“bendfeorm for ripe”
In a draught behight De Dignitate Hominum,
Rectitudines Singularum personarum in the Leges Henrici primi, (the so-called “Quadripartitus”), but untitled
in the Old English handwrit (Corpus Christi Coll., Cambs. Handwrit 383) we have
a little list of the main feasts of the Old English farming year as
“folcgerihtu” “folk-rights”:
21.4 Feola syndon folcgerihtu.On sumre ðeode gebyreð winterfeorm, easter feorm, bendfeorm for ripe, gytfeorm for yrðe, mæðmed hreacmete…“Many are the folk-rights.Among some folk belong a feast (feorm) at [mid-] winter, at Easter, at the binding at reaping, at ploughing [? see below ], and at haymaking…”.
In the later Latin awending of this in the Leges Henrici primi, (“Quadripartitus”) the same is spanned by:
“In quibusdam locis datur firma natalis Domini, et firma paschalis et firma precum ad congregandas segetes et gutfirma ad aranda et firma pratorum fenandorum…”“In certain places are given a feast at the "Birthday of the Lord" [=Midwinter, Yule], at Easter, at the gathering of the sheaves, at the gutfirma at ploughing and at haymaking…”.
[See F.
Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen
(1901), Vol. 1, lf.452.]
That "winterfeorm" is rightly "midwintres feorm" (whence Leges Henrici primi hath "firma natalis Domini") can be seen from the following words given earlier in the same work (9,1):
J. R. Clark Hall understands gytfeorm for yrðe as a "ploughing feast", which awendeth the feorm and the for yrðe, but not the gyt-. Is gyt- for gyte "a pouring out"?
That these are “folcgerihtu” “folk-rights” should make us think that they are not likely to be something that has sprung up over night, but rather have deep roots: "time out of mind" as the saying is. Are they “Christian”? There is nothing truly “Christian” about this Old English list of feasts, indeed this is a shortcoming that the later Latin text would seem to go out of its way to set right.
Now, just so the reader is in no doubt, my own outlook here is that of Procopius (Προκόπιος), in his History of the Wars (Ὑπὲρ τῶν Πολέμων) Book 6, ch. 25, §10, who, when writing of the Franks (Φράγγοι), says:
And although it would seem it has become the fashion these days to gainsay that almost anything has "pagan" roots, I'm not much of a man for fashion. This fashion moreover takes its strength from the woeful absence of evidence, but it rather willfully overlooks that, when it comes to things like historical records which are more than a little subject to the vicissitudes of time, any absence of evidence cannot reasonably be taken as evidence of absence. It also overlooks that the ground, so to speak, from which all belief has come (even bastard outgrowths like Christianity and so on, at odds with their roots), is a thoroughly "pagan" one. In other words, it is the "pagan" that is everywhere the default setting. And Christianity was mostly canny enough not to believe its own polemic here, and to be happy enough with applying a thin "Christian" overlay, added mostly for appearances sake, to far older things that were felt to work and were not to be lightly set aside for anything men might say or do. And notwithstanding the overwhelming atheism of our times, many today still throw coins into bodies of water, or leave sherry and mincepies out for "Father Christmas" at Yule though they seldom give a thought to what it is they do, or why they do it. When we "Christen" ships we are not only naming the ship, but also still making an half-hearted offering for its well-being (the Hindus have a puja ceremony when they do this); and the "pagan" symbolism would have been so much the greater in the days of ship's figureheads which, only for nicety's sake, we forbear from calling "idols".
"Eallum æhtemannum gebyreð Midwintres feorm 7 Eastorfeorm, sulhæcer 7 hærfesthand[f]ul to eacan heora nydrihte"
"To all owned-men belongeth a midwinter's feast and an Easter feast, a plough-acre and a harvest-handful to further their needful-rights".
J. R. Clark Hall understands gytfeorm for yrðe as a "ploughing feast", which awendeth the feorm and the for yrðe, but not the gyt-. Is gyt- for gyte "a pouring out"?
“folcgerihtu”
That these are “folcgerihtu” “folk-rights” should make us think that they are not likely to be something that has sprung up over night, but rather have deep roots: "time out of mind" as the saying is. Are they “Christian”? There is nothing truly “Christian” about this Old English list of feasts, indeed this is a shortcoming that the later Latin text would seem to go out of its way to set right.
Now, just so the reader is in no doubt, my own outlook here is that of Procopius (Προκόπιος), in his History of the Wars (Ὑπὲρ τῶν Πολέμων) Book 6, ch. 25, §10, who, when writing of the Franks (Φράγγοι), says:
“οἱ γὰρ βάρβαροι οὗτοι, Χριστιανοὶ γεγονότες, τὰ πολλὰ τῆς παλαιᾶς δόξης φυλάσσουσι, ...”
“For these barbarians, though they have become Christians, preserve the greater part of their ancient religion; ...”.[Loeb vol. IV, lvs.86 to 87, awending H. B. Dewing].
And although it would seem it has become the fashion these days to gainsay that almost anything has "pagan" roots, I'm not much of a man for fashion. This fashion moreover takes its strength from the woeful absence of evidence, but it rather willfully overlooks that, when it comes to things like historical records which are more than a little subject to the vicissitudes of time, any absence of evidence cannot reasonably be taken as evidence of absence. It also overlooks that the ground, so to speak, from which all belief has come (even bastard outgrowths like Christianity and so on, at odds with their roots), is a thoroughly "pagan" one. In other words, it is the "pagan" that is everywhere the default setting. And Christianity was mostly canny enough not to believe its own polemic here, and to be happy enough with applying a thin "Christian" overlay, added mostly for appearances sake, to far older things that were felt to work and were not to be lightly set aside for anything men might say or do. And notwithstanding the overwhelming atheism of our times, many today still throw coins into bodies of water, or leave sherry and mincepies out for "Father Christmas" at Yule though they seldom give a thought to what it is they do, or why they do it. When we "Christen" ships we are not only naming the ship, but also still making an half-hearted offering for its well-being (the Hindus have a puja ceremony when they do this); and the "pagan" symbolism would have been so much the greater in the days of ship's figureheads which, only for nicety's sake, we forbear from calling "idols".
Now in England "Christianity", or rather a "Christian affectation", spread out from our kings' halls into the land thereabouts. But for many years it would seem that there was no needfulness to take up Christianity other than that of the greater social prestige which fell to the new belief from it being that of the king; and maybe also from it being the belief of what was left of the Romans in Europe. So the two beliefs were often found side by side as Bede himself tells us was the case at (what I take to be) Rendlesham in Suffolk. Thus Book 2, chap. 15 of his Historia Ecclesiastica (awend. L. C. Jane):
The Old English awending of the above made in the days of King Ælfred is here. Such fana or hergas would, needless to say, become "churches" with eathe. Hardly to be told asunder.
This happy and tolerant state of affairs however, at least officially, was not likely to last once the Christians got the upper hand. For they are always bad guests, and laws were at length made and sent out by kings against the old belief, Wihtred of Kent seemingly being the first. But how far they were heeded is unknown. And it is well here to think that there are still Roman Catholics and Gypsies in England notwithstanding all the laws that were made against them over the years. Unrightful and newfangled laws moreover (in Old English we have the lovely word "undomas"), are never liked by anyone, and whilst they may long be borne with, those who live under them are truly only biding their time until they can cast them aside. Bishop Wulfstan's Sermo Lupi ad Anglos written in 1014 freely acknowledges:
But here we are only thinking about “bendfeorm for ripe” “the binding -feast (feorm) at reaping”. Now it is more than likely that a feast at reaping-time or harvest was a thing long done in England. And we can follow it from "Anglo-Saxon" days as the “bendfeorm for ripe” almost to our own time through the medieval custumals of manors and so on. Thus in the Godstow Register (Rawlinson B.408) in a charter between the Abbess of Godstow and "Iohn Mariner of Crikelade" we find listed of the things looked for by the Abbess and what went along with them:
"TANTUM autem deuotionis Aeduini erga cultum ueritatis habuit, ut etiam regi Orientalium Anglorum, Earpualdo filio Redualdi, persuaderet, relictis idolorum superstitionibus, fidem et sacramenta Christi cum sua prouincia suscipere. Et quidem pater eius Reduald iamdudum in Cantia sacramentis Christianae fidei inbutus est, sed frustra; nam rediens domum ab uxore sua et quibusdam peruersis doctoribus seductus est, atque a sinceritate fidei deprauatus habuit posteriora peiora prioribus; ita ut in morem antiquorum Samaritanorum et Christo seruire uideretur et diis, quibus antea seruiebat; atque in eodem fano et altare haberet ad sacrificium Christi, et arulam ad uictimas daemoniorum. Quod uidelicet fanum rex eiusdem prouinciae Alduulf, qui nostra aetate fuit, usque ad suum tempus perdurasse, et se in pueritia uidisse testabatur.
Erat autem praefatus rex Reduald natu nobilis, quamlibet actu ignobilis, filius Tytili, cuius pater fuit Uuffa, a quo reges Orientalium Anglorum Uuffingas appellant."
"EDWIN was so zealous for the worship of truth, that he likewise persuaded Eorpwald, king of the East Saxons, and son of Redwald, to abandon his idolatrous superstitions, and with his whole province to receive the faith and sacraments of Christ. And indeed his father Redwald had long before been admitted to the sacrament of the Christian faith in Kent, but in vain; for on his return home, he was seduced by his wife and certain perverse teachers, and turned back from the sincerity of the faith; and thus his latter state was worse than the former; so that, like the ancient Samaritans, he seemed at the same time to serve Christ and the gods whom he had served before; and in the same temple he had an altar to sacrifice to Christ, and another small one to offer victims to devils; which temple, Aldwulf, king of that same province, who lived in our time testifies had stood until his time, and that he had seen it when he was a boy. The aforesaid King Redwald was noble by birth, though ignoble in his actions, being the son of Tytilus, whose father was Uuffa, from whom the kings of the East Angles are called Uuffings."
The Old English awending of the above made in the days of King Ælfred is here. Such fana or hergas would, needless to say, become "churches" with eathe. Hardly to be told asunder.
This happy and tolerant state of affairs however, at least officially, was not likely to last once the Christians got the upper hand. For they are always bad guests, and laws were at length made and sent out by kings against the old belief, Wihtred of Kent seemingly being the first. But how far they were heeded is unknown. And it is well here to think that there are still Roman Catholics and Gypsies in England notwithstanding all the laws that were made against them over the years. Unrightful and newfangled laws moreover (in Old English we have the lovely word "undomas"), are never liked by anyone, and whilst they may long be borne with, those who live under them are truly only biding their time until they can cast them aside. Bishop Wulfstan's Sermo Lupi ad Anglos written in 1014 freely acknowledges:
"... & eac her syn[d] on earde apostatan abroþene"
"... and also here are in [the] land wretched apostates...".
"... ac wearð þes þeodscipe, swa hit þincan mæg, swyþe forsyngod ... þurh hæþene unsida,..."
"... and this folk, as it may seem, sinned mightily... through heathen misdoings, ...".
"... & her syndan wiccan & wælcyrian"
"... & here are witches & walkyries...".
But here we are only thinking about “bendfeorm for ripe” “the binding -feast (feorm) at reaping”. Now it is more than likely that a feast at reaping-time or harvest was a thing long done in England. And we can follow it from "Anglo-Saxon" days as the “bendfeorm for ripe” almost to our own time through the medieval custumals of manors and so on. Thus in the Godstow Register (Rawlinson B.408) in a charter between the Abbess of Godstow and "Iohn Mariner of Crikelade" we find listed of the things looked for by the Abbess and what went along with them:
“Þei shall repe yerly in heruyst by thre days, & they shall haue necessari of metis”.
But can we show that there was anything more going on behind such bare words? Can we show that there was any continuity with the "pagan" past?
Now those who are sceptical will not be persuaded by anything I say, but if they stopped and thought for a minute they would nevertheless have to acknowledge:
i) the tilling of the earth was done long before there were any of the Christian name at all,
ii) that it is truly a "pagan" craft, first found and worked out by "pagans" who believed in gods
When all our Fathers worship't Stocks and Stones, ...Ovid Metamorphoses bk. 5, lines 341 to 345 (awend. Brookes More)
“Prima Ceres unco glaebam dimovit aratro,This is the background to all then. And if we don't lose sight of it, we won't make the mistakes the sceptic makes at the outset.
prima dedit fruges alimentaque mitia terris,
prima dedit leges: Cereris sunt omnia munus.
Illa canenda mihi est. Utinam modo dicere possem
carmina digna dea: certe dea carmine digna est. 345
“First Ceres broke with crooked plow the glebe;
first gave to earth its fruit and wholesome food;
first gave the laws;—all things of Ceres came;
of her I sing; and oh, that I could tell
her worth in verse; in verse her worth is due."
If anything is "magic" then it is the sowing of seeds in the earth and their wonderful springing forth into living and growing shoots and saplings; but we all overlook what is right under our noses everyday to our own harm I think. Our forebears were well aware of the otherworldly side to what we now put down to "science", or lose sight of altogether behind the endless talk of greater yield and profit that is drummed in to poor benighted farmers's sons in agricultural colleges as their sole aim. But surely farming is a calling, "a way of life" as my father would say whenever I asked him about all the hard work he did, and why he did it. And a true farmer will thus always farm in some way until death takes him for that he can do no other, for it is in his very being so to do. And the true farmer knows that the planting of the seed in the ground is one thing, but whether he will ever harvest the crop is another. He must know it is in the lap of the gods for all that he may do. So how then can any farmer ever become an atheist? It is unthinkable. Furthermore, he well knows he is not farming only for himself, but belongs to the wider community in which he lives, and which it is his god-given duty to feed along with himself. Here and there you will still find the old inn-sign of the "Four Alls". Beside a soldier, a priest, a lawyer who each say "I fight for all", "I pray for all" and "I plead for all" there should be a farmer, who, in the old Dutch forebisening of this would say:
“Of gy vecht, of gy bidt, of gy pleyt,
Ik bin de boer die de eyeren layt.”
“You may fight, you may pray, you may plead, but I am the farmer who lays the eggs”. That is to say, who feeds all.
This then is a farmer's true aim in life and the gods will love him for it one way or another. But the selfish pursuit of his own financial gain at all costs is a bad road to follow. For though this selfish pursuit may well put that man ahead, who can sell his soul and follow it in the short term, in the long term there must be a price to pay that even he will find was far too dear to make it all worthwhile. But enough of this.
The Last Sheaf and Harvest Home
I
have gathered the better areachings that I could find of the shearing
of the last sheaf and of the harvest home feast, the which I take to
stem from the “bendfeorm for ripe”, and put them on their own leaf [here].
Most are from the last three hundred years or so and speak only of the
last days of these old rites. The fullest and earliest areaching of the
shearing of the last sheaf is the following from Herefordshire. This
is given in J. O. Halliwell's A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (1878) Vol. II, Lvs. 542 to 543. Under Mare (3):
The sport of crying the mare has been already mentioned. It is thus more particularly described in [Thomas] Blount's Glossographia, ed. 1681, p. 398 :—" To cry the mare is an ancient custom in Herefordshire, viz. when each husbandman is reaping the last of his corn, the workmen leave a few blades standing, and tye the tops of them together, which is the mare, and then stand at a distance and throw their sickles at it, and he that cuts the knot has the prize; which done, they cry with a loud voice,
I have her, I have her, I have her.It is much like that found later in Shropshire and araught in Shropshire Folk-Lore (1883), and if you put "neck" or "nack" for "mare" it is like what is found widely marked much later in western Dorset, Devonshire and Cornwall. There are also weaker echoes of something akin to it much later from Holderness (see F. Ross, R. Stead, and Th. Holderness, A Glossary of Words used in Holderness in the East Riding of Yorkshire (1877)), and from Cleveland (see William Henderson Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders (1879)). All of which can also be found [here].
Others answer,
What have you, what have you, what have you ?
A mare, a mare, a mare.
Whose is she, whose is she, whose is she?
J. B. (naming the owner three times).
Whither will you send her ? To John-a-Nokes, (naming some neighbor who has not all his corn reapt). Then they all shout three times, and so the ceremony ends with good chear. In Yorkshire upon like occasion they have a Harvest Dame, in Bedfordshire a Jack and a Gill."
After the last sheaf sheraring, the harvest home follows on and its feast, thus John Aubrey Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme. (1686-7) lf.34:
“Home Harvests.
The oldest marking of the harvest home is this from Berkshire in Paul Hentzer's Itinerarium (1612) and dated to 1598C.E.:Festum primitiarum is Lamas. Home Harvests are observed (more or lesse) in most Counties of England, e. g. South-Wilts, Heref. &c: when they bring home the last load of Corne; it is donne with great joy and merriment: and a Fidler rides on the loaded Cart, or Wayne, playing: a Barrell of good Beer is provided for the Harvestmen, and some good Rustique cheer. This Custome (no doubt) is handed downe to us from the Romans: who after this manner celebrated their Cerealia (Sacra Cereris) instituted by Triptolemus.”
“Cum hinc ad diversoriu[m] nostrum reverteremur, forte fortuna incidimus in rusticos spicilegia sua celebrantes, qui ultimam frugum vehem, floribus coronant, addita imagine splendide vestita, qua Cererem forsitan significare volentes, eam hinc inde movent, & magno cum clamore Viri juxta ac mulieres, servi atq[ue] ancillae, currui insidentes per plateas vociferantur, donec ad horreum deveniant; ...”
“We happened to meet some country people celebrating their Harvest home; their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they would signify Ceres; this they keep moving about, while men and women, men and maidservants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn.”
A "Harvest-home" from Chambers' Book of Days.
 |
| A "Harvest-home" from Chambers' Book of Days. |
A fully "pagan" forebisening from Old England would be good here, but we don't have such a thing, yet in the above outdraughts Aubrey and Hentzer have rightly picked up on the non-Christian and timeless nature of what was going on. But if we look at the other end of Europe where the official uptake of Christianity was a lot later we have this from the Treaty of Christburg of 1249 made between the Teutonic Knights and the newly overwon Prussians:
"Ydolo, quod semel in anno, collectis frugibus consueverunt confingere et pro deo colere, cui nomen Curche imposuerunt, vel aliis diis, qui non fecerunt celum et terram, quibuscunque nominibus appellentur, de cetero non libabunt; sed in fide domini Jhesu Christi et ecclesie catholice ac obedientia et subiectione Romane ecclesie firmi et stabiles permanebunt."
"They will not libate, among others, the idol, that every year, they were wont to make at the ingathering of fruits and worship as a god, and on which they set the name Curche; or in other gods, who have not made heaven or earth, by whatever names they may be called; and that they will steadfastly and unwaveringly abide in the belief of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Catholic church and in subjection to the Roman Church."
“Hal wes þu, folde, fira modor”
Most of the folk who read this will have heard of the Æcerbot. Although it is indeed found in a “Christian” setting, the underlying belief behind it is not what most would understand by that name:
Erce, Erce, Erce eorþan modor
geunne þe se alwalda, ece drihten
æcera wexendra 7 wridendra
eacniendra 7 elniendra
sceafta hehra, scirra wæstma
7 þæra bradan berewæstma
7 þæra hwitan hwætewæstma
7 ealra eorþan wæstma
Erce, Erce, Erce,
earth's mother,
all-wielder, ever-lord, give to thee,
acres waxing and well-growing
ever-gaining and thriving
with higher shafts, brighter crops
and the broad barley crops
and the white wheat crops
and all the earth’s crops.
