about the sun disk (see below). These stand
for the two warding goddesses, the "Nebty" "Two Ladies": Wadjet (with red crown of Lower Ægypt) and Nekhbet (with white crown (albeit here shown as golden) of Upper Ægypt).
 |
By
KhonsuTemple-Karnak-RamessesIII-2.jpg: Asavaaderivative work: A. Parrot
- KhonsuTemple-Karnak-RamessesIII-2.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17846881
It is worthwhile here to mark that θῆτα (theta) hath the same worth in isopsephy as the name Ηλιος (Helios), that is, 318.
So, if we put all this together, we have a sun-god whose token was a (wheel-)cross!
Now, as we have said, Balder is something of a specialist god. He hides behind lots of heroes in lots of stories. We mark that the death of Balder hinges on the belief that Balder cannot be harmed by weapons:
"Eigi munu vápn eða viðir granda Baldri. Eiða hefi ek þegit af öllum þeim."
'Neither weapons nor trees may hurt Baldr: I have taken oaths of them all.'
And yet again Shakespeare hath a surprise for us in his King John, Act IV, scene iv where the young Prince Arthur says to his would-be murderer:
- "All things that you should use to do me wrong,
- Deny their office: only you do lack
- That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends,
- Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses."
This being unharmed by weapons is also found as a might of ‘Sîvrit’, otherwise called "Siegfried", the Northern Sigurðr, in ‘der Nibelunge liet’ or ‘der Nybelvnge not’:
Si sprach min man ist chvene vnt dar zv starch genvch
do er den lintrachen an dem berge slvch
ia badete sich in dem plvote der reche vil gemeit
da von in sit in stvrmen nie dehein waffen versneit
She spake: "A valorous husband / is mine, and doughty too.
When he the worm-like dragon / by the mountain slew,
In its blood the stately / knight himself then bathed,
Since when from cutting weapons / in battle is he all unscathed.
And in the tale of Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Llew Llaw Gyffes), who is also called Huan (this is a Welsh word for the sun), found in the tale of Math Fab Mathonwyo from the Mabinogion:
“Ony'm llad i Duw hagen, nit hawd uy llad i," heb ef....”
“... ‘...But unless God slay me, it is not easy to slay me,' said he.”
Furthermore, whilst Lleu is widely understood to have been bewrayed by his wife
Blodeuwedd (Blodeued) “flower face”, yet it is the oath of Lleu’s
mother that he will never have a wife which may be deemed as an earlier
and truer cause. Lleu's foster-father (maybe also father) Gwyddion looks a lot like a Welsh attempt at Wōden. But the Welsh tale is markworthy in so much as it bringeth the sun-god
back to life almost straight-away to overcome his erstwhile slayer. I
have no doubt this is the true ending to the tale, which although living
on in wild Wales, was not allowed elsewhere for that it was obviously
too like Jesus' tale for the Christian church to bear. And when we set the
Welsh tale of Lleu beside the Northern tale of Balder we see that the
hero called Váli who doth awroke Balder’s slaying, might once have been
the again-born Balder himself.
In Ireland Lleu is Lugh, but it is hard to see much of a likeness in the Irish and Welsh tales told of the god. The main tales told about them are markedly unlike each other. The whole slaying of Balar that is the main theme of the Irish Lugh in the Cath Maige Tuired has been shrunk in the Welsh tale to Lleu killing a wren perched on a ship's mast! Most of the Welsh tale of Lleu (in outline at least) has shifted to Lugh's son Cúchulainn and, wonderfully, also to Cúchulainn’s erstwhile foe Cú Roí. For in the tales of Cú Roí’s death, it is Cú Roí who is bewrayed by his wife Bláthnat (Blanaid) “flower like” so as Cú Chulainn can kill him! Cú Roí moreover is so hard to kill as his soul is in an apple, and that in a salmon in a well.
“...the single grand theme of poetry”
And
thus we have hit upon
what the much mis-said Robert Graves rightly calleth in his The White Goddess (chapitle 24):
“...the single grand theme of poetry: the life, death and resurrection of the Spirit of the Year, the Goddess’s son and lover. ”
For
"Spirit of the Year" read the Sun-god. Thus
Macrobius in his magnum opus on “The
Saturnalia” Book I, chapitle 18 (awend.
Percival Vaughan Davies) :
“item Liberi patris simulacra partim puerili aetate partim iuuenis fingunt. praeterea barbata specie, senili quoque, uti Graeci eius quem Βασσαρέα, item quem Βρισέα apellant, et ut in Campania Neapolitani celebrant Ἥβωνα cognominantes. hae autem aetatum diuersitates ad solem referuntur, ut paruulus uideatur hiemali solstitio, qualem Aegyptii proferunt ex adyto die certa, quod tunc breuissimo die ueluti paruus et infans uideatur. exinde autem procedentibus augmentis aequinoctio uernali similiter atque adulescentis adipiscitur uires figuraque iuuenis ornatur. postea statuitur eius aetas plenissima effigie barbae solstitio aestiuo, quo tempore summum sui consequitur augmentum. exinde per diminutiones ueluti senescenti quarta forma deus figuratur.”
“[9] Likewise, statues of Liber Pater represent him sometimes as a young man; again, as a man with a beard and also as an old man, as for example the statue of the god which the Greeks call Bassareus and Briseus, and that which in Campania the Neapolitans worship under the name Hebon. [10] These differences in age have reference to the sun, for at the winter solstice the sun would seem to be a little child, like that which the Egyptians bring forth from a shrine on an appointed day, since the day is then at its shortest and the god is accordingly shown as a tiny infant. Afterward, however, as the days go on and lengthen, the sun at the spring equinox acquires strength in a way comparable to growth to adolescence, and so the god is given the appearance of a young man. Subsequently, he is represented in full maturity, with a beard, at the summer solstice, when the sun’s growth is completed. After that, the days shorten, as though with the approach of his old age-hence the fourth of the figures by which the god is portrayed.”