…
Hal wes þu, folde, fira modor
Beo þu growende on godes fæþme
fodre gefylled firum to nytte
Whole be thou, Earth, mother of men,
Be thou growing in God's arms
food-filled for men to brook.
And beside this I set our old verse about the runestave ᛄ called ȝēar or ȝēr – year:
[ȝēar] byþ gumena hiht, ðon[ne] God læteþ,
halig heofones
cyning, hrusan syllan
beorhte bleda
beornum ond ðearfum.
A year is to men a joy, when God, allows
the holy King of Heaven, the Earth to give
bright fruits for [both] rich and poor.
Bēowulf lines 1136 to 1137:
All the above remind me of nothing so much as a bit of Æschylus' Danaides that has come down to us, it is a speech of m'lady Aphrodite:
"... Þā wæs winter scacen,eorþ, folde and hruse, all meaning the same in Old English, and are all feminine nouns.
fæger foldan bearm; ...".
"...then was winter shaken (off),
fair earth's bosom...".
All the above remind me of nothing so much as a bit of Æschylus' Danaides that has come down to us, it is a speech of m'lady Aphrodite:
ἐρᾷ μὲν ἁγνὸς
οὐρανὸς τρῶσαι χθόνα,
ἔρως δὲ γαῖαν
λαμβάνει γάμου τυχεῖν·
ὄμβρος δ᾿ ἀπ᾿
εὐνάεντος οὐρανοῦ πεσὼν
ἔκυσε γαῖαν, ἡ δὲ
τίκτεται βροτοῖς
μήλων τε βοσκὰς καὶ
βίον Δημήτριον
δένδρων τ᾿ ὀπώραν· ἐκ νοτίζοντος γάμου
τέλειός ἔστι· τῶν δ᾿ ἐγὼ παραίτιος.
Now the pure Heaven
yearns to pierce the Earth;
Now Earth is taken
with longing for her marriage.
The rains
showering from the mating Sky
Fill her with
life, and she gives birth, for man,
To flocks of sheep
and to the life-giving wheat.
And from that
liquid exultation springs,
Perfect, the time
of trees. In this I share.
And this from Hesiod's Works and Days
( and it is well here to mark that Hesiod is brooking Demeter as if she
were only another name for Mother Earth, but whether this is rightly
done we will see in what follows):
εὔχεσθαι δὲ Διὶ χθονίῳ Δημήτερί θ᾽ ἁγνῇ,
ἐκτελέα βρίθειν Δημήτερος ἱερὸν ἀκτήν,
ἀρχόμενος τὰ πρῶτ᾽ ἀρότου, ὅτ᾽ ἂν ἄκρον ἐχέτλης
χειρὶ λαβὼν ὅρπηκα βοῶν ἐπὶ νῶτον ἵκηαι
ἔνδρυον ἑλκόντων μεσάβων. ὁ δὲ τυτθὸς ὄπισθε
δμῷος ἔχων μακέλην πόνον ὀρνίθεσσι τιθείη 470
σπέρμα κατακρύπτων: ἐυθημοσύνη γὰρ ἀρίστη
θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποις, κακοθημοσύνη δὲ κακίστη.
ὧδέ κεν ἀδροσύνῃ στάχυες νεύοιεν ἔραζε,
εἰ τέλος αὐτὸς ὄπισθεν Ὀλύμπιος ἐσθλὸν ὀπάζοι,
ἐκ δ᾽ ἀγγέων ἐλάσειας ἀράχνια: καί σε ἔολπα 475
γηθήσειν βιότου αἰρεύμενον ἔνδον ἐόντος.
εὐοχθέων δ᾽ ἵξεαι πολιὸν ἔαρ, οὐδὲ πρὸς ἄλλους
αὐγάσεαι: σέο δ᾽ ἄλλος ἀνὴρ κεχρημένος ἔσται.
(ll. 465-478) Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps. Let a slave follow a little behind with a mattock and make trouble for the birds by hiding the seed; for good management is the best for mortal men as bad management is the worst. In this way your corn-ears will bow to the ground with fullness if the Olympian himself gives a good result at the last, and you will sweep the cobwebs from your bins and you will be glad, I ween, as you take of your garnered substance. And so you will have plenty till you come to grey springtime, and will not look wistfully to others, but another shall be in need of your help.
[Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English awending by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Works and Days. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914].
Further afield, the Ramayana twice brooketh this same idea as a poetic metaphor for the meeting of two lovers, Rama and Sita, book 5.40.1-2 (awend H. P. Shastri):
"srutva tu vacanam tasya vayusunor mahatmanah
uvacatmahitam vakyam sita surasutopama
tvam drstva priyavaktaram samprahrsyami vanara
ardhasamjatasasyeva vrstim prapya vasumdhara"
"Hearing the words of that magnanimous son of Vayu, Sita, who resembled a daughter of the Gods, replied in significant words, saying:- “As the rain, ripening the grain, rejoiceth the earth, so am I gladdened on seeing thee, O Vanara, who speaketh sweetly of my beloved. … "
And book 6.33. 37 to 39 (awend. M. N. Dutt):
rāvaṇaṃ samare hatvā nacirād eva maithili
tvayā samagraṃ priyayā sukhārho lapsyate sukham
samāgatā tvaṃ rāmeṇa modiṣyasi mahātmanā
suvarṣeṇa samāyuktā yathā sasyena medinī
girivaram abhito 'nuvartamāno; haya iva maṇḍalam āśu yaḥ karoti
tam iha śaraṇam abhyupehi devi; divasakaraṃ prabhavo hy ayaṃ prajānām
“And, O Mithila’s daughter, speedily slaying Ravana in battle, that one worthy of happiness shall reap felicity in the company of thee, his beloved. And loved by the high-souled Rama, thou shalt be happy, even as the earth furnished with crops brought forth by plenteous showers. Do thou, O exalted one, take refuge with him, who, going round the foremost of mountains, speedily assumeth a steed-like circular movement; for even the maker of day is the source of people's joy and grief.”
The name Sita turns up earlier in a hymn of Ṛgvedaḥ 4.57 to Ksetrapati, Etc. (awend. Griffith):
kṣetrasya patinā vayaṃ hiteneva jayāmasi |
ghām aśvam poṣayitnv ā sa no mṛḷātīdṛśe ||
kṣetrasya pate madhumantam ūrmiṃ dhenur iva payo asmāsu dhukṣva |
madhuścutaṃ ghṛtam iva supūtam ṛtasya naḥ patayo mṛḷayantu ||
madhumatīr oṣadhīr dyāva āpo madhuman no bhavatv antarikṣam |
kṣetrasya patir madhumān no astv ariṣyanto anv enaṃ carema ||
śunaṃ vāhāḥ śunaṃ naraḥ śunaṃ kṛṣatu lāṅghalam |
śunaṃ varatrā badhyantāṃ śunam aṣṭrām ud iṅghaya ||
śunāsīrāv imāṃ vācaṃ juṣethāṃ yad divi cakrathuḥ payaḥ |
tenemām upa siñcatam ||
arvācī subhaghe bhava sīte vandāmahe tvā |
yathā naḥ subhaghāsasi yathā naḥ suphalāsasi ||
indraḥ sītāṃ ni ghṛhṇātu tām pūṣānu yachatu |
sā naḥ payasvatī duhām uttarām-uttarāṃ samām ||
śunaṃ naḥ phālā vi kṛṣantu bhūmiṃ śunaṃ kīnāśā abhi yantu vāhaiḥ |
śunam parjanyo madhunā payobhiḥ śunāsīrā śunam asmāsu dhattam ||
1. WE through the Master of the Field, even as through a friend, obtain
What nourisheth our kine and steeds. In such may he be good to us.
2 As the cow yieldeth milk, pour for us freely, Lord of the Field, the wave that beareth sweetness,
Distilling meath, well-purified like butter, and let the. Lords of holy Law be gracious.
3 Sweet be the plants for us. the heavens, the waters, and full of sweets for us be air's mid-region.
May the Field's Lord for us be full of sweetness, and may we follow after him uninjured.
4 Happily work our steers and men, may the plough furrow happily.
Happily be the traces bound; happily may he ply the goad.
5 Suna and Sira, welcome ye this laud, and with the milk which ye have made in heaven
Bedew ye both this earth of ours.
6 Auspicious Sita, come thou near: we venerate and worship thee
That thou mayst bless and prosper us and bring us fruits abundantly.
7 May Indra press the furrow down, may Pusan guide its course aright.
May she, as rich in milk, be drained for us through each succeeding year.
8 Happily let the shares turn up the ploughland, happily go the ploughers with the oxen.
With meath and milk Parjanya make us happy. Grant us prosperity, Suna and Sira.
Suna and Sira are Prosperity and Plough. Sītā (सीता “furrow”).
Ṛgvedaḥ 1.140.13 also has the verse:
abhī no aghna ukthamijjughuryā dyāvākṣāmā sindhavaśca svaghūrtāḥ |
ghavyaṃ yavyaṃ yanto dīrghāheṣaṃ varamaruṇyo varanta ||
Welcome our laud with thine approval, Agni. May earth and heaven and freely flowing riversIn dyāvākṣam, kṣam is the word for earth here. And yáva (yavyaṃ) m. barley,
Yield us long life and food and corn and cattle, and may the red Dawns choose for us their choicest.
So the worship of Heaven and Earth anent the tilling of the land and the growing of crops are something that belong to the "Indo-European" background. And by the simple expedient of linking Heaven with the god of the Christians we can see that this worship was never overthrown, only transformed. Mother Earth however, has had her ups and downs. But it seems there was a time when the old goddess was hidden behind the worship of the Christian "Saint" Mary, although I think it is well to say here that a good many old goddesses besides Mother Earth all blend together in the identity of the Christians' Mary.
“halig heofones cyning”?
But the old belief didn't narrow its outlook to only one god and one goddess, and with Heaven and Earth in the background, we will find the worship of several gods linked to the crops and harvest so that terms like “halig heofones cyning” “se alwalda”, “ece drihten”, even “god” when talking about these things, are all "Christian speak" for one or more of our old gods.
Þunor or Þūr, the Northern Þórr “Thor”
First up must be Þunor or Þūr, the Northern Þórr “Thor”. We have
already seen in the last post how this god is linked to Rogationtide
when "God" was besought under "gospel oaks" to "defende and save the
corne in the felde, and that he wyll vouchsave to pourge the ayer, ..."
[here]. And
see what Master Adam of Bremen writeth in his Descriptio insularum
aquilonis (An Areaching of the Northern Ilands) put as a fourth book to
his Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum and written in about 1000:
“Capitulum 26.
... 'Thor', inquiunt, 'praesidet in aere, qui tonitrus et fulmina, ventos ymbresque, serena et fruges gubernat. ... Thor autem cum sceptro Iovem simulare videtur. ...”
“... Thor, they say, lords it in the air – who makes thunder, lightning, winds, rain-showers, fair weather, and the fruits [of the earth]. ...”
“ Dear Thunder (woda Picker), we offer to thee an ox that hath two horns and four cloven hoofs, we would pray thee for our ploughing and sowing, that our straw be copper-red, our grain be golden-yellow. Push elsewhither all the thick black clouds, over great fens, high forests, and wildernesses. But unto us ploughers and sowers give a fruitful season and sweet rain. Holy Thunder (pöha Picken), guard over seedfield, that it bear good straw below, good ears above, and good grain within.'”
And this from the Supplement to Jacob Grimm's Teutonic Mythology:
"In a waste field on the coast of Bretagne St. Sezny throws his hammer, and in one night the corn grows up into full ripe ears around it, Bret. Volkss. by Aug. Stōber, prob. after Souvestre. "
And these verses Ṛgvedaḥ 8.21:
Monier-Williams:
But it may well be Þunor was more behind what became Lammas at the beginning of August, which was known from its holy loaves:
upa tvā karmannūtaye sa no yuvoghraścakrāma yo dhṛṣat |
tvāmid dhyavitāraṃ vavṛmahe sakhāya indra sānasim ||
ā yāhīma indavo.aśvapate ghopata urvarāpate |
somaṃ somapate piba ||
2 On thee for aid in sacrifice. This youth of ours, the bold, the mighty, hath gone forth.We therefore, we thy friends, Indra, have chosen thee, free-giver, as our Guardian God.3 Come hither, for the drops are here, O Lord of corn-lands (urvarāpate). Lord of horses, Lord of kine:Drink thou the Soma, Soma's Lord!
Monier-Williams:
"urvárā f. (probably connected with urú), fertile soil, field yielding crop RV. AV. TS. ŚBr. &c
• land in general, soil, the earth Bālar. Śārṅg. &c
• N. of an Apsaras MBh"
"urvarāpati m. (only voc.) lord of the fields under crop RV. viii, 21, 3".
But it may well be Þunor was more behind what became Lammas at the beginning of August, which was known from its holy loaves:
Of ðam gehálgedan hláfe ðe man hálige on hláfmæssedæg.
And
as you can't have loaves without corn the assumption is that the corn-reaping had
begun then. In Trees of the Britsh Isles in History and Legend (1972) J. H. Wilks chap. l5 Trees as Symbols of Religions, lf.96 marks on I know not what authority that the first loaf was hung on an oak! And as the oak is Þunor's tree this would be most markworthy if it is indeed true.
“Frēa”?
Under “halig heofones cyning” and so on, the god “Frēa” (O. N. Freyr) might also have been understood at times. In Norway the same runestave as our own ᛄ ȝēar or ȝēr was written ᛅ and called "Ár", which word with them could mean not only
annus “year”, but also annona “the crop that a year hath brought forth”. And they have some verses about runes too, the one about Ár going:
ᛅ Ár er gumna góðe;
get ek at ǫrr var Fróðe.
A "good harvest" (Ár) is a good to men;
say I that Fróði was busy.
Now it would seem that Fróði is only another way of naming the old Northern god Freyr. Firstly, as Snorri
Sturlusson (died 1241) writes in his Edda - Skáldskaparmál, 14
Freyskenningar the god Freyr is called “árguð”
“good harvest (ár) god”. Secondly the mythic king Fróði or Frið-fróði is the king who is meant to have wielded Denmark at the same time as Freyr, when Freyr who was also thought of as an
earthly king, wielded the Svíar or Svíþjóð “Swedes” (see Ynglinga saga cap. 12 “Á hans dögum hófst Fróða friðr, þá
var ok ár um öll lönd; kendu Svíar þat Frey.”
“In his days was the frith (=peace) of Fróði there was also good years in all lands; the Swedes set it to Freyur.”). And thirdly, in Skírnismál from the Codex Regius, Freyr himself is twice named “inn
fróði” “the wise one” (see the first
two verses).
Freyr was first and foremost the wielder of the sun thus Gylfaginning 24:
“Hann ræðr fyrir ... skini sólar...”
“He wieldeth over ... the shinining of the sun...”
And thus he is “skír Freyr” “sheer Freyr” “bright Freyr” (see Grímnismál 43 “skírum Frey”) which is the shiningness of that which the god wields shone back, so to speak, upon its wielder. The Greeks and Romans' Apollo is the same god. Frey's elves (see Grímnismál 5) are belike the ljósálfar or light elves “are fairer than the sun to sight” (“ljósálfar eru fegri en Sól sýnum” Gylfaginning 17).
“Hann ræðr fyrir ... skini sólar...”
“He wieldeth over ... the shinining of the sun...”
And thus he is “skír Freyr” “sheer Freyr” “bright Freyr” (see Grímnismál 43 “skírum Frey”) which is the shiningness of that which the god wields shone back, so to speak, upon its wielder. The Greeks and Romans' Apollo is the same god. Frey's elves (see Grímnismál 5) are belike the ljósálfar or light elves “are fairer than the sun to sight” (“ljósálfar eru fegri en Sól sýnum” Gylfaginning 17).
Byggvir, Frey's thane, found in the prose beginning of Lokasenna 55 - 56 has a name from 'bygg', the Old Northern word for barley. Whilst his wife Beyla, is said to be from *Baunila "little bean". Is he akin to the Bēowa of Bēowulf, the son of Scyld Scēfing? If we put right line eighteen of Bēowulf to
And John Barleycorn?
Above: Corn Reaping from the wonderful Tacuinum Sanitatis ᛋ. But what is the lad on the left doing?
Scyld Scēfing is moreover the Northern Skjöldr from whom the Fróði marked above was said to have sprung. The Old English scopas seem to have split Scyld Scēfing into two men Scyld and Sceafa (see Wīdsīð “Sceafa [weold] Longbeardum”- the "historical" Fróði, otherwise Froda, and Ingeld were Longbeardum in Bēowulf, though Ingeld is to wed Frēawaru (line 2020) the daughter of King Hroðgar and Queen Wealhþeow Frēawaru same as O.N. *Freyvör?), but Scēfing "son of the sheaf" is truly one of those hollow names you find when the name of the father is not known. William of Malmesbury is belike on the right lines when he says Sceaf, but rightly for Scyld Scēfing, was called this from being found as a little child sleeping “posito ad caput frumenti manipulo” "with his head set on a wheatsheaf" (see Gesta Regum Anglorum Book II, ch.116 ). On the way here I mark Donald A. Mackenzie Indian Myth and Legend (1913) Chp.2 lf.21:
"Bēow wæs brēme (blǣd wīde sprang)",then we have a word-play on "blǣd" which can mean both "glory" and "fruit" so that the line could be read:
"Bēow was celebrated (his) glory (blǣd) sprang far",
"the barley (bēow) was celebrated, (its) fruit (blǣd) sprang widely".See John Walton's awending of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae (Lincoln, Cathedral Bookhoard 103):
Autumpnus bringeþ forþ his blede,
Full lusty fruytes, folkes for to fede.
And John Barleycorn?
Above: Corn Reaping from the wonderful Tacuinum Sanitatis ᛋ. But what is the lad on the left doing?
Scyld Scēfing is moreover the Northern Skjöldr from whom the Fróði marked above was said to have sprung. The Old English scopas seem to have split Scyld Scēfing into two men Scyld and Sceafa (see Wīdsīð “Sceafa [weold] Longbeardum”- the "historical" Fróði, otherwise Froda, and Ingeld were Longbeardum in Bēowulf, though Ingeld is to wed Frēawaru (line 2020) the daughter of King Hroðgar and Queen Wealhþeow Frēawaru same as O.N. *Freyvör?), but Scēfing "son of the sheaf" is truly one of those hollow names you find when the name of the father is not known. William of Malmesbury is belike on the right lines when he says Sceaf, but rightly for Scyld Scēfing, was called this from being found as a little child sleeping “posito ad caput frumenti manipulo” "with his head set on a wheatsheaf" (see Gesta Regum Anglorum Book II, ch.116 ). On the way here I mark Donald A. Mackenzie Indian Myth and Legend (1913) Chp.2 lf.21:
“In Mahabharata there is a fragment of an old legend which relates the origin of Karna, the son of Queen Pritha and the sun god: the birth of the child is concealed, and he is placed in a basket which is set afloat on the river and is carried to a distant country. ”
And then Karna becomes the King of Anga. A. Bailey The Caves of the Sun (1997) ch.10, lf.139 whilst writing of Perseus' life:
"This 'floating chest' is another common theme in myth, and owes its origins to the passage of the 'infant' sun through the watery months of winter. ... The infant Moses, whose faced glowed like solar fire, was set adrift in a reed basket. Dionysus, Telephus, Sargon, Cyrus, Romulus and Remus, each had versions of a birth followed by a journey in a floating box or chest."
For those following this up, the putting of Telephus in the sea is to be found in Pausanias Guide to Greece 8.4.9, and it is not what is marked by Apollodorus Bibliotheca 2.7.4, 3.9.1, and which for many is the canon. Telephus being the son of Heracles/Hercules and forefather of kings and of folks (the Latins). Much the same can be said of Perseus, the forefather of the Perseidae kings of Argos/Tiryns and, through his son Perses, the Parsees. AND THE PERSEIDAE CALLED THE FOLK THEY WIELDED OVER THE DANAI (Δαναοί), so "Danes" then... The tale of Dionysus and his mother being thrown in the sea is also to be found in Puausanias th'ilk 3.24.3-4, and again is not at all like what is found in Apollodorus' Bibliotheca 3.4.3. Dionysus has, needless to say, often under his byname of Iacchus ("τῆς Δήμητρος δαίμονα" "the daemon of Demeter" - Strabo Geog. 10.3.10), more than a few links to wheatsheaves and corn.
Furthermore, can it be a blind hap that in Bēowulf, the golden hall of the ervewards of Scyld Scēfing and Bēowa (the Danes will swap him later for Fróði), the Ingwine, is called Hēorot "Hart" and Frey's token is a hart's horn (see Gylfaginning 37)? The name Telephus is from Tēlephos, Τήλεφος, "far-shining", but the Greeks' heard "elaphus" ἔλαφος "deer", Cervus elaphus, whence the tale of him being suckled by a deer. Hercules begot Telephus upon Auge (Αὔγη) and Pausanias th'ilk 10.28.8 marks:
Above: "Heracles and his child Telephos. Marble, Roman copy of the 1st–2nd century CE after a Greek original of the 4th century BCE. Found in Tivoli, Italy." ᛋ
" ... καὶ γυναικῶν ὁπόσαις ἐς τὸ αὐτὸ Ἡρακλέα ἀφικέσθαι λέγουσι, μάλιστα δὴ παῖδα ἐοικότα ἔτεκε τῷ πατρί: ..."
"... and of all the women with whom Heracles is said to have mated, none gave birth to a son more like his father than she did ..." (awend. Jones)
Above: "Heracles and his child Telephos. Marble, Roman copy of the 1st–2nd century CE after a Greek original of the 4th century BCE. Found in Tivoli, Italy." ᛋ
Our own evenling of the Northmen's Freyr lived on as the thoroughly unofficial “Saynte Walstane of Bawburgh” in Norfolk whom John
Bale (1495 – 1563) belittleth as “the God of
their feldes in Northfolke and gyde of their haruestes” in his The
Acts or Unchaste Examples of the English Votaries. Walstane is shown as a king holding a scythe on the rood screen at Ludham in Norfolk (see here) and on the rood screen at Sparham the same but with oxen at his feet (see here). The scythe will maybe make some readers think of "Old Father Time" who in turn stems from the old Roman god
Saturnus, although with Saturnus the long-handled scythe (brooked for
shearing hay) should be a short-handled sickle (for shearing corn). And
this brings me to the Trójumanna saga from the Hauksbók where we may read:
“...er Satúrnus
var kallaðr en vér köllum Frey...”
“... he was
called Saturn but we call him Freyr...”.
And
whilst I would warn anyone against reading too much into this, it is
true enough if we understand Saturnus here only as a god of
harvest, as indeed his primitive character among the Latins may well have been. And it is worth while looking at what is said of
Saturnus by John Gower (died 1408) in Confessio Amantis Book 5 lines 1221
to 1244:
Saturnus after his exil Saturnus
after his outlawing
Fro Crete cam in gret peril From Crete came in
great freech (=peril)
Into the londes of Ytaile, Into the lands
of Italy,
And ther he dede gret mervaile, And there he did great
wonders,
Wherof his name duelleth yit. Whereof his name
lingereth yet.
For he fond of his oghne wit For he found of his
own wit
The ferste craft of plowh tilinge, The first craft of tilling,
Of Eringe and of corn sowinge, Of ploughing and of
sowing.
And how men scholden sette vines
And how men should set
vines
And of the grapes make wynes; And make wines from the
grapes;
Al this he tawhte, and it fell so, All this he taught, and
it befell so,
His wif, the which cam with him tho,
His wife, who came with
him then,
Was cleped Ceres be name, Was called Ceres
by name,
And for sche tawhte also the same, And for she taught also the
same,
And was his wif that ilke throwe, And was his wife that same time,
As it was to the poeple knowe, As it was to the folk
known,
Thei made of Ceres a goddesse, They made of Ceres a goddess
In whom here tilthe yit thei blesse,
In whom their tilth
yet they bless,
And sein that Tricolonius And they say
that Triptolemus
Hire Sone goth amonges ous Her son goeth
amongst us
And makth the corn good chep or dere, And maketh the corn good cheap or
dear,
Riht as hire list fro yer to yeere; Right as her list
(=desire) from year to year;
So that this wif be cause of this So that this woman for
this
Goddesse of Cornes cleped is Gyden of corn is
called.
Now
before anyone thinks they know better than Gower here, they should know that the Orphics often understood Rhea or Ops,
the wife of Saturnus, or Cronus as he is with the Greeks, as the same as Ceres,
the Greeks' Demeter, even though Hesiod and others would have these as
mother and daughter. Proclus on Plato's Cratylus 164 (awend. Thomas Taylor):
" Ὅτι τὴν Δήμητρα Ὀρφεὺς μέν, τὴν αὐτὴν μέν, λέγων τῇ Ῥέᾳ εἶναι, λέγει ὅτι ἄνω μὲν μετὰ Κρόνου οὖσα ἀνεκφοίτητος Ῥέα ἐστίν, προβάλλουσα δὲ καὶ ἀπογεννῶσα τὸν Δία Δημήτηρ. λέγει γάρ (frg 106). <Ῥείη τὸ πρὶν ἐοῦσα, ἐπεὶ Διὸς ἔπλετο μήτηρ, Δημήτηρ γέγονε>".
"That according to Orpheus, Ceres is the same with Rhea: for Orpheus says, that subsisting on high in unproceeding union with Saturn, she is Rhea, but that by emitting and generating Jupiter, she is Ceres. For thus he speaks,
Ῥείη τὸ πρὶν ἐοῦσα, ἐπεὶ Διὸς ἔπλετο μήτηρ,
Δημήτηρ γέγονε
The goddess who was Rhea, when she bore
Jove, became Ceres."
A
further thing worth marking here is that the Golden Age, or at least
the second Golden Age that arose upon the earth with the reign of the
Emperor Augustus (see Servius' Commentary on Virgil's Æneid book 6 line 793), was known in the North as Fróðafrið or Peace of Fróði (see Skáldskaparmál
52) whom we have already said was Freyr by another name. But for the
Romans this peace was the restored reign of
Saturnus. Of the Golden Age the pœtes have long liked to outdo each
other on areaching wonders, but in all we should not overlook that it is fabled to be the time
when the Earth gave forth her fruits without tilling, that is, it was
an everlasting harvest. Also that it was a time before there
was any splitting up of men into castes, that is, all men were then the same. And it
is one of the long-standing things about the harvest home feast that
folk of all ranks sat down together (almost) as evenlings thus Thomas Tusser Five
Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie
(1589, new outlaying by W. Payne and S.J.Herrtage, Trübner, London
1878.):
“In harvest time, harvest folke, servants and all,
should make all togither good cheere in the hall:
And fill out
the black boule of bleith to their song boule of bleith = merry bowl
And let them be merie all harvest time long.
Once ended the harvest, let none be begilde, begilde =
bewrench (=trick)
Please such as did helpe thee, man, woman and childe.
Thus dooing, with always such helpe as they can,
Thou winnest the praise of the labouring man.”
Robert Bloomfield, The Farmer’s Boy: Summer (The Works of Robert Bloomfield (1867), Lvs.35 to 36):
Now, ere sweet Summer bids its long adieu,
And winds blow keen where late the blossom grew,
The bustling day and jovial night must come,
The long-accustom'd feast of Harvest-home.
...
Behold the sound oak table's massy frame
Bestride the kitchen floor ! the careful dame
And gen'rous host invite their friends around,
For all that clear'd the crop, or till'd the ground,
Are guests by right of custom: old and young ;
And many a neighbouring yeoman join the throng,
With artisans that lent their dext'rous aid,
When o'er each field the flaming sunbeams play'd.
Yet plenty reigns, and from her boundless hoard,
Though not one jelly trembles on the board,
Supplies the feast with all that sense can crave ;
With all that made our great forefathers brave,
Ere the cloy'd palate countless flavours tried,
And cooks had Nature's judgment set aside.
With thanks to Heaven, and tales of rustic lore,
The mansion echoes when the banquet 's o'er;
A wider circle spreads, and smiles abound,
As quick the frothing horn performs its round ;
Care's mortal foe; that sprightly joys imparts
To cheer the ' frame and elevate their hearts.
Here, fresh and brown, the hazel's produce lies
In tempting heaps, and peals of laughter rise,
And crackling music, with the frequent song,
Unheeded bear the midnight hour along.
Here once a year Distinction low'rs its crest,
The master, servant, and the merry guest,
Are equal all ; and round the happy ring
The reaper's eyes exulting glances fling,
And, warm'd with gratitude, he quits his place,
With sunburnt hands and ale-enliven'd face,
Refills the jug his honour'd host to tend,
To serve at once the master and the friend ;
Proud thus to meet his smiles, to share his tale,
His nuts, his conversation, and his ale.
Such were the days, of days long past I sing, …
The Romans long before did the same with their feast of the Saturnalia (see Servius' Commentary on Virgil's Æneid book 8 line 319) which, notwithstanding its December date is nevertheless to be understood as a harvest-home feast with them (see Johannes Lydus On the Months). Ioannes Belethus, Rationale divinorum officiorum (1162), cap. 120:
Furthermore, it was thought of as a copy of the Attic Greek Kronia which was a true harvest-home that fell on the twelfth day of the month of Hekatombaion (Ἑκατομβαιών), the first moon-month after the summer solstice and roughly the same as our July. Thus Macrobius (early fifth yearhundred) in his “The Saturnalia”, book I, chapitle x (awending Percival Vaughan Davies):
On our way I would like to mark here that Hesiod's men of the Golden Age who become "good spirits" are our elves over whom Freyr is the lord of (see Grímnismál 5) and about which I have already written a post or two [here]. For those who don't know Hesiod's Works and Days :
Frey's wife moreover, who would answer to the Earth, is of course the Gerðr of Skírnismál.
Now many might think these are no more than a muddling of the "What have you, what have you, what have you? (Blount's Glossographia, ed. 1681), found in the earliest areaching in England of what is the same rite. But there may be another outfoldfing.
John Symonds Udal in ‘Dorsetshire Folklore’ (1922), after writing about harvest home as he knew it goes on:
We sometimes hear of a "harvest queen" (Blount's "harvest dame"?). R. Chambers’ Book of Days vol.2, lvs. 377 to 378 under Sep.24th.:
“ …Adam the while
Waiting desirous her return, had wove
Of choicest flow’rs a garland to adorn
Her tresses, and her rural labours crown,
As reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen.”
In Old English hœrfest could mean “harvest” as we now understand the word, but also the year-tide (season of the year) we now rather weakly call “autumn”, from the Latin autumnus. Now Bede tells us in his De Temporum Ratione that the month to be evened with the Roman Augustus is called Wēodmōnað “weedmonth” (“Vueod-Monath mensis zizaniorum, quod ea tempestate maxime abundent.”) which is a bit underwhelming to say the least. Wēodmōnað and Þrymilce moreover are the only two months named for farm work, the others being named either for goddesses or for holy feasts. In Kent we seemingly have a much better name for this month of Rugern “Rye-harvest”. But more widely it would seem also that a hærfestmōnað was once known. And although Ælfric 'Grammaticus' would even it with September might not August be better, thus Robert of Gloucester:
The waving between August and September would then be down to our hærfestmōnað being a true moon-month and is thus only loosely to be tied up to the wholly artificial months we now have a more Romano - from the Romans.
Now, ere sweet Summer bids its long adieu,
And winds blow keen where late the blossom grew,
The bustling day and jovial night must come,
The long-accustom'd feast of Harvest-home.
...
Behold the sound oak table's massy frame
Bestride the kitchen floor ! the careful dame
And gen'rous host invite their friends around,
For all that clear'd the crop, or till'd the ground,
Are guests by right of custom: old and young ;
And many a neighbouring yeoman join the throng,
With artisans that lent their dext'rous aid,
When o'er each field the flaming sunbeams play'd.
Yet plenty reigns, and from her boundless hoard,
Though not one jelly trembles on the board,
Supplies the feast with all that sense can crave ;
With all that made our great forefathers brave,
Ere the cloy'd palate countless flavours tried,
And cooks had Nature's judgment set aside.
With thanks to Heaven, and tales of rustic lore,
The mansion echoes when the banquet 's o'er;
A wider circle spreads, and smiles abound,
As quick the frothing horn performs its round ;
Care's mortal foe; that sprightly joys imparts
To cheer the ' frame and elevate their hearts.
Here, fresh and brown, the hazel's produce lies
In tempting heaps, and peals of laughter rise,
And crackling music, with the frequent song,
Unheeded bear the midnight hour along.
Here once a year Distinction low'rs its crest,
The master, servant, and the merry guest,
Are equal all ; and round the happy ring
The reaper's eyes exulting glances fling,
And, warm'd with gratitude, he quits his place,
With sunburnt hands and ale-enliven'd face,
Refills the jug his honour'd host to tend,
To serve at once the master and the friend ;
Proud thus to meet his smiles, to share his tale,
His nuts, his conversation, and his ale.
Such were the days, of days long past I sing, …
The Romans long before did the same with their feast of the Saturnalia (see Servius' Commentary on Virgil's Æneid book 8 line 319) which, notwithstanding its December date is nevertheless to be understood as a harvest-home feast with them (see Johannes Lydus On the Months). Ioannes Belethus, Rationale divinorum officiorum (1162), cap. 120:
" atque hæc quidem libertas dicta est Decembrica, quod olim apud ethnicos moris fuerit, ut hoc mense servi et ancillæ et pastores velut quadam libertate donarentur, fierentque cum dominis suis pari conditione, communia festa agentes post collectionem messium."
"And this same freedom is called “Decembrica”, for that once it was the custom among the pagans, that slaves and slave girls and shepherds might be given in this month a certain freedom that they might be of the same rank as the lord himself making a communal feast after the gathering of the harvest."
Furthermore, it was thought of as a copy of the Attic Greek Kronia which was a true harvest-home that fell on the twelfth day of the month of Hekatombaion (Ἑκατομβαιών), the first moon-month after the summer solstice and roughly the same as our July. Thus Macrobius (early fifth yearhundred) in his “The Saturnalia”, book I, chapitle x (awending Percival Vaughan Davies):
“[22] Philochorus Saturno et Opi
primum in Attica statuisse aram Cecropem dicit, eosque deos pro Iove terraque
coluisse, instituisseque ut patres familiarum et frugibus et fructibus iam
coactis passim cum seruis vescerentur, cum quibus patientiam laboris in colendo
rure toleraverant. delectari enim deum honore servorum contemplatu laboris.
...”
“[22] Philochorus says that Cecrops was the first to build, in Attica,
an altar to Saturn and Ops, worshipping these deities as Jupiter and Earth, and
to ordain that, when crops and fruits had been garnered, the head of a
household everywhere should eat thereof in company with the slaves with whom he
had borne the toil of cultivating the land, for it was well pleasing to the god
that honour should be paid to the slaves in consideration of their labour.”
On our way I would like to mark here that Hesiod's men of the Golden Age who become "good spirits" are our elves over whom Freyr is the lord of (see Grímnismál 5) and about which I have already written a post or two [here]. For those who don't know Hesiod's Works and Days :
χρύσεον μὲν πρώτιστα γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων
ἀθάνατοι ποίησαν Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχοντες. 110
οἳ μὲν ἐπὶ Κρόνου ἦσαν, ὅτ᾽ οὐρανῷ ἐμβασίλευεν:
ὥστε θεοὶ δ᾽ ἔζωον ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες
νόσφιν ἄτερ τε πόνων καὶ ὀιζύος: οὐδέ τι δειλὸν
γῆρας ἐπῆν, αἰεὶ δὲ πόδας καὶ χεῖρας ὁμοῖοι
τέρποντ᾽ ἐν θαλίῃσι κακῶν ἔκτοσθεν ἁπάντων: 115
θνῇσκον δ᾽ ὥσθ᾽ ὕπνῳ δεδμημένοι: ἐσθλὰ δὲ πάντα
τοῖσιν ἔην: καρπὸν δ᾽ ἔφερε ζείδωρος ἄρουρα
αὐτομάτη πολλόν τε καὶ ἄφθονον: οἳ δ᾽ ἐθελημοὶ
ἥσυχοι ἔργ᾽ ἐνέμοντο σὺν ἐσθλοῖσιν πολέεσσιν.
ἀφνειοὶ μήλοισι, φίλοι μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν. 120
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δὴ τοῦτο γένος κατὰ γαῖ᾽ ἐκάλυψε,—
τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ ἐπιχθόνιοι καλέονται
ἐσθλοί, ἀλεξίκακοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων,
οἵ ῥα φυλάσσουσίν τε δίκας καὶ σχέτλια ἔργα
ἠέρα ἑσσάμενοι πάντη φοιτῶντες ἐπ᾽ αἶαν, 125
πλουτοδόται: καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον—,
“First of all [110] the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods [115] without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, [120] rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods. But after the earth had covered this generation—they are called pure spirits dwelling on the earth, and are kindly, delivering from harm, and guardians of mortal men; [125] for they roam everywhere over the earth, clothed in mist and keep watch on judgements and cruel deeds, givers of wealth; for this royal right also they received; …”
[Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English awending
by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Works and Days. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University
Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.]
Frey's wife moreover, who would answer to the Earth, is of course the Gerðr of Skírnismál.
“wehaven, wehaven, wehaven”.
We find [see here] in the rite of "Crying the Neck" after the shearing of the last sheaf, that we have the thrice edledged wordings:
"wehaven, wehaven, wehaven" (Bray)
"We-e-e-e have ‘en ! We-e-e-e have ‘en ! We-e-e-e have ‘en !" (Udal)
"Wee ... ae’... un! Wee ... ae’... un! Wee ... ae’... un"" (Loveband)
" wee yen, wee yen, wee yen" or “way yen, way yen, way yen" (Hone Every-Day Book)
"wehaven, wehaven, wehaven" (Bray)
"We-e-e-e have ‘en ! We-e-e-e have ‘en ! We-e-e-e have ‘en !" (Udal)
"Wee ... ae’... un! Wee ... ae’... un! Wee ... ae’... un"" (Loveband)
" wee yen, wee yen, wee yen" or “way yen, way yen, way yen" (Hone Every-Day Book)
Now many might think these are no more than a muddling of the "What have you, what have you, what have you? (Blount's Glossographia, ed. 1681), found in the earliest areaching in England of what is the same rite. But there may be another outfoldfing.