Mark the sun-god whose lifespan is considered the same as the length of a solar year (see Enoch in the Book of Genesis 5.23 "And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:" - for years read days ) would be born at the winter solstice. He would pass from childhood to a young man at the spring emnight or equinox, reaching full growth at the summer solstice. He would pass from manhood into old age at the harvest or autumnal emnight and begin to head toward his end. That the sun-god was actually thought to go to his death at the winter solstice can be seen from certain other things that Macrobius tells us (see 1.21.4 [here]). But this end was never truly the end, but a new beginning. And thus we also see from the same writer's work that the "death" of the sun is always followed by the sun's immediate resurrectio or again-rising, his again-birth. Thus Book I, chapter 20, §2:
“Hinc est, quod simulacris et Aesculapii et Salutis draco subiungitur, quod hi ad solis naturam lunaeque referuntur. et est Aesculapius uis salubris, de substantia solis subueniens animis corporibusque mortalium. Salus autem natura lunaris effectus est quo corpora animantium iuuantur salutifero firmata temperamento. ideo ergo simulacris eorum iunguntur figurae draconum, quia praestant, ut humana corpora uelut infirmitatis pelle deposita ad pristinum reuirescant uigorem, ut reuirescunt dracones per annos singulos pelle senectutis exuta. propterea et ad ipsum solem species draconis refertur, quia sol semper uelut a quadam imae depressionis senecta in altitudinem suamut in robur reuertitur iuuentutis.”
“Statues of Aesculapius and Salus, then, have figures of serpents in attendance because these two deities enable human bodies, as it were, to slough off the skin of weakness and to recover the bloom of their former strength, just as serpents each year shed the skin of old age and renew their youth. And it is for this reason that the sun itself too is represented in the form of a serpent, because in its passage from the lowest point of its course to its height it always seems, as it were, to pass from the depth of old age and return to the vigour of youth.”
From this we have the outermost meanings to be given to the "tail-biter" or οὐροβόρος, and to the myth if the phoenix, a bird "holy to the sun" (Pliny Nat. Hist.) which is born again from his/her own balefire.
Our rough fourfold division of the life of the sun-god according to the four year-tides or seasons was capable of further sub-division. And a twelve-fold division seems to have been well understood of old, thus Proclus
Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato Vol II, awent by Thomas Taylor,
commentary on Timaeus 38c Book IV lf.775:
“...τὸν ἥλιον … κατἀ ζῴδιον εἰρήκασιν ἀμείβειν τὰς μορφὰς …”“…the sun is said to change his forms … in each sign of the zodiac...”
Balder Through the Year.
Before we begin, it is worthwhile reading Marcus Manilius' Astronomica Book II lines 433 to 447 to find out which of the Twelve Great Gods (Δωδεκάθεον) rule over which sign of the Zodiac. Mark that this is not the same as saying which one of the seven planetary gods rules the signs of the Zodiac, and which is a standard idea among astrologers. We shall see which god gets what as we go.
Capricornus - 18th. December to the 17th. January
Now the winter solstice or shortest day (bruma as the Romans called it) is the traditional date for the "birthday of the sun". And Macrobius tells us:
"...at the winter solstice the sun would seem to be a little child, like that which the Egyptians bring forth from a shrine on an appointed day, since the day is then at its shortest and the god is accordingly shown as a tiny infant."
In the old Roman reckoning the winter solstice was thought to fall on the 25th. December (see De Temporum Ratione (II) cap. 30 "...de solstitiis, quod octavo Calendarum Juliarum, et octavo Calendarum Januariarum die sint notanda,..."). We now know their reckoning is a little out, and so this is worth bearing in mind when we come to update things. The winter solstice was clearly a very important day to our forebears. The true meaning of the word "year" is that it is the length of time the sun takes to go from the shortest day to the shortest day. Now it is worth bearing in mind that our forebears kept two great reckonings of time through the year. Firstly, there was the long count of 365 days or nights from one shortest day to the next. And secondly, there was the counting of some twelve or thirteen new moons or months. For all months were true "living months" reckoned by the phases of the
moon (De Temp. Rat. (II) cap. 15 "...
juxta cursum lunæ suos menses computavere:...") and therefore had
to begin with the new moon. Whilst the full moon (fylleþ) then always fell mid-month. Now there are two ways of reckoning a lunar month: the sidereal and the synodic. The sidereal gives you a month of 28 days. Thirteen of these happen in the space of a solar year, but this means you are always short by one day of the length of a solar year (hence the "year and a day" we find in folktales). The synodic counts six alternate months of thirty and 29 days giving an 11 day shortfall of the length of a solar year. This shortfall however, is made good in years when there are thirteen new moons between the two shortest days. But either way, it is an inexact way of reckoning the length of a year and so had to be annually checked against the length of time the sun took to go from one shortest day to the next. That the Old English began the reckoning of their year "ab octavo Calendarum Januariarum die," that is, from the winter solstice, shows us that this was the day they made sure their monthly count was what it should be. When Bede tells us in his De Temporum Ratione, that the two months Giuli, are before and after the winter solstice he truly means only that the
new moons that begin these living lunar months fall before and after the date of the
winter solstice. The day of the solstice itself will always fall in the first lunar month called Giuli. Bede then gives us two native ways of referring to the shortest day. The most obvious is that the two months Giuli, take their name for the day on which the turning back of the sun is reached and daylight begins to lengthen, that is, the winter solstice:
"Menses Giuli a conuersione solis in auctum diei, quia unus eorum præcedit, alius subsequitur, nomina accipiunt.""The two months Giuli have taken their names from the turning back of the sun into the lengthening of days, for that one of them goes before and one follows after."
The Old English Martyrology awends this:
“forþam þa monðas twegen syndon nemde anum naman, oðer se ærra ȝeola, oðer se æftera, forþam þe hyra oðer gangeð beforan þære sunnan, ærðon þe heo cyrre hig to þæs dæges lenge, oðer æfter.”So *Giul- is the old name for the day the sun turns back, otherwise the shortest day or winter solstice. And in the corpus of the Old English texts that have come down to us, we find this day (albeit misreckoned as the 25th December) called ‘ȝēol/ȝeohhel’ or ‘ȝēoldæȝ/ȝeohheldæȝ’. We would now say “Yule” or “Yule-day” the Northern Júl and
“The two months are called by one name, the one the earlier, the other the later Yule, for the reason that one of them precedes the sun, before it turns to lengthen the day, the other follows it.”
Júldagr.
Bede also tells us that what we might call the night before the winter solstice, the true Yule-eve, was known as the "Mothers' Night".