John Symonds Udal in ‘Dorsetshire Folklore’ (1922), after writing about harvest home as he knew it goes on:
“At the time I sent the above account to Notes and Queries I was not acquainted with Jacob Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology—or, rather, Stallybrass’s translation of it,—in four volumes, which were not published till 1880-8. After I had read it I was struck by the very strong resemblance to the Dorset ” whooping “, as it is called, that exists in the custom of the people in Lower Saxony invoking their great god Woden at the conclusion of the harvest. Grimm states (i, 154) that it is usual to leave a clump of corn standing in a field to Woden for his horse.He then describes (p. 156) a custom in Schaumburg where the people, having finished the mowing of the corn, or having purposely left only a small strip standing which they could cut down at a stroke, then at the finish would raise their implements aloft, beating the blades three times with the strop, while each would spill a small quantity of beer on the ground and then drink himself. They would then wave their hats and beat their scythes three times and cry aloud, ” Wôld-wôld-wôld” which, Grimm says, a Schaumburg man pronounced as ” wauden “. They would then march home shouting and singing. If the ceremony were omitted the next year would bring bad crops of hay and corn.It is a pity that Grimm did not know of the custom as existing in western Dorsetshire, which I have described above. I wonder whether he would have agreed with the suggestion that I now venture to make, that the Dorset labourers’ cry in this corner of old Wessex of “We hav’en “, repeated three times, is but a survival of the old invocation to the great god Woden of their Saxon ancestors, still continued from time immemorial at these harvest celebrations but of which the real significance and meaning have been lost.Shortly before I left England in 1889 I was anxious to test this resemblance still further, so I invited certain of the farm labourers belonging to the same West Dorset parish—Symondsbury— in which the ceremony had been performed in 1873, after they had attended the now usual harvest festival service at the old parish church, to do their ” whooping ” on the lawn in front of the Manor House close to the church. They went through it all in much the same way as their predecessors had done, and again the close affinity to what Grimm had related was borne in upon me. Out of compliment to him I added a further Teutonic association that was by no means unacceptable to the performers. I made the men drink the healths from a tall seventeenth century pewter tankard, or loving-cup, with covered lid (of which there were one or two similar ones in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington), of a capacity of several quarts, which had formerly been the property of some civic company or guild in some German town (to judge from the inscription), this being the first opportunity I had had of putting it to anything approaching its former use. It would be a strange but not inappropriate incident if it should again, after so many years, have assisted in the survival of an ancient Teutonic festivity.”
Jacob Grimm Teutonic Mythology vol.1, chap. Vii, Lvs, 156 to 157 [from Karl von Münchhausen in
Bragur VI. 1, 21—34]:
“A custom in Schaumburg I find thus described : the people go out to mow in parties of twelve, sixteen or twenty scythes, but it is so managed, that on the last day of harvest they all finish at the same time, or some leave a strip standing which they can cut down at a stroke the last thing, or they merely pass their scythes over the stubble, pretending there is still some left to mow. At the last stroke of the scythe they raise their implements aloft, plant them upright, and beat the blades three times with the strop. Each spills on the field a little of the drink he has, whether beer, brandy, or milk, then drinks himself, while they wave their hats, beat their scythes three times, and cry aloud Wôld, Wôld, Wôld! and the women knock all the crumbs out of their baskets on the stubble. They march home shouting and singing. Fifty years ago a song was in use, which has now died out, but whose first strophe ran thus:
Wôld, Wôld, Wôld!hävenhüne weit wat schüt,jümm hei dal van häven süt.Vulle kruken un sangen hät hei,upen holte wässt (grows) manigerlei:hei is nig barn un wert nig old.Wôld, Wôld, Wôld![Wôld, Wôld, Wôld!The Heaven-Giant knows what happens here;From Heaven downwards he does peer.He has full pitchers and cans.In the wood waxes many a thing,He ne’er was a child, and ne’er will grow old,Wôld, Wôld, Wôld!]If the ceremony be omitted, the next year will bring bad crops of hay and corn. Probably, beside the libation, there was corn left standing for the venerated being, as the fourth line gives us to understand : ' full crocks and shocks hath he '; and the second strophe may have brought in his horse. ' Heaven's giant knows what happens, ever he down from heaven sees,' accords with the old belief in Wuotan's chair (p. 135) ; the sixth line touches off the god that ' ne'er is born and ne'er grows old ' almost too theosophically. Wôld, though excused by the rhyme, seems a corruption of Wod, Wode^ rather than a contraction from waldand (v. supra, p. 21). A Schaumburg man pronounced the name to me as Wauden, and related as follows : On the lake of Steinhude, the lads from the village of Steinhude go every autumn after harvest, to a hill named Heidenhügel, light a fire on it, and when it blazes high, wave their hats and cry Wauden, Wauden ! ”
Nicolaus Gryse “Spegel des antichristischen pawestdoms”
(1593), a printed text of a sermon preached against the evils of Popery in
Rostock:
Ja, im heidendom hebben tor tid der arne de meiers dem afgade Woden umme god korn angeropen, denn wenn de roggenarne geendet, heft men up den lesten platz eins idem veldes einen kleinen ord unde humpel korns unafgemeiet stan laten, datsilve baven an den aren drevoldigen to samende geschörtet, unde besprenget. Alle meiers sin darumme her getreden, ere höde vam koppe genamen, unde ere seisen na der sülven wode unde geschrenke dem ornbusche upgerichet, und hebben den Wodendūvel dremal semplik lud averall also angeropen unde gebeden:
Wode, hale dinem rosse nu voder,nu distil unde dorn,tom andern jar beter korn !welker afgödischer gebruk im Pawestom gebleven. Daher denn ok noch an dissen orden dar heiden gewanet, bi etliken ackerlüden solker avergelövischer gebruk in anropinge des Woden tor tid der arne gespöret werd, und ok oft desülve helsche jeger, sonderliken im winter, des nachtes up dem velde mit sinen jagethunden sik hören let.
In paganism, at the time of the harvest, the mowers called to the idol Woden for good corn, when the rye harvest was over, a small sheaf of grain was left standing in the last place of each field, the ears festooned together three times, and sprinkled. All the mowers gathered round about, took off their caps from their heads, and raised their scythes to the same Wode, encircling the corn-sheaf, and three times they called loudly together to the Woden-devil, invoking and praying:Wode fetch thine horse to the fodder,now thistle and thornbut another year better corn!Which superstitious customs abide yet in Popery: because in these places they still live heathen, and such superstitious customs and invocations of Woden at the time of the harvest were employed by some farmers . And also the same hellish huntsman has often been heard, especially in winter, by night with his hunting-hounds in the field.
[Grimm has this vol. I lvs. 154 to 156.]
And much like this is what Erik Gustaf Geijer writes in Svenska Folkets Historia (1832) vol. 1, lf.123 from Sweden:
“Om hans jagt, och hans hästar ha berättelser varit gängse i flera landsorter, såsom i Upland, i det på hedendomsminnen så rika Småland, äfven i Skåne och Blekinge, der Bonden vid skörden brukade att lemna qvar en kärfve på åkern åt Odens hästar…”“About his hunting, and his horses stories have been common in several places, such as in Upland, in the records of paganism of the kingdom of Småland, also in Skåne and Blekinge, where the farmer at the harvest time used to lay a sheaf in the field for the horses of Oden ...”
On Rousay in the Orkneys [here]
they leave some corn standing for the “birds of the air”.
We shall see that "saint" Milburga was "pursued by her foes with a pack of bloodhounds, and a gang of rough men on horseback" which is a kind of wild hunt, and what is said of "saint" Walburg being hunted is also worth thinking about too [here]. But the "wild hunt" or "raging host" and such like phenomena led by Wōden (but often under some nickname) is often met with from the time of the corn-harvest to Yule.
We shall see that "saint" Milburga was "pursued by her foes with a pack of bloodhounds, and a gang of rough men on horseback" which is a kind of wild hunt, and what is said of "saint" Walburg being hunted is also worth thinking about too [here]. But the "wild hunt" or "raging host" and such like phenomena led by Wōden (but often under some nickname) is often met with from the time of the corn-harvest to Yule.
 |
Above: “Beare or Beere [Kent, 1586] ar. A bear rampant sa. And
canton gu. – Crest, on a garb, lying fesseways or, a raven sa.” See William
Berry Encyclopaedia heraldica, or complete dictionary of heraldry (1828) vol. 2.
And from an end note of James Britten in his 1881 outlaying of John Aubrey's Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme. (1686-7) lvs. 257 to 258 from some notes made by Aubrey:
“" At Fausby (neer Daintre") in Northamptonshire a raven did build her nest on the leads between the tower and the steeple. By the placing of her nest towards a certain point of the compas the inhabitants did make their prognostiq as to the dearness or cheapnesse of corne; when she build on the north side it was a ...... and when it was on the south side the oldest peoples grandfathers here, did never remember, but that this raven yearly made her nest here, and in the late civil warres the soldiers killed her. I am sorry for the tragical, end of this old church bird, that lived in so many changes of governmt. and religion, waies of worship in the church. ... " Royal Soc. MS. fols. 33-4.”
"Goddesse of Cornes"
Harvest Queen?
We sometimes hear of a "harvest queen" (Blount's "harvest dame"?). R. Chambers’ Book of Days vol.2, lvs. 377 to 378 under Sep.24th.:
“ As the reapers went on during the last day, they took care to leave a good handful of the grain uncut, but laid down flat, and covered over; and, when the field was done, the 'bonniest lass' was allowed to cut this final handful, which was presently dressed up with various sewings, lyings, and trimmings, like a doll, and hailed as a Corn Baby. It was brought home in triumph, with music of fiddles and bagpipes, was set up conspicuously that night at supper, and was usually preserved in the farmer's parlour for the remainder of the year. The bonny lass who cut this handful of grain, was deemed the Har’st Queen.”
Our own Edmund Spenser knoweth the word, and John Milton (1608-1674C.E.) in Paradise
Lost book Ix, lines 838 to 842 hath:
“ …Adam the while
Waiting desirous her return, had wove
Of choicest flow’rs a garland to adorn
Her tresses, and her rural labours crown,
As reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen.”
But who is the true harvest-queen but the “godesse of
cornes” herself?
Harvest?
In Old English hœrfest could mean “harvest” as we now understand the word, but also the year-tide (season of the year) we now rather weakly call “autumn”, from the Latin autumnus. Now Bede tells us in his De Temporum Ratione that the month to be evened with the Roman Augustus is called Wēodmōnað “weedmonth” (“Vueod-Monath mensis zizaniorum, quod ea tempestate maxime abundent.”) which is a bit underwhelming to say the least. Wēodmōnað and Þrymilce moreover are the only two months named for farm work, the others being named either for goddesses or for holy feasts. In Kent we seemingly have a much better name for this month of Rugern “Rye-harvest”. But more widely it would seem also that a hærfestmōnað was once known. And although Ælfric 'Grammaticus' would even it with September might not August be better, thus Robert of Gloucester:
Þe nexte moneþ afturward, þat heruest moneþ ys,
He let clepe aftur hym August ywys.
The waving between August and September would then be down to our hærfestmōnað being a true moon-month and is thus only loosely to be tied up to the wholly artificial months we now have a more Romano - from the Romans.
For those who might have heard of it, the "harvest moon" is said to be the full moon nearest to the autumnal equinox (22
or 23 September). And the "hunter's moon" is the next full moon after
that. But "harvest moon" as such is first found in 1706, and "hunter's moon"
in 1710.
Our word harvest is said to go back to Proto-Indo-European *kerp- (“pluck, harvest”) from whence also the Greek καρπός (karpós, “fruit”), which last will straight away take us to καρπόφορος carpo-phorus “fruit-bearing” an epithet of the Greeks’ goddess Demeter, thus Aristophanes The Frogs:
Our word harvest is said to go back to Proto-Indo-European *kerp- (“pluck, harvest”) from whence also the Greek καρπός (karpós, “fruit”), which last will straight away take us to καρπόφορος carpo-phorus “fruit-bearing” an epithet of the Greeks’ goddess Demeter, thus Aristophanes The Frogs:
ἄγε νυν ἑτέραν ὕμνων ἰδέαν τὴν καρποφόρον βασίλειαν
Δήμητρα θεὰν ἐπικοσμοῦντες ζαθέαις μολπαῖς κελαδεῖτε.
Come now, sing aloud hymns of another kind to the
fruit-bearing queen
The goddess Demeter, worshipping her with holy songs.
τὸ γὰρ τῆς Καρποῦς ἐστὶν οὐ Χάριτος, ἀλλὰ Ὥρας ὄνομα·
Carpos is the name, not of a Grace, but of a Season.
To the worship of this same goddess the Greeks held a harvest-home-like feast: the Thalysia (Θαλύσια). Thus Theocritus Idyll VII. The Harvest-Home:
… ἁ δ᾿ ὁδὸς ἅδε θαλύσιάδ᾿· ἦ γὰρ ἑταῖροι
ἀνέρες εὐπέπλῳ Δαμάτερι δαῖτα τελεῦντι
ὄλβω ἀπαρχόμενοι· μάλα γάρ σφισι πίονι μέτρῳ
ἁ δαίμων εὔκριθον ἀνεπλήρωσεν ἀλωάν.
This our journey is to a harvest-home;
some friends of ours make holyday to the fair-robed Demeter
with first-fruits of their increase, because
the Goddess hath filled their threshing-floor in measure so full and fat.
[The Greek Bucolic Poets. Awent by J M. Edmonds, Loeb Classical Library Volume 28. Cambridge, MA. Harvard Univserity Press. 1912.]
In Homer's Iliad book 9 lines 533 to 542 this same feast however would seem to have been held to the worship of all the gods (=dodecatheon?), for it was Oeneus' missing out of Artemis Goldenthrone alone that brought a plague borne of her wrath upon the folk of Calydon. But what is said there of Artemis Goldenthrone would also fit Demeter wonderfully well, and at times (I say not always) these two goddesses do a bit more than overlap. Herodotus in book eight of his Histories, chap.77, has the oracle of Delphi speak of "Ἀρτέμιδος χρυσαόρου ἱερὸν" "the holy shore of Artemis of the golden sword". On this epithet belonging to Demeter see below.
"gwrach, gwrach, gwrach "
T. M. Owen Welsh Folk
Customs (1974) lvs. 116 to 117 tells us that at the end of harvest in late
19th century North Pembrokeshire the custom was to shout: “Bore y codais hi/
Hwyr y dilynais hi? Mi ces hi mi ces hi (Early in the morning I got on her
track, late in the evening I followed her; I got her, I got her). When asked
what he had got, the reapers all shouted together: Gwrach, Gwrach, gwrach”. (See
also James Frazer Golden Bough chap. V lf.142 to 143 where the last line is not the same and no shout
back is given, although the last sheaf is called “Wrach”).
If this isn’t the Welsh awending the custom of their English
neighbours to the south (South Pembrokeshire being a well known English-Flemish
colony long spoken of as “Little England
Beyond Wales”), then the odd shout of “Arnack” found in Western Devonshire is seemingly
neither for “neck”, “knack (see knick-knack)” or “nag” (The English Dialect Dictionary (1903) Vol. IV M-Q, lf.242 would have it from Scandinavia: "Norw. dial, nek, a sheaf (AASEN), so Sw. dial. (RIETZ); Dan. neg (LARSEN)" - odd then it is unknown in northern and eastern England!) as some might think, but
for ”Gwrach” “Hag” or “Witch”. This
would moreover, as Owen well marks, make it akin to the names of the last sheaf found
in Scotland of Cailleach or Carlin (See
also Frazer Gold. B. chap. V lf.140 to 142). And
still more widely with Baba in Poland, Boba in Lithuania (See also Frazer Gold. B. chap. V lf.144 to 145). This
would then also harmonise with the
Northern English wont of making the last sheaf into the “kern baby”, and
also the
so-called “Ivy Girl” known from Kent, although this name has drifted to
the corn dolly from something else. W. D. Parish & W. F. Shaw A Dictionary of the Kentish
Dialect and Provincialisms in use in the County of Kent (1888) Lf.76:
HOLLY-BOYS AND IVY-GIRLS, sb. pl. It was the custom on Shrove Tuesday in West Kent to have two figures in the form of a boy and girl, made one of holly, the other of ivy. A group of girls engaged themselves in one part of a village in burning the holly-boy, which they had stolen from the boys, while the boys were to be found in another part of the village burning the ivy-girl, which they had stolen from the girls, the ceremony being, in both cases, accompanied by loud huzzas.
The English name for the last sheaf would seem to be “A mare” (see wudu-mær echo, and nightmare), and I mark that at some times the nightmare is called a “hag” which is what the Welsh "gwrach" means. And then there is the other meaning of nag... F. W. P. Jago, The Ancient Language, and The Dialect of Cornwall, with an Enlarged Glossary of Cornish Provincial Words.(1882) lf.223:
" Nag-ridden. Troubled with the nightmare."Whence lf.220 of the English Dialect Dictionary (1903) Vol. IV, M-Q has "nag-ridden". Not hag-ridden then, although this is found too, but nag-ridden! So hag, nag and (night-)mare are all one.
But all these names are none other than misnamings of the “godesse of
cornes”, to shame her and thus shame those who believe in her.
Our own Corn-wife?
From the overwhelmingness of Graeco-Roman culture of the West, when a “godesse of
cornes” is marked we will most often find the name of the Graeco-Roman Demeter or Ceres. But did the English have a “godesse of
cornes” of their own? I set down here the following from Master Thorpe's Northern Mythology: From Pagan Faith to Local Legends 1852
(edthrutched 2001) I.1.lf181, about what we should call the "Old Saxons":
“The Osnabrück popular belief tell a Tremse Mutter who goes among the corn and is feared by the children. In Brunswick she is called the Kornweib (Corn-wife). When the children seek for cornflowers, they do not venture too far in the field, and tell one another about the corn-wife who steals little children. In the Altmark and Mark of Brandenburg she is called the Roggenmöhme (Rye mum), and screaming children are silenced by saying: ‘Be still, else the Roggenmöhme with her long black teats will come and drag thee away!’ Or, according to other relations, ‘with her black iron teats.’ … In the Mark they threaten children with the Urbsemohme (pease mum) that they may not feast on the peas in the field. In the Netherlands the Long Woman is known who goes through the cornfield and plucks the projecting ears. In the heathen times the rural or field sprite was, no doubt, a friendly being, to whose influence the growth and thriving of the corn were ascribed.”
“Corn-wife” “Rye mum” and so on would be almost the same as
the meaning often given to the Greeks' Demeter of “Barley mother”: the first half being the Cretan word dea (δηά), Ionic zeia (ζειά). Eustathius of Thessalonica, scholia on Homer, 265, apparently has "Sito" (σίτος: wheat) as a cult title of Demeter.
Further north, it may
well be that Iðunn with her apples (see Gylfaginning 26, Skáldskaparmál 22) is to be set here. Her apples are akin in meaning (they are food which upholds life), and I mark Demeter was sometimes even called Malophoros "apple-bearer"!