Now the moon was known to go about the earth in the space of a lunar month in the same way as the sun was thought to go in a circle about the earth in the space of a year. A month was thus, as it were, a moon's year, whilst a year was a sun's month. A lost understanding here must have been that as the moon appears to wax and wane in the course of the month, so the sun waxed and waned in the course of a year. The yearly temperature range and the waxing and waning of the vegetable life on earth that is dependent on the sun's light would seem to prove it. If you could have a new, full and old moon in the course of a month, you could have a new, full and old sun as well in the course of a year. The winter solstice each year would then match the time each month when there is a "conjunction" of the sun and moon and no moon can be seen. Technically, the day before this, the "Amavasya tithi" of the Hindus, is the last day of the month, and the first day of the new month, the "Pratipad tithi" is what follows it (see drawing below). This is the "new moon" day marked on calendars, but as no moon will be seen then, this doesn't match the popular understanding of the word of "the first visible crescent of the Moon, after conjunction with the Sun" (OED). In the twelvefold division of the yearly cycle of 360°, the time when the sun is in the 30° before the winter solstice would roughly correspond to the "Amavasya tithi" of the moon each month. And likewise, the time when the sun is in the 30° after the winter solstice would correspond to the moon's monthly "Pratipad tithi".
Amavasya and Pratipad tithi by Freedom Cole - http://shrifreedom.org/vedic-astrology/amavasya-the-dark-moon/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43061334
These twelve 30° divisions (δωδεκατημόρια) of the 360° circle the sun appears to travel in the space of a year are popularly misunderstood as giving rise to the months, and we even find the term "solar months", but this arises from a painful poverty in our mother tongue. For the word month, which demonstrably stems from the word "moon", should only ever refer to the moon's monthly 360° circle. But the so-called "(solar) month" is one of the twelvefold divisions of the solar year, and marked, not by the phases of the moon, but by the sun going through a 30° division of his path through the heavens and traditionally assigned to one of the twelve star signs that make up the backdrop to this path. That is, to the so-called Zodiac as these signs make a ζῳδιακός κύκλος, a “little bestial (ζῳδιακός> ζῴδια>ζῴδιον) circle (κύκλος)” to the untrained eye. The knowledge of this solar calendar, like the belief in a sun-god, rather than a sun-goddess, was a specialist thing belonging to the poets. A guild secret if you will, but a badly kept one as the poets hid it in plain sight in their poems!
The winter solstice was therefore the beginning and end of the sun's yearly course, and it was anciently understood as taking place in the 8° of the sign of Capricorn(us). That it should fall in that sign is doubtlessly laden with meaning. In Old English Capricorn(us) rightly understood as Bucca: "Buck". In the North Steingeit (f.) "Stone-goat" or "Steingeitar merki" . Bishop Isidorus of Hispalis, in his Etymologiæ gives us a popular outfolding of the sign's meaning in Book III, chap. 71, §31:
“Capricorni figuram ideo inter sidera finxerunt, propter capream Iovis nutricem; cuius posteriorem partem corporis in effigiem piscis ideo formaverunt, ut pluvias eiusdem temporis designarent, quas solet idem mensis plerumque in extremis habere.”
“They imagined the figure of Capricorn among the constellations because of the goat that was Jupiter’s nurse. They made the rear part of its body in the image of a fish to indicate the rains of this season, which usually occur plentifully towards the end of this month.”Elsewhere we will find it said that Capricornus awends the Greek Αιγόκερως and is actually the name of Jupiter’s foster brother who was set among the stars for his help against Saturn and his Titans. He is said to be a son of Pan, and so, like Pan might well be shown as a goat-man or satyr, but it is not at all obvious why he should be shown as a "goat-fish" "caper ... piscis" (Manilius Astron. 2:659). On the 7th century B.C.E. 'Mul. Apin' tablet the same sign is called ‘SUHUR.MAŠ’ “goat-fish”. The Jupiter who is in hiding from Saturn in a cave (=the physical universe) among mountain goats is truly no more than a poetic reference to the idea of the "new-born" sun in the sign of Capricorn. The myth that the sign of Capricornus betokens Pan in a hidden shape (half goat, half fish) whilst hiding from Typhon must also have the same meaning. The sun hides in the sign of the goat-fish. The fish half is maybe suggested by the celestial phenomenon known as the Milky Way, which is more often found in myth as a river upon whose banks the action of the gods takes place.
The truth is that we are meant to read the goat-fish as if it were a riddle, but one using things not words (nōn verbīs sed rēbus). It is capable of many readings according to your own level of understanding of course, but its most obvious reading is as follows. Goats love to climb upward, sometimes to seemingly impossible heights, and so it is a natural symbol of ascent. Thus we find Heiðrún on the roof of Valhöll in Grímnismál 25. A fish on the other hand is a natural symbol of descent, as the Emperor Julian tells us in his Oration to the Mother of the Gods "since fish .. go down into the lowest depths". As goats by their love of climbing upward also imitate fire, and fish cannot live without water, we also have symbols for the two great elements on which all life depends. So if you put all these things together you have a symbol of both ascent and descent, of heights and depths, of the lowest beginning to climb up and the highest beginning to sink down; of all beginnings and endings and indeed of everything, the alpha and omega of all things if you will. But more specifically as the sign in which the winter solstice takes place it betokens the idea that the sun has already reached the lowest point in his course and has begun to climb back upwards. If you kill off your old sun at the winter-solstice so as to allow for his rebirth, as many myths seem to imply, then the goat-fish betokens that higher power which brings this about. The great hidden fire, the fire hidden in the waters above if you will, and from which the lesser fire of the sun may be relit when it goes out.
Manilius' Astronomica, Book II, line 445 (awend. G. P. Goold) tells us that Capricornus is ruled by the goddess Vesta:
atque angusta fovet Capricorni sidera Vesta;
and Vesta the cramped stars of Capricorn;
Vesta is Jupiter’s elder sister,
and sometime foster-mother. Vesta is the Greeks' Hestia (Ἑστία > from ἑστία “hearth”) and Socrates tells us in Plato's Cratylus 400d, Hestia is the goddess whom the Greeks always worshipped first. This makes her a rough match for Aditiḥ (अदितिः) the "mother of the gods" in the Ṛgvedaḥ. And it stands to reason that Capricornus should belong to the mother of the sun-god if he is said to be "born" in the 8° of the sign.
“teque ... Germania ...
... asserit ambiguum sidus terraeque marisque 795
aestibus assiduis pontum terrasque sequentem.”
“and you ... Germania ...
... are claimed by a sign uncertain whether it belongs to land or sea,
since you follow now sea, now land, as the tides continuously ebb and flow.” (awend. Goold)
Now land that is "uncertain whether it belongs to land or sea", is what we would call in English "fenland".
... are claimed by a sign uncertain whether it belongs to land or sea,
since you follow now sea, now land, as the tides continuously ebb and flow.” (awend. Goold)
Now land that is "uncertain whether it belongs to land or sea", is what we would call in English "fenland".
Balder's birth would then match what is said in Ægypt about Horus, whom the Greeks evened with their own Apollo. For Horus was seemingly said to have been born at the Winter Sunstead on the “floating island” of Chemmis (Achbit) in the north-west of the Delta. The
Nile Delta is in the Old English awending of Orosius called the “Fenland” ("Hí ealle Egypta awéston, bútan
ðǽm fenlandum"). Horus' mother Isis, when about to give birth to him, had fled to
the fenland to hide away from his father’s killer. Uto or Buto for Wadjet, (thus Per-Wadjet is the Greeks’ called it Buto Βουτώ), whom the Greeks evened with Leto, was his foster-mother. Wadjet is also called "Neseret" ‘the Fiery One’.
There is maybe a whisper of Balder's birth at the Winter solstice in the three stars that make up the belt of Orion (Zeta (Alnitak), Epsilon (Alnilam), and Delta (Mintaka) Orionis) being called in Sweden Friggerock (colus Friggae, Johan Ihre, p. 663). For these stars are linked to the sunrise at the Winter Solstice.
Frigg’s rock or distaff also shows her rulership over fate, the goddesses of fate being understood as spinners and weavers. The Classical goddesses of fate are well-known as spinners, but that our "Wyrde systres" also spun may be gleaned from the “Rhyming Poem” in Exeter Book line 70 which hath “me þæt wyrd gewæf” and from what is misput to the new god in Bēowulf lines 696 to 697: “...Ac him Dryhten forgeaf/ wigspeda gewiofu, Wedera leodum ...”. (For those interested, I have written about the "Wyrde systres" elsewhere (see [here] and [here])). And thus Freyja says in Lokasenna 29:
" örlög Frigg,
hygg ek, at öll viti,
þótt hon sjalfgi segi."" I think that Frigg knows all fates (örlög) though she herself foretells not."
Now the account of Jesus borrows much from the hoard-house of myth. That the 25th. December was taken over as his birthday speaks volumes. The celestial phenomena at the winter solstice suggested certain things to our forefathers that have afterwards found their way into myth, and from myth into the pseudo-history of Jesus. And it is markworthy that the three kings or magi of the Jesus story are meant to be noneother than these three stars that make the belt of Orion, and in some places these selfsame stars are even called as much. Other places however, call these same three stars the “Three Marys” referring to the end rather than the beginning of Jesus’s life, but the goddesses of fate that they betoken are as appropriate at the birth as at the death of a child. And undoubtedly the three kings at the birth of Jesus stand in for these goddesses of fate, and have been shaped in their image, thus they are said to be three ages. The Bible says nothing about them being three and indeed at Ravenna seven magi are shown bringing gifts to the new-born Jesus.
Now Balder, as we have said, is the divine prototype of a lot of similar sun-heroes that we meet in myth. We have already marked Sîvrit who has a tell-tale fatal weak spot or “Achilles’ heel” by which alone he might be slain. And we shouldn't be shy of using the myths of these other heroes, if a link can be made, to fill out the holes in our Balder tale. In the Codex Regius poems there is one hero above all others to whom the goddesses of fate, the Northern Nornir, come bringing gifts at his birth: Helgi the slayer of Hunding. Thus Helgakviða Hundingsbana hin fyrri :
1. Ár var alda,
ǀ þat er arar gullu,
hnigu heilög
vötn ǀ af Himinfjöllum;
þá hafði Helga
ǀ inn hugumstóra
Borghildr borit
ǀ í Brálundi.
2. Nótt varð í
bæ, ǀ nornir kómu,
þær er öðlingi
ǀ aldr of skópu;
þann báðu fylki
ǀ frægstan verða
ok buðlunga ǀ
beztan þykkja.
1. In olden days, ǀ when eagles screamed,
And holy
streams ǀ from heaven's crags fell,
Was Helgi then,
ǀ the hero-hearted,
Borghild's son,
ǀ in Bralund born.
2. 'Twas night
in the dwelling, ǀ and Norns there came,
Who shaped the
life ǀ of the lofty one;
They bade him
most famed ǀ of fighters all
And best of princes
ǀ ever to be.
The "arar" and "heilög vötn ǀ af Himinfjöllum" look to the neighbouring signs to Capricornus of Aquila/Cygnus and Aquarius. Whilst Brálund looks to ‘Baldursbrá’. And it should be marked here that Helgi is the half-brother of Sigurð the dragon-slayer, the German Sîvrit or "Siegfried". And the two lives, as we shall see, are both expressions of the same solar archetype, that is, of the original Balder. In Helgakviða Hundingsbana önnur, or Völsungakviða in forna, Helgi is the slayer of Höðbroddr at Frekasteini (>Frakkastein? "rock of the Franks") . They are rivals for the love of Sigrún. Sigrún’s father Högni (=Hagen) and brothers (with the curious "solar" names of Bragi and Dag) are fighting on Höðbrodd's side, and one of the brothers will at length kill Helgi. But Sigrún herself loves Helgi and hates Höðbroddr to whom her father had given her. In Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum 3.2.1 Höðbroddr is meaningfully made into the father of Höðr who slays Balder:
“[1] Interfecto ab Helgone Hodbroddo, filius Hotherus sub tutela Gevari regis pueritiae procursum exegit. ”“When Helgi had slain Hodbrodd, his son Hother passed the length of his boyhood under the tutelage of King Gewar. ”
When we come to solar-heroes, it is nothing wonderful to find the same life histories repeating themselves in every generation. For the poets that sang of them well knew that they all referred to one and the same heavenly archetype. And is not everything "under the sun" subject to his rule and all lesser lives patterned, however weakly it may be, after his great life? As above, so below. Helgi is therefore Balder, Höðbroddr is Höðr, and Sigrún is Nanna. Helgi or Halga is really a Scylding or Skjöldungr, not a Wælsing or Vǫlsungr, but the two families get mixed up by the Northern skald from their annoying tendancy to use famous names like Skjöldungr and Vǫlsungr as synonyms for "king". A true solar dynasty of kings must, logically speaking, always have been understood to spring from Balder. Scyld/Skjöldr or Wæls/Völsi (Völsa þáttr) would be odd bynames, and it may well be that these were not royal solar clans to begin with, but became so thought of only after they had become kings. What the Northmen say of the Vǫlsungar is confused with the historical kings of the Franks, the Merovingi/Merohingii/ Merewīowing, who may have first taken over solar ideas of kingship from the Roman emperors (maybe by way of the Goths). But the original Merewīg or "sea-warrior" from whom they were sprung (I take the "bestea Neptuni quinotauri (recte, minotauri) similis" to be Roman Christian slander) only looks like another name for Scyld/Skjöldr.