But where Iðunn is said in one myth to have been kidnapped by an arn, this would link her more to the Greeks’ Ganymedes, Hebe and the Eastern Somaḥ which I wrote about in my last post but one [here]. See also the Parsees' Murdâdh of Murdâdh-Mâh. The golden hair of the goddess Ceres - flava
ceres (Tibullus) dea flava (Ovid ) ξανθὴ
Δημήτερ (Iliad 5. 500) - would however link her more to the Northern Sif “it
hárfagra goð” (Skáldskaparmál 29) the well known “konu Þórs”.
Iðunn in Old English might be something like Edunn or Edann (Ed+ann (ann from unnan)).
Sif in Old English would be Sib. In Robin Goodfellow, his mad Prankes and merry Jests (1628) we find a fairy with the name of Grim, otherwise a nickname of the god Wōden (see Grímnismál 47):
When candles burne both blue and dim,
Old folkes will say, Here's fairy Grim.
There is no need to think this is from Old English grima, as some have said. But we also find (on lvs.43 to 44 of the 1891 edthrutching) a lady-fairy called Sib:
Sif in Old English would be Sib. In Robin Goodfellow, his mad Prankes and merry Jests (1628) we find a fairy with the name of Grim, otherwise a nickname of the god Wōden (see Grímnismál 47):
When candles burne both blue and dim,
Old folkes will say, Here's fairy Grim.
There is no need to think this is from Old English grima, as some have said. But we also find (on lvs.43 to 44 of the 1891 edthrutching) a lady-fairy called Sib:
“THE TRICKES OF THE WOMEN FAYRIES TOLD BY SIB.Which if not our old goddess driven to hardship in later more unfriendly days, is at least fyrwit.
To walke nightly, as do the men fayries, we use not; but now and then we goe together, and at good huswives fires we warme and dresse our fayry children. If wee find cleane water and cleane towels, wee leave them money, either in their basons or in their shooes; but if wee find no cleane water in their houses, we wash our children in their pottage, milke, or beere, or what-ere we finde: for the sluts that leave not such things fitting, wee wash their faces and hands with a gilded childs clout, or els carry them to some river, and ducke them over head and eares. We often use to dwell in some great hill, and from thence we doe lend money to any poore man, or woman that hath need; but if they bring it not againe at the day appointed, we doe not only punish them with pinching, but alsoin their goods, so that they never thrive till they have payd us.”
Milburga.
Our old corn-wife would seem to underlie a saint like Milburga. Shropshire Folk-Lore (1883) lf. 417:
" It is an unfailing spring, a little above the church, and at the foot of the steep bank leading up the Brown Clee Hill. It was reputed to be good for sore eyes, and was also much used for bucking clothes, which were rinsed in the well water and beaten on a flat stone at the well's mouth; but some ten years ago it was covered in, and altered, and I am told is now in a ruinous and unsightly condition. The legend still current in the village relates that St. Milburga was a very holy and beautiful woman, who, nevertheless, had so many enemies that she was obliged to live in hiding. Her retreat, however, became known, and she took to flight, mounted on a white horse (most authorities say a white ass), and pursued by her foes with a pack of bloodhounds, and a gang of rough men on horseback. After two days and two nights' hard riding she reached the spot where the well now is, and fell fainting from her horse, striking her head upon a stone. Blood flowed from the wound, and the stain it caused upon the stone remained there partly visible, and has been seen by many persons now living.
On the opposite side of the road some men were sowing barley in a field called the Plock (by others the Vineyard), and they ran to help the saint. Water was wanted, but none was at hand. The horse, at St. Milburga's bidding, struck his hoof into the rock, and at once a spring of water gushed out. Holy water, henceforth and for ever, flow freely, said the saint. Then, stretching out her hands, she commanded the barley the men had just sown to spring up, and instantly the green blades appeared. Turning to the men, she told them that her pursuers were close at hand, and would presently ask them, When did the lady on the white horse pass this way? to which they were to answer, When we were sowing this barley. She then remounted her horse, and bidding them prepare their sickles, for in the evening they should cut their barley, she went on her way. And it came to pass as the saint had foretold. In the evening the barley was ready for the sickle, and while the men were busy reaping, St. Milburga's enemies came up, and asked for news of her. The men replied that she had stayed there at the time of the sowing of that barley, and they went away baffled. But when they came to hear that the barley which was sown in the morning ripened at mid-day, and was reaped in the evening, they owned that it was in vain to fight against God.
Mediæeval hagiologists relate the flight of St. Milburga from the too violent suit of a neighbouring prince, whose pursuit was checked by the river Corve, which, as soon as she had passed it, swelled from an insignificant brook to a mighty flood which effectually barred his progress."
Pamela Berger in a most worthy work behight The Goddess Obscured Transformation of the Grain Protectress from Goddess to Saint
(1985) shows that the legend of a fleeing lady saint and her hiding in a wonderful
growth of corn, is a tale told of Radegund "of
the oats" and Macrine in northern France, Walpurga in Germany, our own
Milburga, Brigid in Ireland and the Virgin Mary herself. And that this
is from all these ladies taking up the mantle of an earlier corn
goddess. I have to say that the plot does not work as most of
the tales go. For the man hunting the saint would have to be half-witted not to "smell a rat"
about a load of harvesters reaping at the wrong time of the year? In
the Walpurga tale however, this is put right for the saint only hides in
a waggon of harvested wheat sheaves, and it also has the further twist
that a sheaf is decked up in her likeness each year to bring the saint's outleap to mind.
Now Walpurga the erstwhile abbess of Heidenheim, "Heathen-home" (heathen here means Romans) is meant to be an English woman. But the likeness of her name to Milburga's, the -purga is the same as our -burga, rightly -burh, makes me wonder if these ever were earthly saints at all. Moreover in another folktale saint Walpurga openly has much more of the elf or goddess about her, being araught thus:
"Another time, a farmer fearing rainy weather, at night got in his corn. Then suddenly Saint Walpurgis was hovering in front of his waggon and kindly asked him to hide her in a sheaf as the enemies followed her on her foot. The farmer gave her permission and hid the saint in a sheaf. Therefore, the holy Walpurgis is depicted with a sheaf. No sooner had the saint been hidden than the white knights (weißen Ritter) rushed by with a wild halloo. The farmer quickly struck a cross and was saved. Saint Walpurgis then got out of the waggon, thanked the farmer, and told him to think highly of the sheaves. The farmer went home; but who can describe his joy when, the next morning, he found grains of gold instead of rye in the ears! He was a rich man and lived happily ever after."
Now Walpurga the erstwhile abbess of Heidenheim, "Heathen-home" (heathen here means Romans) is meant to be an English woman. But the likeness of her name to Milburga's, the -purga is the same as our -burga, rightly -burh, makes me wonder if these ever were earthly saints at all. Moreover in another folktale saint Walpurga openly has much more of the elf or goddess about her, being araught thus:
".. eine Weiße Frau mit feurigen Schuhen, langen wallenden Haaren, eine goldene Krone auf dem Haupte und in den Händen einen dreieckigen Spiegel und eine Spindel"For more of this see [here]. Fiery shoes... And Walpurga's two brothers Willibald (of Eichstätt "oak-stead") and Wynnebald might have borrowed a little something from the Heavenly Twins along the way as well. But we'll come back to this later.
".. a white woman with fiery shoes, long flowing hair, a golden crown on her head, and in her hands a triangular mirror and a spindle".
From the mediæval life it is worth etching one or two things more about our Milburga (from Nova Legenda Anglie as gathered by John of Tynemouth, John Capgrave, and others, and first thrutched, with New Lives, by Wynkyn de Worde a.d. m d xui (1513)) :
Cum autem nocte quadam diutius solito orationibus et contemplationi vacasset, fatigata sopori membra dedit, et orto sole percussa solis radio, de sompno subito expergefacta redditur attonita. Cumque maturius solito attonita procederet, de capite suo sacrum velamen quasi nescia proiecit. Nec mora, solis radius diuino nutu, antequam terram tangeret, illud suscepit, et donec ad se reuersa esset, pendulum in aere coram ipsa mansit. Et celeste miraculum cognoscens, celitus se visitatam intellexit, deo gratias inde libauit, benedixit et magnificauit.
When however on a certain night, [whilst] at prayers for longer than usual, but she was free to attend to contemplation, she gave over the tired limbs to sleep, but she came to astonished, being suddenly awoken from sleep at sun rise, struck by a beam of the sun. She quickly proceeded, howsoever astonished, with her usual custom, unaware that from the top of her holy veil it [the sun beam] projected. With no delay she had received it, a beam of the sun, by the divine will, before it might touch the earth, and then back to itself it returned, staying hanging in the air above her. And acknowledging the heavenly miracle, she quickly understood herself visited [by God], and thence offered thanks to God, and blessed and extolled [Him].
I
will spare the reader the tale of how the saint called down “ignis … de
celo” “fire … from heaven” to bring a dead widow's son back to life,
and bind this sheaf up with Milburga and the geese:
“September, when by custom ( right divine),
Geese are ordain'd to bleed at Michael's shrine.”
"Posies of Gascoigne," (1575):
"And when the tenauntes come
to paie their quarter's rent,
They bring some fowle at Midsummer,
a dish of fish in Lent,
At Christmasse a capon,
at Michaelmasse A GOOSE,
And somewhat else at New-yeres tide,
for feare their lease flie loose."
Tusser:
" For all this good feasting, yet art thou not loose,
Til Ploughman thou givest his Harvest Home goose ;
Though goose go in stubble, I passe not for that.
Let Goose have a goose, be she lean, be she fat."
But the witherward outlook might also be taken here. Thus Lydus On the Months, April (awend. Mischa Hooker):
Cum autem auce indomite in eodem loco de Stokes virginis sancte agros occupantes depascerent et passim depopularent, dampno sancte virgini nunciato, non turbatur. Potens enim meritis et virtutibus, auibus illis imperat vt in agris eius earum nulla remaneat, nec in posterum de genere illarum agris suis dampnum aliqua inferre presumat. Virginis itaque imperio volucres hac lege coercentur, vt satis eius vlterius non nocentes, iussis eius obediant et agris valefaciant. Singulis annis hoc miraculum renouant, dum quasi iussionis memores, preceptum transgredi metuunt, et agros vitantes a satis abstinent. Aut enim famelice sic ad pascua descendunt secus agros, aut volatu fatigate, quasi respirando sic perparum eis insident, vt impaste inde citius recedant.
When also in the same place of Stoke the damage was announced to the saint of wild geese occupying the fields of the holy virgin, grazing and randomly plundering, she was not upset. Truly mighty by deserts and virtues, she commands those birds in her fields that none of them may abide, nor any of their kind in the future to presume to inflict any damage to her fields. The birds are forced therefore by this stipulation of the virgin to satisfy her, harming [the crops] no further. Ordered by her, they obey and say farewell to the fields. Each year this miracle is repeated. While as if mindful of the commands, they fear to transgress the precept, and avoiding the fields, satisfy it by keeping away. Because if they come down (either so as to graze on the fields from hunger, or tired of flying), [they are found] hardly breathing, thus very few of them set down. So that being unfed in that place they may the more quickly turn away therefrom.
Auce is vulgar Latin *auca, shortened from *avica, from Latin avis (“bird”), and the well-spring of
all the Romance words for goose. And geese can indeed do much harm to a
growing crop. So maybe it is the corn-goddess' great misliking for a bird that harms her corn which is behind the "harvest goose", later "Michaelmas goose"? Charles Churchill Gotham (1764) hath the lines:
“September, when by custom ( right divine),
Geese are ordain'd to bleed at Michael's shrine.”
"Posies of Gascoigne," (1575):
"And when the tenauntes come
to paie their quarter's rent,
They bring some fowle at Midsummer,
a dish of fish in Lent,
At Christmasse a capon,
at Michaelmasse A GOOSE,
And somewhat else at New-yeres tide,
for feare their lease flie loose."
Tusser:
" For all this good feasting, yet art thou not loose,
Til Ploughman thou givest his Harvest Home goose ;
Though goose go in stubble, I passe not for that.
Let Goose have a goose, be she lean, be she fat."
But the witherward outlook might also be taken here. Thus Lydus On the Months, April (awend. Mischa Hooker):
“ἱερούργουν δὲ αὐτῇ χῆνας καὶ πέρδικας, ὅτι αἱ μὲν τοῖς ὕδασι χαίρουσι –πελαγία δὲ ἡ Ἀφροδίτη–οἱ δὲ ταῖς φωναῖς τῶν θηλείων ἀγόμενοι ἁλίσκονται.”
“They would sacrifice geese and partridges to her, because they [i.e., geese] take pleasure in waters — and Aphrodite belongs to the sea — and because they [i.e., male partridges] are led off and caught by the voices of the females.”
And in Lycophron’s Alexandra line 15 Hercynn' (Ἕρκυνν᾿), for Hercynna or Hercyna (Ἕρκυνα), is found in a list of bynames for Demeter. Hesychius of Alexandria in his Glossæ has:
<Ἑρκύνια>· ἑορτὴ Δήμητρος
Hercynia = feast of Demeter.
In Livy 45,27 we read that L.Postumius went sight-seeing in Greece, and one of the sights he saw was at Lebadæa in Bɶotia (awend. Rev. Canon Roberts):
" lebadiae quoque templum Iovis Trophonii adit; ibi cum vidisset os specus, per quod oraculo utentes sciscitatum deos descendunt, sacrificio Iovi Hercynnaeque facto, quorum ibi templum est, ..."
"He also visited the temple of Jupiter Trophonius at Lebadia and saw the mouth of the cavern into which those who consult the oracle descended. There is a temple here dedicated to Jupiter and Hercynna, and he offered sacrifices to these deities."
Now here we have a forebisening, which we marked in an earlier post, of how the Heavenly Twins get mixed up with other gods, for Trophonius is here mixed up with Jupiter, but Trophonius, as we may read in Pausanias' Guide to Greece 9.37.1- 7, is truly one of a pair of twins, Trophonius and Agamedes (Τροφώνιος καὶ Ἀγαμήδης), who were known as great builders. Thus 9.37.5 (awend. W.H.S.Jones:
" τούτους φασίν, ὡς ηὐξήθησαν, γενέσθαι δεινοὺς θεοῖς τε ἱερὰ κατασκευάσασθαι καὶ βασίλεια ἀνθρώποις· καὶ γὰρ τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι τὸν ναὸν ᾠκοδόμησαν τὸν ἐν Δελφοῖς καὶ Ὑριεῖ τὸν θησαυρόν.""They say that these, when they grew up, proved clever at building sanctuaries for the gods and palaces for men. For they built the temple for Apollo at Delphi and the treasury for Hyrieus."
That Trophonius at Lebadæa was linked to a goddess Hercyna (Ἕρκυνα) is markworthy (see Paus. th'ilk 9.39.2-3). She would thus seem to be for an earlier sun-goddess who we shall see is their mother or sister or "wife" by turns in the old myths, and with whom they are often shown in fellowship with. That she is linked to Demeter/Ceres the "goddesse of cornes" is a bit of an eye-opener but is already what we are beginning to suspect to be the case. But most outstanding of all is how Hercyna was shown at Lebadæa (Paus. th'ilk 9.39.3 - awend. Jones):
καὶ ἔστι μὲν πρὸς τῇ ὄχθῃ τοῦ ποταμοῦ ναὸς Ἑρκύνης, ἐν δὲ αὐτῷ παρθένος χῆνα ἔχουσα ἐν ταῖς χερσίν·
On the bank of the river there is a temple of Hercyna, in which is a maiden holding a goose in her arms.:
Holding a goose in her arms! And I call to mind here those tales told of the Heavenly Twins being born from an egg by Leda, having been begotten by Zeus in the shape of a swan. But in a more awkward telling of what should be the same tale in Apollodorus' Bibliotheca 3. 10.7, the goddess Nemesis is brought in. Only the twins' sister Helen, is born from the egg, Leda is only a foster-mother, and the egg is laid by Nemesis who, in fleeing from Zeus, had turned herself into a goose, only for Zeus to turn himself into a swan and so on. From which we can see that the twins' mother and the goose are much more deeply linked than many may misween here, but a more fulsome outfolding of this must abide a later post.
And we have already marked in a foregoing post [here] the goose also has links to the gods Tīw and Frēa.
Virgo?
Now harvest, as we have said, was long linked to the month of August, and at that time the sun was deemed to be in the sign of the Lion (Leo) from the 18th. July to the 17th. August, and then in the Maiden, Mæden (Virgo), from the 18th.August to the 16th. September. But the two following signs also have a bearing on the tokenings of things here for the sun is in the Scales, Wæȝe (Libra) from the 17th September to the 17th. October, and the Scorpion, Þrowend (Scorpio), from the 18th. October to 16th. November. Which two signs, as we said in an earlier post were once the forward and back halves of a greater Scorpion sign. The "Goddesse of Cornes", the Romans' Ceres, was long linked to Virgo, thus Hyginus Astronomica 2 . 18 - 43, awend. Mary Grant, Bk.2, ch. 25 VIRGO:
“Hanc Hesiodus Iovis et Themidis filiam dicit; Aratus autem Astraei et Aurorae filiam existimari, quae eodem tempore fuerit cum aurea saecula hominum, et eorum principem fuisse demonstrat. Quam propter diligentiam et aequitatem Iustitiam appellatam; neque illo tempore ab hominibus exteras nationes bello lacessitas esse, neque navigio quemquam usum, sed agris colendis vitam agere consuesse. Sed post eorum obitum qui sint nati, eos minus officiosos, magis avaros coepisse fieri, quare minus Iustitiam inter homines fuisse conversatam. Denique causam pervenisse usque eo, dum diceretur aeneum genus hominum natum. Itaque iam non potuisse pati amplius et ad sidera evolasse. Sed hanc alii Fortunam, alii Cererem dixerunt, et hoc magis non convenit inter eos, quod caput eius nimium obscurum videtur. Nonnulli eam Erigonen Icari filiam dixerunt, de qua supra diximus. Alii autem Apollinis filiam ex Chrysothemi natam, et infantem Parthenon nomine appellatam; eamque, quod parva interierit, ab Apolline inter sidera collocatam.”
“Hesiod calls her the daughter of Jove and Themis. Aratus says that she is thought to be daughter of Astraeus and Aurora, who lived at the time of the Golden Age of men and was their leader. On account of her carefulness and fairness she was called Justice, and at that time no foreign nations were attacked in war, nor did anyone sail over the seas, but they were wont to live their lives caring for their fields. But those born after their death began to be less observant of duty and more greedy, so that Justice associated more rarely with men. Finally the disease became so extreme that it was said the Brazen Race was born; then she could not endure more, and flew away to the stars.
Others call her Fortune - others, Ceres, and they dispute the more about her because her head is dimly seen.
Some have called her Erigone, daughter of Icarus, whom we have spoken of before.
Others call her a daughter of Apollo by Chrysothemis, an infant, named Parthenos. Because she died young she was put by Apollo among the constellations.”