In Helgakviða Hundingsbana önnur, we have the apotheosis of Helgi, or maybe his return to the gods from whence he came. For we are told:
"Haugr var gjörr eftir Helga. En er hann kom til Valhallar, þá bauð Óðinn honum öllu at ráða með sér.""A howe was made for Helgi. But when he came to Valhöll, then Óðin bade him to rule all with himself. "
And it is nothing short of amazing that these words are so little marked upon. For here we have a window on how the sun-god Balder relates to Óðin. A window on how the specialist poetic mythology fits into the broader mythological ideas shared by the whole folk. Helgi is not any old hero, but rather the leader of them all. Óðin's óskasunr above all other óskasynir if you will, with little to tell him asunder from what Balder must have been, and will be again after ragnarök.
It is in keeping with the idea of obscure beginnings of the yearly sun-god at the winter solstice that the myth of sun-hero's early days is also obscure. In ‘der Nibelunge liet’ we hear almost nothing of Sîvrit’s birth or childhood corresponding to the time when the sun is in the signs of ♑, ♒ and ♓. This matches the gospel account of Jesus which really starts with the baptism by John when Jesus is “about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23). As we will see that the baptism of Jesus is a token for the sun in the sign of Aquarius, the “about thirty years” refers to the 30° of the sign of Capricorn which the sun has already traversed.
In Aventiure 2 ( ‘Auentv von Sivride wie der erzogen wart’ ) we learn that the son of ‘Sigemvnt’ and ‘Sigelint’ grew up ‘in Niderlanden’ (‘Do wohs in Nid/erlanden\ eins edeln kuniges chint’) in the rich city of ‘Santen’ by the Rhine. The ‘wohs in Niderlanden’ seems to refer to the sun coming to the imae or “lowest point” in his course, from which he begins to re-ascend. This “lowest point” is in the sign of Capricorn. As "nether lands" or "low-lying lands" are always likely to be fenland we can also see how this roughly matches Frigg’s hall of Fensalir. ‘Santen’, now “Xanten”, which actually means ad Sanctum “at the Saints”, refers to the heavenly borough or garðr of the gods, the door to which was said to be at the sign of the Capricorn. That ‘Santen’ is by the Rhine shows us that here the Rhine is a reflection of the “Milky Way” conceived as a heavenly river rather than as a roadway.
Þiðreks saga af Bern however, does fill us in on the first thirty years of Sîvrit’s birth and upbringing. Falsely accused and persecuted while her husband is away, Sîvrit’s mother, Sisibe, is taken into a forest (í Svavaskóg) by two knights, Artvin and Hermann, to have her tongue cut off and then to be abandoned there. Artvin and Hermann then fall out and fight while Sisibe gives birth to her child. The effort of childbirth will kill Sisibe, but before she dies she puts Sîvrit in a “glass pot”(í glerpottinn /glerker) . Artvin kicks the pot into a stream which then goes out to sea to wash up on a beach where the child will be found, lifted out of the water and suckled by a “hind”. At that point he is found by Mímir the smith who takes the child and raises it as his own. All of this belongs to the time when the sun is in Capricorn. The doe is the sign itself, a deer having been swapped for a goat. Mímir the Smith is here for Pan who the Greeks linked to the sign of Capricorn, and thus Saxo calls Mimingus a satyr (3.2.5 "a Mimingo silvarum Satyro" "by Mimingus the satyr of the woods"). That this satyr should own the only sword that could kill Balder (3.2.5) and an magic arm-ring that etched the wealth of its owner (3.2.5) is odd. But it is what we might hope to find among the hoard of a master-smith. Why a smith and a satyr? In areaching the kind of men born under Capricorn Manilius tells us, in book 4 lines 243 to 251 of his Astronomica :
“In her shrine Vesta tends your fires, Capricorn :So smiths. Notwithstanding all the attempts to tell Vesta and Vulcanus asunder, it would seem that the truth is that Vesta could be a female Vulcanus. Livy's history of Rome Ab urbe condita, book 22, chapitle 10 marks a lectisternium held in the aftermath of Cannae and it is worth heeding that Vulcanus and Vesta share the same couch:
and from her you derive your skills and callings. For whatever needs
fire to function and demands a renewal of flame for its work
must be counted as of your domain. To pry for hidden metals,
to smelt out riches deposited in the veins of the earth,
to fold sure-handed the malleable mass- these skills will come from you,
as will aught which is fashioned of silver or gold.
That hot furnaces melt iron, and bronze,
and ovens give to the wheat (Ceres) its final form, will come as gifts from you. ...."
" Tum lectisternium per triduum habitum decemuiris sacrorum curantibus: sex puluinaria in conspectu fuerunt, Ioui ac Iunoni unum, alterum Neptuno ac Mineruae, tertium Marti ac Veneri, quartum Apollini ac Dianae, quintum Volcano ac Vestae, sextum Mercurio et Cereri."
"Then a lectisternium was held for three days under the supervision of the ten keepers of the Sacred Books. Six couches were publicly exhibited; one for Jupiter and Juno, another for Neptune and Minerva, a third for Mars and Venus, a fourth for Apollo and Diana, a fifth for Vulcan and Vesta, and the sixth for Mercury and Ceres."