And we can see how Justice or Themis are only other names for Ceres, for she was called “legifera Ceres" "law-giving Ceres" (see Vergil Æneid 4, 58; Demeter Thesmophorus (Δημήτηρ θεσμοφόρος) had a temple at Drymeia in Phocis, see Paus. th'ilk 10.33.12, at Megara (1.42.6) and Amulius (1.31.1) in Attica, and at Thebes 9.16.5 (Cadmus' old house?)): the rule of law being needful for cornfields to flourish. Aristophanes in his play Thesmophoriazusae (Θεσμοφοριάζουσαι), line 83 brooks the dual "θεσμοφόροιν" "(temple) of the Thesmophors" (nom. dual τὼ Θεσμοφόρω) meaning thereby both Demeter/Ceres and her daughter Persephone/Proserpine often called "The Maiden" (ἡ κόρη). Thus the star Alpha Virginis, the so-called Spica (Greek Στάχυς Stachys),
which is meant to be an ear of corn held by the goddess, or her substitute, (thus Virgo is called by Manilius
"spicifera virgo " in his Astronomica) becomes the sword in the hand or "spike" of Justice. Thus Demeter/Ceres is called in the Homeric hymn to her, line 4, is called "Chrysaorus" (χρυσάορος) "of the golden sword（ἄορ)":
The link to the Golden Age however is most markworth and ties Ceres back in to Ops and Rhea the wife of Saturnus/Cronus as king of the Golden Age who is, as we have said above, the Northern Freyr.
νόσφιν Δήμητρος χρυσαόρου, ἀγλαοκάρπου,"Chrysaorus" (χρυσάορος) "of the golden sword（ἄορ)" is also the adjective of Chrysaor "golden-sword", on which see below. It is a myth laden word, heavy with meaning. And in Lycophron’s Alexandra line 153 we find "Xiphephorus" (Ξιφηφόρος) “sword-bearer” in the list of bynames for Demeter (a byname of that goddess in Bɶotia says a scholiast marked in A. W. Mair’s footnote).
Apart from Demeter of the golden-sword and of bright fruits,... (awend. Evelyn-White).
The link to the Golden Age however is most markworth and ties Ceres back in to Ops and Rhea the wife of Saturnus/Cronus as king of the Golden Age who is, as we have said above, the Northern Freyr.
The dimness of the head is more meaningful
than it might at first seem. For it is what underlies, not only the blindfolds worn by
Justice and Fortune, but also all those beheaded maidens that fill the
leaves of the legendarium of saints. As also the well known inn-sign of the "Quiet Woman"!
Through Rhea we may make a link to Rhea Cybele worshipped in Phrygia who is the same as the Dea Syria of Hieropolis, and known as "the Great Mother of the Gods" Magna Mater Deorum. The tokening of the Mother of the Gods infolds that of the star-signs of the Lion, the Maiden and the Scales (Leo, Virgo and Libra) and we have the following most insightful verse from a tablet from Magnis (Carvoran) on Hadrian’s Wall [here] to outfold it for us:
“Imminet Leoni Virgo caeles-
ti situ spicifera iusti in-
ventrix urbium conditrix
ex quis muneribus nosse con-
tigit deos: ergo eadem mater divum
Pax Virtus Ceres dea Syria
lance vitam et iura pensitans.
in caelo visum Syria sidus edi-
dit Libyae colendum: inde
cuncti didicimus.
ita intellexit numine inductus
tuo Marcus Caecilius Do-
natianus militans tribunus
in praefecto dono principis”
“The Virgin in her celestial seat overhangs the Lion,
Producer of corn, Inventress of right, Foundress of cities,
By which gifts it has been our good fortune to know the deities.
Therefore the same is the Mother of the gods, is Peace, is Virtue, is Ceres,
Is the Syrian Goddess poising life and laws in a balance.
The constellation beheld in the sky hath Syria sent forth
To Libya to be worshipped, thence have all of us learnt it;
Thus hath understood, overspred by thy protecting influence,
Marcus Caecilius Donatianus, a war-faring
Tribune in the office of prefect, by the bounty of the Emperor.”
[awend. Dr. Bruce]
And indeed Ceres should rather be understood to be a title of the "Great Mother" thus Lucretius (98-circa 55 B.C.E.) in his On the Nature of Things book II, lines 609 to 613, writes of Magna Mater's deep links with corn thus:
“horrifice fertur divinae matris imago.
hanc variae gentes antiquo more sacrorum 610
Idaeam vocitant matrem Phrygiasque catervas
dant comites, quia primum ex illis finibus edunt
per terrarum orbes fruges coepisse creari.
“The image of that mother, the divine.
Her the wide nations, after antique rite,
Do name Idaean Mother, giving her
Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,
From out those regions 'twas that grain began
Through all the world.”
[awend. William Ellery Leonard ]
And archæology would agree with Lucretius. How old her worship is may be seen from the likenesses of a seated Magna Mater with two lions either side of her throne (below), found widely among the Greeks and Romans, with the so-called Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük circa 6,000 BCE.
 |
Above: A representation of the Great Goddess, Cybele, from Nicaea in Bithynia. Now at the İstanbul Archaeological Museum. By
QuartierLatin1968 assumed (based on copyright claims). - CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1437016
Now there are some that would outfold the "Great Mother", and indeed all the other corn goddesses besides, as Earth Goddesses, notwithstanding the above verse where they are linked to the star-sign of the Maiden. Now we do find epithets of Demeter like Chthonia (Χθονία) (see Paus. th'ilk 6.20.9) and Chamyne (Χαμύνη) (see 6.20.8 - from χαμευνέω “to lie on the ground” χαμεύνη is a “bed on the ground”?) at Olympia, but on the whole Demeter is to be told asunder from the earth-mother. Thus Pausanias th'ilk 7.21.11 writes of her temple at Patrai:
I mark here also that epithet of Demeter Chthonia at the isthmus of Corinth was outfolded as the name of an erstwhile worshipper (see Paus. th'ilk 2.35.4-9).
Others again will have her as a moon goddess. But does the moon really ripen corn? Thomas Nash A pleasant Comedie, called Summer's last will and Testament:
Now there are some that would outfold the "Great Mother", and indeed all the other corn goddesses besides, as Earth Goddesses, notwithstanding the above verse where they are linked to the star-sign of the Maiden. Now we do find epithets of Demeter like Chthonia (Χθονία) (see Paus. th'ilk 6.20.9) and Chamyne (Χαμύνη) (see 6.20.8 - from χαμευνέω “to lie on the ground” χαμεύνη is a “bed on the ground”?) at Olympia, but on the whole Demeter is to be told asunder from the earth-mother. Thus Pausanias th'ilk 7.21.11 writes of her temple at Patrai:
[11] τοῦ δὲ ἄλσους ἱερὸν ἔχεται Δήμητρος: αὕτη μὲν καὶ ἡ παῖς ἑστᾶσι, τὸ δὲ ἄγαλμα τῆς Γῆς ἐστι καθήμενον.
[11] Next to the grove is a sanctuary of Demeter; she and her daughter are standing, but the image of Earth is seated.
I mark here also that epithet of Demeter Chthonia at the isthmus of Corinth was outfolded as the name of an erstwhile worshipper (see Paus. th'ilk 2.35.4-9).
Others again will have her as a moon goddess. But does the moon really ripen corn? Thomas Nash A pleasant Comedie, called Summer's last will and Testament:
While dog-days last, the harvest safely thrives;
The sun burns hot to finish up fruits' growth; ...
And so we come at length to the wise words of Vettius Agorius Prætextatus (alive 367 C.E.) from Macrobius’s “Saturnalia” I. xxi. 24 (awending Davies):
“Virgo autem, quae manu aristam refert, quid aliud quam δύναμις ἡλιακὴ quae fructibus curat? Et ideo Iustitia creditur, quae sola facit nascentes fructus ad usus hominum pervenire.”
“The Virgin, with an ear of corn in her hand, certainly represents that power of the sun which has the fruits of the earth in its care. And she is on that account regarded as a symbol of Justice, by which alone these fruits as they come to birth are preserved for the use of men.”
And this also shows us what the twelve signs of the zodiac and their gods/goddesses must betoken, namely twelve powers of the sun, for each of which the star-signs are, as it were, "little idols" in the sky. Six of which are said to be gods and six of which are said to be goddesses. Though others understand them to be twelve gods.
I mark here at Matinea in Arcadia Demeter is linked to an undying fire , thus Pausanias th'ilk 8.9.2:
Also Demeter's epithets of "Thermasia" (θερμασία) meaning "heat" (see Paus. th'ilk 2.34.6) and "Horephorus" (ὡρηφόρος) meaning "leading on the seasons, or bringing on the fruits in their season" found in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter lines 54, 192, 492, and an Orphic Fragment (49.102) which last would be truest to say of the sun.
That Demeter's daughter Persephone is also the sun or a light or fire from the sun may be readily seen by withmeting two old Greek rituals from Pausanias' Guide. First this from Potniæ in Bœotia where they drop sucking pigs into the “megara” at Potniæ (9.8.1):
Now set the above beside the following ritual from Argos (2.22.3):
I mark here at Matinea in Arcadia Demeter is linked to an undying fire , thus Pausanias th'ilk 8.9.2:
“Ἔστι δὲ καὶ Διοσκούρων καὶ ἑτέρωθι Δήμητρος καὶ Κόρης ἱερόν· πῦρ δὲ ἐνταῦθα καίουσι, ποιούμενοι φροντίδα μὴ λάθῃ σφίσιν ἀποσβεσθέν. Καὶ Ἥρας πρὸς τῷ θεάτρῳ ναὸν ἐθεασάμην·
“There is also a sanctuary of the Dioscuri, and in another place one of Demeter and the Maid. Here they keep a fire, taking anxious care not to let it go out.”
Also Demeter's epithets of "Thermasia" (θερμασία) meaning "heat" (see Paus. th'ilk 2.34.6) and "Horephorus" (ὡρηφόρος) meaning "leading on the seasons, or bringing on the fruits in their season" found in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter lines 54, 192, 492, and an Orphic Fragment (49.102) which last would be truest to say of the sun.
That Demeter's daughter Persephone is also the sun or a light or fire from the sun may be readily seen by withmeting two old Greek rituals from Pausanias' Guide. First this from Potniæ in Bœotia where they drop sucking pigs into the “megara” at Potniæ (9.8.1):
διαβεβηκότι δὲ ἤδη τὸν Ἀσωπὸν καὶ τῆς πόλεως δέκα μάλιστα ἀφεστηκότι σταδίους Ποτνιῶν ἐστιν ἐρείπια καὶ ἐν αὐτοῖς ἄλσος Δήμητρος καὶ Κόρης. τὰ δὲ ἀγάλματα ἐν τῷ ποταμῷ τῷ παρὰ τὰς Ποτνιὰς … τὰς θεὰς ὀνομάζουσιν. ἐν χρόνῳ δὲ εἰρημένῳ δρῶσι καὶ ἄλλα ὁπόσα καθέστηκέ σφισι καὶ ἐς τὰ μέγαρα καλούμενα ἀφιᾶσιν ὗς τῶν νεογνῶν· τοὺς δὲ ὗς τούτους ἐς τὴν ἐπιοῦσαν τοῦ ἔτους ὥραν ἐν Δωδώνῃ φασὶν ἐπὶ λόγῳ τῷδε ἄλλος πού τις πεισθήσεται.Can there be any doubt that the sucking pigs here are for Persephone who was stolen away into the underworld by Hades? Elsewhere we find a tale about a herd of swine being swallowed up with Persephone. Whence also the odd belief about their return to the upper world at Dodona.
Across the Asopus, about ten stades distant from the city, are the ruins of Potniæ, in which is a grove of Demeter and the Maid. The images at the river that flows past Potniæ. . . they name the goddesses. At an appointed time they perform their accustomed ritual, one part of which is to let loose young pigs into what are called “the halls” (megara). At the same time next year these pigs appear, they say, in Dodona. This story others can believe if they wish.
Now set the above beside the following ritual from Argos (2.22.3):
Τὰ δὲ ἐς τὸν βόθρον τὸν πλησίον δρώμενα Νικόστρατον ἄνδρα ἐπιχώριον καταστήσασθαι λέγουσιν. Ἀφιᾶσι δὲ καὶ νῦν ἔτι ἐς τὸν βόθρον καιομένας λαμπάδας Κόρῃ τῇ Δήμητρος.
The ritual performed at the pit hard by they say was instituted by Nicostratus, a native. Even at the present day they throw into the pit burning torches in honor of the Maid who is daughter of Demeter.
Wow! So "burning torches" have here replaced the "sucking pigs", and again must betoken Persephone herself. Mark also how "pigs" must also be tokens for fire.
The same is even truer to say of the "Great Mother" as well. For in olden Asia Minor we will find the worship of Cybele arose out of an earlier worship of Kebat, or Hepat, which goddess was evened with the "sun-goddess of Arinna". And the lions that pull her chariot (linked to the star-sign of Leo which rises before Virgo)
are a bit of a give-away here, as these have long been understood as sun-tokens. And it is likely to be from the sun
then, rather than from the hue of ripe corn, that Ceres/Demeter is said
to be fair haired. And when Tacitus in the Germania 45 tells us that the boar is a token of Matrem deum among the Æstii or Balts he means this same sun goddess. Furthermore, the shining golden boar of Freyr is one and the same with all this (see Skáldskaparmál ch. 44). In Elene it would seem to be a foretokening of the Christians' cross which is often itself a sun token - the "wlitescyne on weres hade" being the god himself (though Christians will say an angel) :
þa wearð on slæpe sylfum ætywed
þam casere, þær he on corðre swæf,
sigerofum gesegen swefnes woma.
þuhte him wlitescyne on weres hade
hwit ond hiwbeorht hæleða nathwylc
geywed ænlicra þonne he ær oððe sið
gesege under swegle. He of slæpe onbrægd,
eofurcumble beþeaht.
When he went to sleep it showed itself
To the caesar, where he in a cohort slept,
the victory-sign of dream's din.
Thought him a fair-shining [one] in man's shape
white and bright-hued, of the heroes unknown,
manifested specially when he, early or late,
sank down [to sleep] under the heaven. He from sleep stirred
betaught to the boar-sign.
Those who wish to link the "Great Mother" with Frey's sister, Freyja, who also is shown riding a boar as well as having a chariot drawn by cats (for lions?) may do so here, but they should know that almost as many earlier goddesses hide under the name of Freyja, as they do under the name of Mary. Context is everything.
The sun-goddess of Arinna in Asia Minor had for her husband the thunder god Tarhunzas from the Anatolian root *tarh "to beat, win", a god who was evened with the Hurrian Teshub.
Above: Neo-Hittite storm god "Tarhunzas" in Aleppo museum. By Verity Cridland - http://www.flickr.com/photos/58789412@N00/4092576453/in/photostream/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11544511
Europe?
Pausanias, Guide to Greece 9.39.4 tells us that Europe (Εὐρώπη) is a title of Demeter. And
Europe in Greek seemingly means "broad face" as indeed the sun might be said
to be. Moreover, the bull riding princess of the same name is said to
be the daughter of Telephassa ("far-shining") - a female form of Telephus - or Argiope
("shining-faced") would seem to allude to the same thing. Now it is true
that many, both ancient and modern, understand this for the moon not
the sun, and Lucian of Samosata in his De Dea Syria links
princess Europe with Astarte, and Astarte to the moon (" I hold this
Astarte to be no other than the moon-goddess."). And as we have said, when not linked
to the earth, Demeter and Ceres, were often linked to the moon (see
Porphyry On Images, Servius In Georg. 1, 5)
and Horace has an ode 4.6, 38 to 40 where the moon (Noctiluca) is said
to be the
“prosperam frugum” “furtherer of fruits”. But is not “furtherer of
fruits” more truly said of the sun than the moon? And if Europe is the
moon, what pray tell is the white bull (on the bull’s colour see
Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 1. 16; Propertius, Elegies 2.
32) she rides upon? And as it is her lover, and nothing to do with the goddess herself, it cannot be outfolded as the goddess's token at all. Furthermore the match of Europe and the Bull is edledged in a later myth where Pasiphaë “All-Shining” the daughter of
the Sun is Minos’s wife and also the lover of another Bull. Again some
will bring
in here the moon (thus Pausanias, Guide to Greece
3. 26. 1 “Σελήνης δὲ ἐπίκλησις ... ἐστὶν ἡ Πασιφάη” “Pasiphae is a title of Selene”), yet the name “All-Shining”
is still more true of the sun than the moon. And what Pausanias says in his Guide ... at 5.25.9 makes interesting reading here:
The solar lineage being marked out. And does not the name of Minos play with the word for moon- Mene (Μήνη)?
The white bull then, with whom Pasiphae falls in love, is witterly for a moon god. Porphyry On the Cave of the Nymphs §8 (awend. Thomas Taylor):
Thus Lactantius div. inst. 1. 21 (awend. Fletcher):
Now I am not unaware that Adrian Bailey in his The Caves of The Sun (1997) links the bull with the sun. And his outlook is indeed greatly strengthened from Talos being glossed by Hesychius of Alexandria as the name for the sun in Crete ("<ταλῶς>· ὁ ἥλιος" "Talos: the sun") and from Apollodorus then writing of Talos in his Library 1.9.26: "οἱ δὲ ταῦρον αὐτὸν λέγουσιν" "but some say that he was a bull". But this Talos stems from a Phoenician mythological layer which underlies things in Crete as A. B. Cook writes in his Zeus:
So, there is much to trip up the unwary here, and both A. Bailey, and A. B. Cook before him, are mistaken in believing that the sun tokening of the old Minotaur was always the uppermost meaning throughout the whole of its history. They don't seem to want to acknowledge that the unwight which Theseus slays in the dark labyrinth (see Seneca Phaedra line 649 "monstrique caecam Gnosii vidit domum" "he (Theseus) saw the dark (lit. "blind") home of the Knossian monster") has shifted its meaning a great deal from that to be seen in its roots. And if anything is sun-like in this myth, it is Theseus himself, thus Hyginus Astronomica bk. 2, cap.5 of the star-sign of Corona or The Crown:
The name of Theseus' mother Aethra (Αἴθρη) moreover, as a common-noun (αἴθρη) means a clear sun-lit sky (see Iliad 17.646). Context is everything. We will come back to the minotaur and labyrinth shortly.
The love match of Pasiphaë and the bull, then is that of the sun and the moon, and looks to the Σύνοδος synodos which is a “meeting”, and also “sexual intercourse”, yet here meaning the monthly meeting of sun and moon which gives rise to the so-called "synodic month". But Sir James Frazer in his The Golden Bough (1914), vol. IV pt.3, ch.2, §4, lf.74, reminds us that this is only a kind of lesser conjunction, and there is a greater one which fell every eight years:
The Arcadian myth of Demeter taking the shape of a mare and being "raped" by Poseidon, also in horse shape (see Pausanias, Guide to Greece 8. 42. 1 - 7 & 8.25. 4-7) is akin to the foregoing. Poseidon in these tales being for the moon. Demeter's hiding in a cave on Mount Elaeum near Phigalia is somewhat like the hiding done by the Japanese sun-goddess Amaterasu. Bailey th'ilk ch.17, lf.247:
Now we learn some worthwhile things here from Pausanias which will allow us to take things a bit further. In 8.42.4 he says of the likeness in the cave at Elaion near Phigalia:
And in 8.25.7 we learn that Demeter becomes by Poseidon the mother of twins, one of whom is a horse:
Hesiod Theogony lines 280 to 286 (awend. H. G. Evelyn-White):
Mark the cave is "περιφερές" "round". The Pythia calls the Arcadians “Arcadians, Azanes Acorn-eaters” “Ἀρκάδες Ἀζᾶνες βαλανηφάγοι” (see Paus. 8.42.6).