The "í Svávaskóg" of Þiðreks saga is most markworthy as it means in the "wood of the Sváfar or Swabians" (see 'á Sváfaland' in Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar) and dimly echoes Tacitus Germania 39 where the grove of the Semnones "the most ancient and renowned branch of the Suebi" is araught. And above all:
“eoque omnis superstitio respicit, tanquam inde initia gentis, ibi regnator omnium deus, cetera subjecta atque parentia”.
"All this superstition implies the belief that from this spot the nation took its origin, that here dwells the supreme and all-ruling deity, to whom all else is subject and obedient. "
Under the rule of "as above, so below" Svávaskog would be an earthly copy of a truer heavenly home.
The saga also seems to put Svavaskog in "Tarlungland" which is doubtless a mistake for "Karlungland", the
land of the sons of Karl, and matching the Kerlingen in medieval German writings
and meaning the land of Karl der Große or Charlemagne. Hárbarðsljóð 2 Þór is "karl karla" "karl of karls" whilst in the foreword to Grímnismál Óðin takes upon himself the outer shape of a "karl" and in Reginsmál 18 he calls himself "karl af bergi" "Karl of the Rock/Mountain".
"Arcton hatte an tungol on norð dæle se hæfð seofon steorran 7 is forði oþrum naman gehaten septentrio. þone hatað læwede menn carles wæn.""Ἄρκτον (>Ἄρκτος) is the name of a constellation in the north that has seven stars and is therefore by another name called Septentrio. By the unlearned men it is called 'carles wæn' Karl's Wain."
So again, bearing in mind 'as above, so below', the land of the Karlungs, the "sons of Karl" is an earthly copy of heaven where Karl, that is Þór or Óðin, hitches his wain to the axle of the heavens.
But after a tempest, when the long wave broke
All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,
There came a day as still as heaven, and then
They found a naked child upon the sands
Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea,
And that was Arthur… (“Guinevere,” 288-94)
All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,
There came a day as still as heaven, and then
They found a naked child upon the sands
Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea,
And that was Arthur… (“Guinevere,” 288-94)
The more widespread tale is that Arthur was born in the castle of Tintagel itself. It is meant to be understood as impregnable stronghold. So impregnable that Gorlois felt safe in putting his wife there. But by rights however, Gorlois should be the father, and not the husband of the sun-hero's mother. And he should put his daughter in the impregnable castle to forestall a prophecy of his own demise at the hands of her son. See the folktale told to John O'Donovan by Shane O'Dugan of Tory Island in 1835 which tells of the birth of Lugh as a grandson of Balor, and who grows up to kill his grandfather as was foretold (see [here]). Gorlois=Balor, Ygerna =Eithne and Tór Mór =Tintagel. Tintagel is thus one of the many “Castle of the Maidens” or “Maiden-castles” and all should be thought of as holy to Vesta. That it is in Cornwall reinforces the connection to Capricornus as Cornwall or Cornubia looks like it has the Latin word cornu "horn" in it. Arthur being handed to Merlin at the postern gate of the castle wrapped in “cloth of gold” mirrors his birth. Merlin here is one with Mímir and Pan, for Merlinus Ambrosius and Merlinus Sylvaticus/Celidonius are but two aspects of one mythic unity. Merlin then gives the child to Sir Ector/Antor to be fostered. Thus MacKineely (Mac Cinnfhaelaidh) "son of the wolf's head" gives Lugh to his brother Gavida the smith.
In Chrétien de Troyes Perceval ou le Conte du Graal we learn that Arthur's mother, after Uther's death, goes to live in another impregnable castle called the Rock of Chanpguin:
- Si est voir, sire, ele est sa mere.
Quant Uterpandragon, ses pere,
fu mis an terre, si avint
que la reïne Ygerne vint
an cest païs; si aporta
tot son tresor et si ferma
sor cele roche le chastel
et le palés si riche et bel
con deviser oï vos ai.
yet it is true the knight averred
she is his mother, he her son,
because when Uther Pendragon,
King Arthur's father, was interred,
the queen Ygerne, as it occurred,
came to this land with all her stock
of treasure, and upon that rock
she built that castle and the rich
and beautifully made palace which
you've just described. (awend. R. H. Kline)
Li chastiax, se vos nel savez,
a non la Roche del Chanpguin.
The castle, since you do not know,
is named the Rock of Canguin,
Quant Uterpandragon, ses pere,
fu mis an terre, si avint
que la reïne Ygerne vint
an cest païs; si aporta
tot son tresor et si ferma
sor cele roche le chastel
et le palés si riche et bel
con deviser oï vos ai.
yet it is true the knight averred
she is his mother, he her son,
because when Uther Pendragon,
King Arthur's father, was interred,
the queen Ygerne, as it occurred,
came to this land with all her stock
of treasure, and upon that rock
she built that castle and the rich
and beautifully made palace which
you've just described. (awend. R. H. Kline)
Li chastiax, se vos nel savez,
a non la Roche del Chanpguin.
The castle, since you do not know,
is named the Rock of Canguin,
Uns sages clers d'astrenomie,
que la reïne i amena,
an cest grant palés qui est ça
a fet unes si granz mervoilles
c'onques n'oïstes les paroillesA learned Astronomer, whom the queen brought with her, created such a great marvel in that palace upon the hill that you've not heard the equal of it...
In the Livre d’Artus this has become:
... mes si tost come li rois Pel[l]inor sot que tuit si . xiiij . fil estoient mort si ne uost onques puis estre en son recet einz sen ala seiorner u Chastel de la Marueille avec la mere au roi Artus que Merlins i avoit portee mes nu sauoient nules gens fors cil qui la Saintisme Graal auoient en garde .
But as soon as King Pellinor knew that all his fourteen sons were dead, he no longer wished to stay in his dwelling but wished to go and dwell in the Castle of the Wonder with King Arthur’s mother whom Merlin had brought there. But no folk knew this save those who had the Holy Grail in their keeping.
And we can see queen Ygerne's Castle of the Wonder slowly blending with the castle of the Holy Grail even if the two were not always in fact the same. Akin to this is the Welsh tradition that Merlin took the Thirteen Treasures of Britain to the "Glass House" (Tŷ Gwydr), where they would abide forever. One of these was the Horn of Brân Galed.