Why horses? Whilst the Greeks have confused things, and themselves along with it, we can put everything right thanks to what Yāska wrote in his Nirukta 12.10 (awend. Lakshman Sarup) :
Our Demeter “godesse of cornes” or “Corn-wife” and so on, is thus understood to be one with the Saraṇyū or Tvāstrī of the East. In the East she is the wife of the Sun-god, but we might have guessed by Walpurga's "fiery shoes" and Milburga's "ray of the sun" that she is a sun-goddess in her own right. But mother and daughter (Demeter and Persephone) are muddled up and when Walpurga is said to have two brothers then we can see more of the daughter than the mother in her.
The Medusa that Perseus kills however, is not meant to be the sun-goddess. The token has gone down in the world to become a sea-dæmon whence the Greeks make her the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto and give her sisters Stheno "strong" and Euryale "broad sea". As the tale of Perseus has more than a casual affinity to our tale of Bēowulf, we can see the sea-dæmon Medusa as being one and the same to begin with as Grendel's mother. As we have already seen with the Minotaur, an erstwhile solar symbol in time becomes a decidedly lunar one, and is then linked to the gigantic and montrous, the depths, death and darkness so as to be fittingly slain by a solar hero. The history of the two symbols is surprisingly similar.
A third factor at work on the undermining of Medusa would seem to be her links to the Gorgon mask. The staring face of the sun was confused at some point with the mask of an evil-dæmon or giant, the Babylonian Humbaba (Huwawa), which was itself brooked to ward off evil, in the same way as dæmonic heads or "gargoyles" will be found on churches to ward off dæmones.
However, with Athena it seems the same goddess that lies behind Medusa underwent no downgrading at all, for she once rejoiced in the title of Gorgopis (γοργῶπις) - Gorgon-face!
ὅτου δὲ ὁ ἀλεκτρυών ἐστιν ἐπίθημα τῇ ἀσπίδι, Ἰδομενεύς ἐστιν ὁ ἀπόγονος Μίνω: τῷ δὲ Ἰδομενεῖ γένος ἀπὸ Ἡλίου τοῦ πατρὸς Πασιφάης, Ἡλίου δὲ ἱερόν φασιν εἶναι τὸν ὄρνιθα καὶ ἀγγέλλειν ἀνιέναι μέλλοντος τοῦ ἡλίου.
The figure with the cock emblazoned on the shield is Idomeneus the descendant of Minos. The story goes that Idomeneus was descended from the Sun, the father of Pasiphae, and that the cock is sacred to the Sun and proclaims when he is about to rise.
The solar lineage being marked out. And does not the name of Minos play with the word for moon- Mene (Μήνη)?
The white bull then, with whom Pasiphae falls in love, is witterly for a moon god. Porphyry On the Cave of the Nymphs §8 (awend. Thomas Taylor):
"Σελήνην τε οὖσαν γενέσεως προστάτιδα Μέλισσαν ἐκάλουν ἄλλως τε ἐπεὶ ταῦρος μὲν Σελήνη καὶ ὕψωμα Σελήνης ὁ ταῦρος, βουγενεῖς δ' αἱ μέλισσαι, καὶ ψυχαὶ δ' εἰς γένεσιν ἰοῦσαι βουγενεῖς,...""The moon, likewise, who presides over generation, was called by them a bee, and also a bull. And Taurus is the exaltation of the moon. But bees are ox-begotten. And this application is also given to souls proceeding into generation."
Thus Lactantius div. inst. 1. 21 (awend. Fletcher):
" Lunae taurus mactatur, quia similiter habet cornua."And Nonnos Dionysiaca marketh "Bull-face" (ταυρῶπις) as a name for the moon, as bk. 44, line 217:
"For as the bull is sacrificed to Luna, because he also has horns as she has; …"
Ὣς φαμένου ταυρῶπις ἀνίαχεν ὑψόθι Μήνη· ...
To this appeal bullface Mene answered on high: ...
[lvs. 312 to 313]
Now I am not unaware that Adrian Bailey in his The Caves of The Sun (1997) links the bull with the sun. And his outlook is indeed greatly strengthened from Talos being glossed by Hesychius of Alexandria as the name for the sun in Crete ("<ταλῶς>· ὁ ἥλιος" "Talos: the sun") and from Apollodorus then writing of Talos in his Library 1.9.26: "οἱ δὲ ταῦρον αὐτὸν λέγουσιν" "but some say that he was a bull". But this Talos stems from a Phoenician mythological layer which underlies things in Crete as A. B. Cook writes in his Zeus:
“The foregoing accounts show that the Cretan sun-god Talos was by some authorities at least identified with the Phoenician Kronos, a form of the Semitic deity El.”That is, Talos is for Baal Hamman “Lord of the Brazier”, or of Hammon (now Umm al-‘Awamid between Tyre and Acre), shown with ram’s horns (whence Baal Qarnaim “Lord of the Two Horns” worshipped on Jebel Boukornine near Carthage) from a muddling with Ammon the thunder-god of Egypt. Linked to Kronos in Cleitarchus' paraphrase of a scholium to Plato's Republic, Diodorus Siculus Library of History 20.14 and the Romans’ Saturnus. But truly a sun-god, and the Molech of the Bible (Jeremiah. 32:35; 2 Kings 23:10, Leviticus 18:21 and 20: 2 -5), the god of the Ammonites (1 Kings 11:33) and the "golden calf" worshipped in Exodus. Now the tale of the Minotaur would indeed seem to grow out of this Phoenician background, hence the fourteen Athenian children are said to be sent to him as an offering, but the Minotaur they are sent to is no longer to be understood as a sun-god, but rather only as an ettin or demon. He was after all, the god of the Greeks' foes. At length moreover, the links we have already set out between bulls and the moon, and which I take to arise from a more Indo-European background, brought about the bestowing of a further layer of meaning almost wholly at odds with that token's Phoenician roots. Thus Epinomis 987d-e (awend. W. R. M. Lamb):
"λάβωμεν δὲ ὡς ὅτιπερ ἂν Ἕλληνες βαρβάρων [987e] παραλάβωσι, κάλλιον τοῦτο εἰς τέλος ἀπεργάζονται:..."
"... whatever Greeks acquire from foreigners is finally turned by them into something nobler; ...".
So, there is much to trip up the unwary here, and both A. Bailey, and A. B. Cook before him, are mistaken in believing that the sun tokening of the old Minotaur was always the uppermost meaning throughout the whole of its history. They don't seem to want to acknowledge that the unwight which Theseus slays in the dark labyrinth (see Seneca Phaedra line 649 "monstrique caecam Gnosii vidit domum" "he (Theseus) saw the dark (lit. "blind") home of the Knossian monster") has shifted its meaning a great deal from that to be seen in its roots. And if anything is sun-like in this myth, it is Theseus himself, thus Hyginus Astronomica bk. 2, cap.5 of the star-sign of Corona or The Crown:
"Dicitur etiam a Vulcano facta ex auro et indicis gemmis, per quas Theseus existimatur de tenebris labyrinthi ad lucem venisse; quod aurum et gemmae in obscuro fulgorem luminis efficiebant."
"It is also said that it (the crown) was made by Vulcanus from gold and from Indian gems, by which Theseus is deemed to have come from the darkness of the labyrinth to the light; for the gold and gems in the dark made a gleam of light."
The name of Theseus' mother Aethra (Αἴθρη) moreover, as a common-noun (αἴθρη) means a clear sun-lit sky (see Iliad 17.646). Context is everything. We will come back to the minotaur and labyrinth shortly.
The love match of Pasiphaë and the bull, then is that of the sun and the moon, and looks to the Σύνοδος synodos which is a “meeting”, and also “sexual intercourse”, yet here meaning the monthly meeting of sun and moon which gives rise to the so-called "synodic month". But Sir James Frazer in his The Golden Bough (1914), vol. IV pt.3, ch.2, §4, lf.74, reminds us that this is only a kind of lesser conjunction, and there is a greater one which fell every eight years:
" It is true that sun and moon are in conjunction once every month, but every month their conjunction takes place at a different point in the sky, until eight revolving years have brought them together again in the same heavenly bridal chamber where first they met."And we begin to see why a count of eight years was a great thing for the old Greeks.
The Arcadian myth of Demeter taking the shape of a mare and being "raped" by Poseidon, also in horse shape (see Pausanias, Guide to Greece 8. 42. 1 - 7 & 8.25. 4-7) is akin to the foregoing. Poseidon in these tales being for the moon. Demeter's hiding in a cave on Mount Elaeum near Phigalia is somewhat like the hiding done by the Japanese sun-goddess Amaterasu. Bailey th'ilk ch.17, lf.247:
"Black Demeter, Hecate and Cinderella, and the Japanese Amaterasu - all female versions of the winter sun - lived for a time in caves."She was called "Black Demeter" from her mournful clothes. At Onkion near Thelpousa (Paus. th'ilk 8.25. 4-7) the same tale was linked to a statue there called Δημήτηρ Ἐρινύς Demeter Erinys.
Now we learn some worthwhile things here from Pausanias which will allow us to take things a bit further. In 8.42.4 he says of the likeness in the cave at Elaion near Phigalia:
"κεφαλὴν δὲ καὶ κόμην εἶχεν ἵππου, καὶ δρακόντων τε καὶ ἄλλων θηρίων εἰκόνες προσεπεφύκεσαν τῇ κεφαλῇ:"
"She had the head and hair of a horse, and there grew out of her head images of serpents and other beasts."
And in 8.25.7 we learn that Demeter becomes by Poseidon the mother of twins, one of whom is a horse:
τὴν δὲ Δήμητρα τεκεῖν φασιν ἐκ τοῦ Ποσειδῶνος θυγατέρα, ἧς τὸ ὄνομα ἐς ἀτελέστους λέγειν οὐ νομίζουσι, καὶ ἵππον τὸν Ἀρείονα:Now we have here noneother than the same mythic background that we find elsewhere linked to the name of Medusa! Now under the name of Medusa (Μέδουσα) we need to understand that two, if not three, originally distinct things have been confounded by the Greeks. The name means "queen" and belongs to a goddess. And there is much to make us think she was a sun goddess to begin with. In the earliest depiction of her on an amphora from Thebes, and now in the Louvre, she is shown as a lady-centaur (see [here]) which amazes many, but it shouldn't now amaze us. And it is as an old sun-goddess that Poseidon has ado with her, and begets upon her twins, one of whom is a horse. Thus
Demeter, they say, had by Poseidon a daughter, whose name they are not wont to divulge to the uninitiated, and a horse called Areion.
Hesiod Theogony lines 280 to 286 (awend. H. G. Evelyn-White):
τῆς δ᾽ ὅτε δὴ Περσεὺς κεφαλὴν ἀπεδειροτόμησεν,In his book on Phocis, Pausanias 10.32.3 will mark a link made by the old Greeks between a holy cave to the "great Mother" in Phrygia and this Arcadian cult of Demeter by saying it is in an area settled by Greeks from Arcadia.
ἔκθορε Χρυσαωρ τε μέγας καὶ Πήγασος ἵππος.
τῷ μὲν ἐπώνυμον ἦεν, ὅτ᾽ Ὠκεανοῦ περὶ πηγὰς
γένθ᾽, ὃ δ᾽ ἄορ χρύσειον ἔχων μετὰ χερσὶ φίλῃσιν.
χὠ μὲν ἀποπτάμενος προλιπὼν χθόνα, μητέρα μήλων,
285 ἵκετ᾽ ἐς ἀθανάτους: Ζηνὸς δ᾽ ἐν δώμασι ναίει
βροντήν τε στεροπήν τε φέρων Διὶ μητιόεντι.
And when Perseus cut off her head,
there sprang forth great Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus
who is so called because he was born near the springs of Ocean;
and that other, because he held a golden blade in his hands.
Now Pegasus flew away and left the earth, the mother of flocks,
[285] and came to the deathless gods: and he dwells in the house of Zeus
and brings to wise Zeus the thunder and lightning.
" Φρύγες οἱ ἐπὶ ποταμῷ Πεγκέλᾳ, τὰ δὲ ἄνωθεν ἐξ Ἀρκαδίας καὶ Ἀζάνων ἐς ταύτην ἀφικόμενοι τὴν χώραν, δεικνύουσιν ἄντρον καλούμενον Στεῦνος περιφερές τε καὶ ὕψους ἔχον εὐπρεπῶς: Μητρὸς δέ ἐστιν ἱερόν, καὶ ἄγαλμα Μητρὸς πεποίηται."
"The Phrygians on the river Pencelas, and those who came to this land originally from the Azanians in Arcadia, show visitors a cave called Steunos, which is round, and handsome in its loftiness. It is sacred to the Mother, and there is an image of her." (awend. W.H.S. Jones)
Mark the cave is "περιφερές" "round". The Pythia calls the Arcadians “Arcadians, Azanes Acorn-eaters” “Ἀρκάδες Ἀζᾶνες βαλανηφάγοι” (see Paus. 8.42.6).
Why horses? Whilst the Greeks have confused things, and themselves along with it, we can put everything right thanks to what Yāska wrote in his Nirukta 12.10 (awend. Lakshman Sarup) :
“tvāstrī.saranyūr.vivasvata.ādityād.yamau.mithunau.janayām.cakāra/We have the genealogy of the Aśvinau alone in the Mahābhārata, sambhava parva, section 66 of Ganguli's awending:
sā.savarṇām.anyām.pratinidhāya.āśvam.rūpam.kṛtvā.pradudrāva/
sa.vivasvān.āditya.āśvam.eva.rūpam.kṛtvā.tām.anusṛtya.sambabhūva/
tatas.aśvinau.jajñāte/
savarṇāyām.manuh/”
“Saraṇyū daughter of Tvaṣṭṛ bore twins, Yama and Yamī, to Vivasvat the sun. She having substituted another lady of similar appearance, and having assumed the shape of a mare, ran away. He, Vivasvat, the sun, having also assumed the shape of a horse, pursued her, and joined her. Thence the Aśvins were born. Manu was born from the lady of similar appearance.”
tvāṣṭrī tu savitur bhāryā vaḍavārūpadhāriṇī
asūyata mahābhāgā sāntarikṣe 'śvināv ubhau
"And Tvashtri, of the form of Vadava (a mare), became the wife of Savitri. And she gave birth, in the skies, to two greatly fortunate twins, the Aswins."See also Ṛgvedaḥ 10.17.1 to 2.
Above: "Birth of the Celestial Twins, Folio from a Harivamsha (Lineage of Vishnu) LACMA M.83.1.7".
The Medusa that Perseus kills however, is not meant to be the sun-goddess. The token has gone down in the world to become a sea-dæmon whence the Greeks make her the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto and give her sisters Stheno "strong" and Euryale "broad sea". As the tale of Perseus has more than a casual affinity to our tale of Bēowulf, we can see the sea-dæmon Medusa as being one and the same to begin with as Grendel's mother. As we have already seen with the Minotaur, an erstwhile solar symbol in time becomes a decidedly lunar one, and is then linked to the gigantic and montrous, the depths, death and darkness so as to be fittingly slain by a solar hero. The history of the two symbols is surprisingly similar.
A third factor at work on the undermining of Medusa would seem to be her links to the Gorgon mask. The staring face of the sun was confused at some point with the mask of an evil-dæmon or giant, the Babylonian Humbaba (Huwawa), which was itself brooked to ward off evil, in the same way as dæmonic heads or "gargoyles" will be found on churches to ward off dæmones.
However, with Athena it seems the same goddess that lies behind Medusa underwent no downgrading at all, for she once rejoiced in the title of Gorgopis (γοργῶπις) - Gorgon-face!
Athena?
Now Athena was also often pitted against Poseidon, and she too was sometimes linked to the star-sign of Virgo, as well as to Aries (which last belief is enshrined by Manilius' Astronomica bk. 1, line 439 "Lanigerum Pallas ... tuetur" "Pallas is protectress of the Ram"). Thus Proclus Commentary on the Timaeus [23d, P. 43d-e] of Plato Vol I, awent by Thomas Taylor :
" καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖ κλῆρός τις ἀνήπλωται τῆς θεοῦ ταύτῆς, εἴτε ὁ περὶ τὸν κριὸν τόπος, εἴτε ὁ περὶ τὴν παρθένον, εἴτε καὶ τῶν ἀρκτῴων ἀστέρων τις, ὥσπερ ἔνιοι τὴν ἐκεῖσε Ἠλέκτραν φασίν·"
" For there a certain allotment of this goddess is expanded, whether it be the place about the Ram, or that about the Virgin, or whether it be some one of the Northern stars, as some say it is the Electra, which is there. "
Julian, albeit writing with the spring equinox feast of the "Great Mother", doth match her with Athena/Minerva:
ἀλλ᾿, ὅπερ ἔφην, τί τὸ λειπόμενον ἡμῖν ὑμνῆσαι τὴν θεὸν μετὰ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς καὶ τοῦ Διονύσου, ὧν δὴ καὶ τὰς ἑορτὰς ἐν ταύταις ἔθετο ταῖς ἁγιστείαις ὁ νόμος; ὁρῶ μὲν τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς πρὸς τὴν Μητέρα τῶν θεῶν διὰ τῆς προνοητικῆς ἐν ἑκατέραις ταῖς οὐσίαις ὁμοιότητος τὴν συγγένειαν ἐπισκοπῶ δὲ …Nevertheless, as I said before, does there not still remain for me to celebrate the goddess in her union with Athene and Dionysus? For the sacred law established their festivals at the very time of her sacred rites. And I recognise the kinship of Athene and the Mother of the Gods; O life-giving goddess that art the counsel and the providence and the creator of our souls through the similarity of the forethought that inheres in the substance of both goddesses.
The Ram and the Maiden we are to understand as the tokens of the
evenights or equinoxes, when the Greater and Lesser Mysteries of Demeter
were celebrated. I know the harvest evenight or autumnal equinox
doesn't fall in the star-sign of the Maiden, but we have seen already
how the star-signs of the Lion through to the Scorpion make up a knot of
tokening so to speak, all of which belongs to our goddess. That she oversees both equinoxes is a likelihood if you will allow the following Homeric hymn (XI) Εἲς Ἀθήναν “To Athena” to have that meaning:
Παλλάδ᾽ Ἀθηναίην ἐρυσίπτολιν ἄρχομ᾽ ἀείδειν,
δεινήν, ᾗ σὺν Ἄρηι μέλει πολεμήια ἔργα
περθόμεναί τε πόληες ἀϋτή τε πτόλεμοί τε,
καί τ᾽ ἐρρύσατο λαὸν ἰόντα τε νισσόμενόν τε.
χαῖρε, θεά, δὸς δ᾽ ἄμμι τύχην εὐδαιμονίην τε. 5
To Athena
[1] Of Pallas Athena, guardian of the city, I begin to sing.
Dread is she, and with Ares she loves deeds of war,
the sack of cities and the shouting and the battle.
It is she who saves the people as they go out to war and come back.
[5] Hail, goddess, and give us good fortune with happiness!
[The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English awending by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.]
“καί τ᾽ ἐρρύσατο λαὸν ἰόντα τε νισσόμενόν τε.”
“It is she who saves the people as they go out [to war] and come back.”
Evelyn-White has put in here "to war" - it isn't in the Greek although it can be inferred.