This is also the true Hindarfjall or "fell or mountain of the hind" of Völsunga saga 19 & 20 referring to the hind that fed Sigurðr, that is, to the goat of Capricornus understood as (foster-) mother of the sun. Mark that it is "á leið suðr" "on the way south". Here Sigurðr finds Brynhildr in a "skjaldborg" "shield-castle" amidst "vafrloga" "wavering flames" as she is under Vesta's sway. The "horn fullt mjaðar" that she gives him in Sigrdrífumál, as Peter Krüger well marks in Germanic Mythology web site [here], plays on the name of Capricornus understood literally as "a goat's horn" (which may well have been both the shape and idea of the original constellation). And specifically as a drinking-horn, whence the Greeks' wonderful Αμαλθείας κέρας "horn of Amaltheia" and Romans' "cornucopiae" . Krüger also well understands Brynhild's byrnie as looking to the fish-scales of the "goat-fish". As Sigurðr cuts her out of her byrnie, so the goat forehalf of the sign seems to be freeing itself from the scaly fish back-half, not unlike a snake sloughing its old skin.
All these otherworldy castles where the sun-hero is born, or life is renewed or reborn, look to the heavenly exemplar which is the home of the gods. This home of the gods is particularly linked to the star sign of Capricornus by a long tradition. So Porphyry tells us in his On the Cave of the Nymphs in Homer's Iliad that Capricornus and Cancer mark the gates of ascent and descent of souls. Cancer the gate of descent into matter, and Capricornus the gate of ascent out of it again to go home to the gods. Bearing in mind Heimdallr is the door-ward of Ásgarðr, the home of the gods, and one with the Roman Janus, Peter Krüger is right to link Heimdall's horn, Gjallarhorn (see, Völuspá 46 ("horn er á lofti" indeed!) & 27), to Capricornus (see [here]). The "aurgum forsi" that then sprinkle themselves ("ausask") on it (see Völuspá 27) would then be the waters of the neighbouring Aquarius, and that "veði Valföðrs" is the star Fomalhaut (see [here]) is an interesting idea.
The three stars of Orion's belt however, were not forgotten in some tales of the birth of Arthur. Thus in the second continuation to Chrétien’s Perceval we find that three women were present at Arthur’s birth.
Li rois Artus, quant il fu nés,
Fu la plus bele créature
C’onques adont fesist Nature, 34140
Que trestout i mist son pensé.
Le roi son père fu conté
Que ∙III∙ dames ot à son nestre;
Cele qui plus en estoit mestre
Dist qu’il aroit pris et valor,
Sens et proece et grant honor
Et de tous biens gregnor plenté
Que hom de la crestienté.
Quand Uter Pandragons l’oï,
Dedens son cuer s’en esjoï
Si que de son fil devoit faire.” [Perceval le Gallois, le poème de Chrestien de Troyes et de ses continuateurs d’après le manuscrit de Mons. 1868 lf.123]
Awent by Nigel Bryant in his Perceval: The Story of the Grail lf.175:
“… When King Arthur was born, he was the most beautiful creature that Nature had ever made, applying all her powers to his creation. The king his father was told that three ladies had been present at his birth. The mistress of the three said that Arthur would have esteem and valour and wisdom and prowess and great honour, and greater courage than any man of woman born. When Uterpandragon heard this he rejoiced in his heart, as he was bound to do for his son.”These "three ladies" are the three goddesses of fate.
Ygærne wes mid childe; bi Vðer kinge. 9606
al þurh Merlines wiȝel; ær heo biwedded weore. 9607
Þe time com þe wes icoren; þa wes Arður iboren. 9608
Sone swa he com an eorðe; aluen hine iuengen. 9609
heo bigolen þat child; mid galdere swiðe stronge. 9610
heo ȝeuen him mihte; to beon bezst alre cnihten. 9611
heo ȝeuen him an-oðer þing; þat he scolde beon riche king. 9612
heo ȝiuen him þat þridde; þat he scolde longe libben. 9613
heo ȝifen him þat kine-bern; custen swiðe gode. 9614
þat he wes mete-custi; of alle quike monnen. 9615
þis þe alue him ȝef; and al swa þat child iþæh. 9616
Igraine was with child by king Uther
all through Merlin's witchcraft, before she was wedded.
The time came that was chosen when Arthur was born.
As soon as he came on earth elf-women took him.
They charmed the child with charms so strong:
they gave him might to be the best of all knights;
they give him a second thing, that he should be a rich king;
they give him a third, that he should long live.
They give to that kingly child virtues so good
that he was generous with food beyond all living men.
This the elf-women gave to him, and so that child throve.
Those who wish to be on the way can scroll on to Aquarius, but it seems as good a place as any to say a little bit more about Frigg w.ith respect to the Twelve Gods. We have already marked Livy's history of Rome Ab urbe condita, book 22, chapitle 10 where a lectisternium to the Twelve Gods is held in the aftermath of Cannae. The pairing up of gods is worth setting beside a list of those gods who rule the opposite signs of the zodiac from Manilius. Three pairs match Manilius scheme.
Ioui ac Iunoni
Marti ac Veneri,
Apollini ac
Dianae.
The others however, swap about so that Livy's
Neptuno ac Mineruae, becomes Manilius' Neptune and Ceres. But there is a whisper in this that Minerva and Ceres are interchangeable rulers of the sign opposite to Neptune's. Livy's Volcano ac Vestae, is Manilius' Vulcan and Minerva, with Vesta and Minerva being thought of as intercangeable rulers of the sign opposite to Vulcan's. And lastly Livy's Mercurio et Cereri is Manilius' Mercurius and Vesta, with the whisper again that Ceres and Vesta are interchangeable as the rulers of the sign opposite Mercurius'.
Now this last concerns us here as Vesta's sign of Capricornus is opposite Cancer which we know from Manilius is ruled by Mercurius:
Cyllenie, Cancrum ;...
Cyllenius [rules] Cancer the crab ....
Cyllenius, Greek Κυλλήνιος, is from from Κυλλήνη or Mount Cyllene, a hill in Arcadia hallowed to Hermes whom the Romans called Mercurius! Indeed the Greeks say Hermes was "born" on Mount Cyllene, and the Homeric hymn that areaches this, calls upon the god as:
Κυλλήνης μεδέοντα καὶ Ἀρκαδίης πολυμήλου,Lord of Cyllene and Arcadia rich in flocks [lit. of many sheep]
Vesta and Mercurius might be thought to make a bit of an odd couple among the Twelve. She is the oldest, and he is the youngest. Proclus’, Commentary on the Timæus, Book III, lf. 543 (Volume II):
“For everywhere that which is older, is the symbol of a more Intellectual, total and monadic life, but that which is younger, of a life which is partable, proceeds to secondary natures, and is multiplied."See Iliad 13:355.
She almost never leaves Olympus
like the other gods. Whilst Mercurius the messenger the gods is almost
never at home. But an Homeric hymn to Hestia will be found to be a hymn to them both:
ἑστίη, ἣ πάντων ἐν δώμασιν ὑψηλοῖσινIt is almost as if they are a married couple. And it would seem that Penelope and Odysseus are to be thought of as embodying below on earth all that Vesta and Mercurius stand for above. It is worth marking here that some make Pan the son of Hermes, that is Mercurius, whilst some others make him out to be a son of Penelope.
ἀθανάτων τε θεῶν χαμαὶ ἐρχομένων τ᾽ ἀνθρώπων
ἕδρην ἀίδιον ἔλαχες, πρεσβηίδα τιμήν,
καλὸν ἔχουσα γέρας καὶ τίμιον: οὐ γὰρ ἄτερ σοῦ
5εἰλαπίναι θνητοῖσιν, ἵν᾽ οὐ πρώτῃ πυμάτῃ τε
Ἑστίῃ ἀρχόμενος σπένδει μελιηδέα οἶνον:
καὶ σύ μοι, Ἀργειφόντα, Διὸς καὶ Μαιάδος υἱέ,
ἄγγελε τῶν μακάρων, χρυσόρραπι, δῶτορ ἐάων,
10ἵλαος ὢν ἐπάρηγε σὺν αἰδοίῃ τε φίλῃ τε.
ναίετε δώματα καλά, φίλα φρεσὶν ἀλλήλοισιν
εἰδότες: ἀμφότεροι γὰρ ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων
εἰδότες ἔργματα καλὰ νόῳ θ᾽ ἕσπεσθε καὶ ἥβῃ.
χαῖρε, Κρόνου θύγατερ, σύ τε καὶ χρυσόρραπις Ἑρμῆς:
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν ὑμέων τε καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ᾽ ἀοιδῆς.
[1] Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deathless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting abode and highest honor: glorious is your portion and your right. [5] For without you mortals hold no banquet, —where one does not duly pour sweet wine in offering to Hestia both first and last.
And you, Slayer of Argus, Son of Zeus and Maia, messenger of the blessed gods (ἄγγελε τῶν μακάρων), bearer of the golden rod, [10] giver of good, be favorable and help us, you and Hestia, the worshipful and dear. [9] Come and dwell in this glorious house in friendship together; [11] for you two, well knowing the noble actions of men, aid on their wisdom and their strength.
Hail, Daughter of Cronos, and you also, Hermes, bearer of the golden rod! Now I will remember you and another song also.
Now Mercurius is famously evened with the Northern Woden and Óðin, and Frigg is his wife. And if Balder is a sun-god born at the winter-solstice when the sun is in Capricornus, then the hall of his mother, Fensalir, is going to be the sign of Capricornus. And if Vesta rules Capricornus and Frigg rules Fensalir it follows that Vesta is noneother than the Northern Frigg! Vesta the foster-mother of Jupiter as a sun-god moreover may be seen to match Frigg as the mother of Balder. Now as to all those who have let themselves be persuaded that Frigg is Venus, they might like to look at Augustine the City of God Against the Pagans, Book 4, chapitle 10:
"... aliquando Vestam non erubescunt etiam Venerem dicere..."
"...they do not blush sometimes even to call Vesta Venus,..."
The Vesta-like Venus is to be found in that Venus or Aphrodite shown with her foot on a tortoise whose statue by Phidias was set up at Elis (Pausanias, Periegesis 6.25.1). The tortoise is here meant to be a token of "ideal female domesticity", as it keeps a still tongue and never leaves its house (see Plutarch Coniugalia praecepta 32 (Mor. 142))! This gives rise to an emblem [here]. And we call to mind here that Brynhildr in Völsunga saga is found in a "skjaldborg" a "shield-castle" and that this could be understood as the formation that the Roman's called a "testudo" or tortoise.
But the tortoise or turtle (a turtle is only a kind of sea-going tortoise) is an alternative understanding of the stars of Cancer. And the Greeks and Romans linked the tortoise to Hermes and Mercurius. We are thus tempted to understand this tortoise token specifically with regard to Mercurius' relationship to Vesta so that it is to be understood a creature that doesn't have a fixed home, but carries its home about with it. The very essence of the endless wanderer whom Woden or Óðin, as also Hermes and Mercurius, are all shown to be.
We call to mind here that in the beginning of Vafþrúðnismál 2 Frigg redes her husband Óðin:
"Heima letja
ek mynda Herjaföðr
í görðum goða; ...
"I would the "father of armies" abide at home in the yards of the gods".
A statement worthy of Vesta. And in the prologue to Grímnismál where Óðin and Frigg are bantering about their respective favourites, what is said is to be distinguished along Capricornus versus Cancer lines. So, when Frigg attacks her husband's favourite Geirröðr, she twits him with sins that are appropriately hostile to Mercury the wanderer and to Cancer:
"Hann er matníðingr sá, at hann kvelr gesti sína, ef honum þykkja of margir koma.""He is a meat-nithing (a miser with food), and he kills his guests, if he thinks too many have arrived."
It should also here be marked that the planet of Venus was of old named for other goddesses beside Venus. Pliny in his Natural History , book 2, chap. 142 gives Juno, Isis and the Mother of the Gods.
The tortoise under Venus' foot could also be seen as an allusion to the wife's superiority over her husband. In Grímnismál, Óðin is at length outwitted by Frigg into killing his own favourite. And something akin to this can be seen in the early history of the Lombards. Frigg's favourites the Winniles prevail over Óðin's favourites the Vandals, because Frigg outwits her husband. Similar considerations underlie Vesta being the oldest of the Twelve Gods whilst Mercurius is the youngest.
Bearing in mind we have already linked Vesta to Aditiḥ it is interesting to mark whom the Hindus have as her husband. This is Kaśyapaḥ (कश्यपः) whose name means "tortoise" (literally "black teeth"). The Ādityāḥ are their twelve sons who are linked to the twelve "months" of the