And Macrobius in his Saturnalia Bk. 1, ch. 17, §70 (awend. Davies) will speak of Minerva in a way worth withmeting to what he writes of Virgo above:
"Addita est Gorgonea vestis, quod Minerva, quam huius praesidem accepimus, solis virtus sit: sicut et Porphyrius testatur Minervam esse virtutem solis quae humanis mentibus prudentiam subministrat. Nam ideam haec dea Iovis capite prognata memoratur, id est de summa aetheris parte edita, unde origo solis est."
"The statue has also a gorgon-like vesture, because Minerva, to whom we know this vesture belongs, is a power of the sun; for we have it on the testimony of Porphyrius that Minerva is the power of the sun which gives a right judgment to the minds of men, and that is why this goddess is said to have been born from the head of Jupiter, or, in other words, to have issued from the highest part of the heavens, whence the sun derives its origin."
"The power of the sun which
gives a right judgment" shows us that she is indeed one with Dike or Justice and Ceres/Demeter Legifera/Thesmophorus and the "Great Mother". But unlike these goddesses who are shown to be in need of the warding of gods like the Curetes (Κουρῆτες), the weaponed Athena can well look after her self.
Whilst Kebat/Hepat "the sun goddess of Arinna" mainly evolved into the "great mother" otherwise understood as Cybele, Dea Syria, Demeter/Rhea and so on, as we have said, at Comana in Cappadocia (τὰ Κόμανα τῆς Καππαδοκίας) - Hittite Kummanni - she became "Ma" "the mother" who was withmeted to Enyo and ... Athena! Athena herself bears the odd epithet "mother" (μήτηρ gen. μητρός) at Elis (see Paus. th'ilk 5.3.2).
This weapon-wielding goddess moreover beckons us eastward.Whilst Kebat/Hepat "the sun goddess of Arinna" mainly evolved into the "great mother" otherwise understood as Cybele, Dea Syria, Demeter/Rhea and so on, as we have said, at Comana in Cappadocia (τὰ Κόμανα τῆς Καππαδοκίας) - Hittite Kummanni - she became "Ma" "the mother" who was withmeted to Enyo and ... Athena! Athena herself bears the odd epithet "mother" (μήτηρ gen. μητρός) at Elis (see Paus. th'ilk 5.3.2).
jai mata di!
Rai Bahadur A.C. Mukerji Hindu Fasts and Feasts (1916) Lf. 135:
“Originally the Durga Puja was held for nine days in succession, commencing with the bright fortnight of the month of Chaitra (March-April), the whole Puja season being collectively called the Navaratra, or ‘the nine nights,' … But later on the date of the Puja was shifted forward so as to take place in the moonlit half of Kuar or Aswin (September-October), and this is the time the festival is held still. There can be no doubt that both these dates were connected with the cutting of the harvest, as Kuar and Chaitra have always been the two principal harvest seasons in India. But the worship, as a worship, has nothing to do with any agricultural operations. ”
Now Durga is araught by A.C. Mukerji in th'ilk Lvs. 129 to 140:
From which it would seem that she has no little likeness to the Western Magna Mater/Ceres and so on. And you all should know by now why she has a lion, although some will show her with a tiger instead.“Durga herself is represented as a tall woman with a fair yellowish complexion, yellow being the most sacred of all colours. She has ten arms, each holding either a weapon, such as a scimitar, a club, a bow and arrow, a battle-axe, or some other suitable symbol, such as a conch shell, a revolving discus, a lotus flower. In one of her lower arms she holds a tuft of hair belonging to the head of an Asur, or demon, upon whom she tramples with one foot, the other foot resting on the back of a lion. The Asur or demon below her foot is Mahishasur, a demon who terrorised the earth in the form of a ferocious buffalo, and to crush whom was one of the special missions that Durga undertook to execute in the world of mortals. For this reason the goddess bears also the names of ‘Mahish-mardini’ (‘destroyer of the buffalo demon’). The Lion is the vahan of Durga, and this fact accounts for another of her thousand names – ‘Singha Vahini’ or ‘rider of the lion’. …”.
Above: Sri Chamundeshwari in her "Durga" aspect by Sri Shilpi Siddanthi Siddalinga Swami ( 1885 — 1952) from Mysore Palace Museum, Jagmohan Palace, Mysore, India ᛋ
Some likenesses of Durga with more radiate arms about her head hark back to the sun goddess that she truly is; the arms betokening the rays of the sun (the onseen(=face) of the goddess).
Still other likenesses may make us think of our Western Michael and the devil/dragon, and not without good grounds. For the Durga puja more or less falls about the time of the Autumn Equinox. Autumn Equinox, Seó hærfestlice emniht, was 22nd. September, 2017, but the traditional date was 24th. September, thus St. Alban’s Psalter:
“VIII Kl [A]Equi noctiu[m] s[e]c[un]d[u]m rom[anos]·” [see here]
And the nearest high feast being Michaelmas on 29th. September:
“III Kl. S[an]c[t]i Michael[is] archang[e]li[s].”
This autumnal equinox is when the sun is in Libra. The Sun being in Libra, or sēo Wæȝe in Old English, from 17th September to 17th. October in the old way of reckoning these things. And Michael is often shown with a weigh, or scales, seemingly weighing souls. And we may munie here once again that Magna Mater was said to hold the scales in the poem we set out above from Magnis; and often Virgo is understood as Justice who since the Renascita is shown with scales. But in her other hand is a sword. And as well as scales Michael is often shown holding a sword. A.C. Mukerji again lf.137:
“The sword is also one of the symbols of Durga, and is worshipped along with her.”
And I wouldn't be the first to see a sword-spike-spica word play going on in all this.
The kshatriyas moreover would seem to have taken Durga as their ghostly mother, and the Durga Puja was deemed to be their feast, Mukerji th'ilk Lf.92:
Now there is a hidden link between the solstices and the equinoxes that follow them. That is, whatever may be said about the solstice feast, can also be said of the equinox feast that follows it. The Christians acknowledge this with what they say about the times of the begettings and births of John the Baptist and of Jesus (see Bede De Temporum Ratione, cap. 30), but it is much older. Thus in the star-signs in which the equinoxes and solstices fall we will see that a crab, Cancer, is somewhat akin to a scorpion, Scorpio, Libra once being the claws, Chelæ, of a great Scorpio. And a ram, Aries, has a kind of kinship to a goat, Capricornus. We have already written of John the Baptist and the summer solstice or Midsummer and the links to the thunder-god (here). And it is more than likely therefore, that the autumn equinox, and the Michaelmas feast which as good as marks it, will also have something to do with the thunder-god. Michael "the captain of the Lord's host" (Joshua 5:15) was the slayer of a dragon (Revelations 12:9 "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.") who fell "as lightning" (Luke 10:18 "And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."). Indeed his whole fight with the dragon, and the "war in heaven" can be understood as no more than the phenomena of a thunder-storm! It is afonding here moreover to see the stars about Virgo and Libra as giving rise to what we read in Revelations ch. 12 where Michael is fighting a dragon on behalf of "a woman clothed with the sun", that is, on behalf of Virgo, or the sun in Virgo. The dragon is Hydra, or Hydrus, and as it is so big, rises with Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio (see Capella Wedding of Mercury and Philology, Book 8, §§841 to 842). And Michael here is then maybe for the sign of Hercules whose right foot at least riseth with Libra (see Capella th'ilk), although the myth of the sign of Hercules is with a much greater right to be linked to the polar Draco and upon which it seems to tread.
But the angel Michael often is shown with soft, woman-like features, not bearded and ruggedly man-like as John the Baptist is shown, and as such Michael himself may well stand in here for Athena and so on, and thus for Virgo - "Justice" holding the scales of Libra.
Now Durga, it is true, does not slay a dragon but a demon in "buffalo" shape. We might even say in the shape of a bull, and at times this same demon is even shown much like what we in the West might call a minotaur.
Above: Mahishasura sculpture at Mahabalipuram. By Jenith - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18650654.ᛋ
This is indeed odd, as wherever Durga's worship wanes in India Mukerji tells us, the Durga Puja is left off and at the self same time we find that the hero Rama is worshipped instead. It being understood as the feast marking Rama's overwinning of the demon Ravana and thereby getting back his wife, whom Ravana had stolen away and locked in the stronghold of Lanka. But the way to this stronghold, so Albiruni would have it in his India, was shaped like a labyrinth, even as the labyrinth of Knossos on Crete is shown where the minotaur is said to have lived (see below)!
Above: the labyrinth of Lanka where Sita was kept by Ravana as to be found in Sachau's awending of Albiruni's India.
Above:
Silver coin from Knossos representing the Cretan labyrinth, 400 B.C.E.
.By AlMare - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5111302. All the Cretan
labyrinths with more windings than this, so long as they have only one
way in and out, are all built up from this one with its sevenfold path.
Above: Graffiti from Pompeii the staves read 'Labyrinthus: Hic habitat Min-otaurus' 'Labyrinth: Here lives the Minotaur'.
But the third and fourth things we need to know here before we unravel things here is that the Romans linked the same labyrinth layout to Troy.
Above: Drawing of an Etruscan oinochoë from Tragliatella with a labyrinth bearing the legend 'Truia' (ᛏ𐌓VIA written backwards with early Italic letters), and sometimes thought to show the "Troy Game" marked in Vergil, Aeneid 5.545–603.
And this was long kept in mind in the West, thus W. H. Matthews Mazes and Labyrinths (1922), chapitle 18, lf. 156:
Which allows us to draw some sweeping conclusions:
i) mythically speaking, the Cretan labyrinth, Ravana's Lanka, Troy and Jericho must all betoken the same thing;
ii) the minotaur slain by Theseus, the demon Ravana slain by Rama, "the Trojans" slain by Menelaus, the folk of Jericho slain by Joshua and the buffalo-demon slain by Durga all betoken the same thing;
iii) Ariadne who Theseus makes off with, Sita the kidnapped wife whom Rama frees, Helen of Troy another kidnapped wife whom Menelaus frees and Rahab whom Joshua spares are all the same;
iv) Theseus, Rama, Menelaus and Joshua are all the same, and with Rama, Menelaus and Joshua there are worn down traces of being kind of twins - Rama being helped by his half-brother Laksmana, Menelaus by his brother Agamemnon and Joshua by the other leader of the Israelites to the Promised Land, Caleb.
What about Durga I hear someone say, she doesn't fit in with the above? Well it looks alot like she is ii) and iii) put together, a princess who is her own "knight in shining armour" as it were, and rescues herself! But we will call to mind that Mukerji tells us that the Durga puja and the navaratra fall in the month of "Kuar or Aswin" - two names for the same month and named, albeit somewhat indirectly, for the Aśvinau, the Heavenly Twins of India. So that the Twins are likely to be missing from the tale of Durga as told in India, a loss that the Rama/Laksmana tale goes some way to make up for. And we will call to mind here that the Heavenly Twins in old Greek lore were sometimes linked to the Dactyls or Curetes and Corybantes who were the followers of the "Great Mother" and her "knights" so to speak. And we call to mind that the angels Michael and Gabriel at the two equinoxes have much the same work to do for the Christian's "new goddess" Mary, the "woman clothed with the sun".
But the goddess kidnapped into the labyrinth and so on, and rescued by the Heavenly Twins is the daughter of the "Great Mother", what the Greeks called Persephone. They are often seen to be two-in-one, but the daughter was a sister of the Heavenly Twins. Thus Demeter, as we have set out above, was said in Arcadia to give birth to a horse (=twins) and "the Mistress" who is her daughter Persephone. But in the fullest telling of this myth I believe there were at least three brothers and three sisters. Helen of Troy and Persephone are thus, mythically speaking, one and the same. Both have links to trees and worts, but this is only indirectly, for this is not what they are truly about.
We are lucky here that Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, put the deeds of the Bohemian monk Hieronymus Pragensis in Lithuania into chapitle 26 of his De Europa (1458):
"The motif of the Sun’s capture has not been found in Lithuanian folklore."[here]
But he does nevertheless beckon toward tales in the Kalevala, and in the folklore of Karelia where it is. Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen being the twain who do the work of the Heavenly Twins.
This then is the myth in its earliest shape, and the "Great Mother" would then be a higher divine principle, the source of the sun but still one with its essence. That is what we might call Āgneyī (आग्नेयी), that is the name of Agni's wife or daughter - Agni being understood as the one divine principle of yore as we have already marked ([here]).
Above:Santa Maria Capua Vetere. Mithraeum, fresco of Mithras slaying a bull. By Miguel Hermoso Cuesta - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37938469.
Now Michael of Michaelmas belike owes more than a little to Mithras as the autumn equinox with the Parsees falls on the 16th day of Mihr-Mâh "Mithras (Mihr)-moon/month", the feast of Mihrajân (<*miθrakāna). Albiruni writes in his Chronology - (Edward Sachau awending 1879 lvs. 208 to 209):
The "resurrection and the end of the world" being understood as a great ordeal by fire that only the rightful would outlive, the mythic forebisening of all those lesser ordeals by fire known in our old laws. And so you can see this was a well known thing long before there were any of the Christian name at all. And for the Parsees it seems this was overseen by Mithras, as the Jews and Christians would later understand Michael as doing. Indeed Mithras was a god of justice to whom oaths were sworn (see Xenophon Cyropaedia 7.5.53, Oeconomicus 4.24 and Plutarch, Artaxerxes 4). So, all things umbethought, Mithras, whose month is at the time of the autumn equinox among the Parsees, and Durga whose feast falls at more or less the same time in India, must be at heart the same. Now Herodotus says something odd about Mithras in his Histories 1.131.3 which until now I think has been misunderstood but from the above I hope it may be seen why Herodotus might say this :
We have already marked that among the Greeks the bull was, or evolved into, a lunar symbol. In the old art such as we find at Persepolis, we often find a lion fighting a bull. As A. Bailey Caves of the Sun (1997) ch. 15, lf.225:
Above: Herakles and Achelous. Side A from an Attic red-figure column-krater, ca. 450 BCE. From Agrigento. [here]
Deianeira says of Achelous in Sophocles' The Trachiniae 9 ff., awend. by Sir Richard Jebb.
μνηστὴρ γὰρ ἦν μοι ποταμός, Ἀχελῷον λέγω,
ὅς μ᾽ ἐν τρισὶν μορφαῖσιν ἐξῄτει πατρός, 10
φοιτῶν ἐναργὴς ταῦρος, ἄλλοτ᾽ αἰόλος
δράκων ἑλικτός, ἄλλοτ᾽ ἀνδρείῳ κύτει
βούπρῳρος: ἐκ δὲ δασκίου γενειάδος
κρουνοὶ διερραίνοντο κρηναίου ποτοῦ.
τοιόνδ᾽ ἐγὼ μνηστῆρα προσδεδεγμένη 15
δύστηνος αἰεὶ κατθανεῖν ἐπηυχόμην,
πρὶν τῆσδε κοίτης ἐμπελασθῆναί ποτε.
χρόνῳ δ᾽ ἐν ὑστέρῳ μέν, ἀσμένῃ δέ μοι,
ὁ κλεινὸς ἦλθε Ζηνὸς Ἀλκμήνης τε παῖς:
ὃς εἰς ἀγῶνα τῷδε συμπεσὼν μάχης 20
ἐκλύεταί με:
For my suitor was a river-god, Achelous,
who in three shapes was always asking me from my father— [10]
coming now as a bull in visible form, now as a serpent,
sheeny and coiled, now ox-faced with human trunk,
while from his thick-shaded beard
wellheads of fountain-water sprayed.
In the expectation that such a suitor would get me, [15]
I was always praying in my misery that I might die,
before I should ever approach that marriage-bed.
But at last, to my joy,
the glorious son of Zeus and Alcmena came and
[20] closed with him in combat
and delivered me.
"ἄλλοτ᾽ ἀνδρείῳ κύτει/βούπρῳρος: " "now ox-faced with human trunk" is, needless to say, one with the Minotaur slain by Theseus.
If we think to ourselves that this bull fighting is timed for the autumnal equinox it is easy to see this as a rain myth.
A. Bailey Caves of the Sun (1997) ch. 16, lf.237:
And lf.240:
Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum
Taurus et averso cedens Canis occidit astro.
What time the white bull with his gilded horns
Opens the year, before whose threatening front,
Routed the dog-star sinks.
Mithras then makes an opening in the bull's shoulder, that is in the moon, and sets free the rainwaters upon which all life on earth rests. The moon being thought of as a kind of cistern of rain water of yore. Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, bk. 1, chap. 8:
Much of this rain tokening of Mithras slaying the bull is shared by Perseus' slaying of Medusa who has here become a water-goddess. It should be born in mind here that Perseus, through his son Perses, was believed to be the forefather of the Parsees.
It is also worth marking here that in Euripides’ Ion, lines 987–96, and in Hyginus De astronomia 2.12, Athena herself kills Medusa, or a gorgon much like Medusa, and there is no Perseus.
Now there are old Greek scholia on Hesiod's Theogony where Medusa and Perseus are marked which would help our understanding of this myth no end if they were better known in English.
And most markworthy of all:
Above: Pegasus and Chrysaor springing from the neck of the beheaded Medusa. From A.B. Cook's Zeus (1925) pt.1, ch.1, §3, (c), iii, lf.718. Mark Perseus's beard and axe, and Medusa with her two-fold wings is bee-like.
Along the way here it is worth marking Perseus wears a "cap of darkness" (Apollodorus Library 2. 4. § 2. "τὴν Ἄϊδος κυνῆν"). On the tokening of which see here.
The links to the "resurrection and the end of the world" would make Libra betoken not only the end, but also the beginning, for:
Finis origine pendet
In every end is a new beginning.
Albiruni in his Chronology - (Edward Sachau awending 1879 lvs. 207 to 208) under Mihr-máh also has this:
And it is about time we marked that the smith-god Hephaestus or Vulcanus, long linked to fire, who is said by Manilius in his Astronomica to be the lord of Libra. Bk. 1, lines 442 to 443:
And although seldom found written, it is truly this smith-god who is the craftsman of the physical universe. And here we should set down beside this that Mithras is said to be such a craftsman as well by Porphyry at least among Greek and Roman writers. On the Cave of the Nymphs §2:
ādityo ha vai prāṇo rayir eva candramāḥ |
rayir vā etat sarvaṃ yanmūrtaṃ cāmūrtaṃ ca |
tasmān mūrtir eva rayiḥ ||
Lifebreath is clearly the sun, while the moon is simply substance. And this whole world – both what has form and what is without form – is substance. Substance, therefore, is a form.” [awend. Patrick Olivelle The Upaniṣads (1996) lf.279]
By rayiḥ (रयिः) which Olivelle awends as "substance" we must understand "matter".
Bailey in his The Caves of the Sun is so nearly there when he writes (chap. 15, lf.226):
Jericho's name, it should here be marked, was long understood as having the word for the moon (Jerich - Yerah) in it (thus Johannes Trithemius in his third oration of 1493: "Iericho enim, luna, vel defectio eius, interpretatur." "Jericho may be interpreted moon, or rather the waning thereof"). As to the tale of seven, I mark Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, bk. 2, chap. 10 - Of the Number Seaven, and the Scale thereof:
"μάγοι τὰ μνημόσυνα τοῦ τριπλασίου Μίθρου τελοῦσιν"
"Magi celebrate the memorials of the threefold Mithras." [here]
Thus the "Burs synir" of Völuspá 4.
That a tale like this underlies what we find in the Völuspá may be seen from the beginnings of the dwarves written up therein, as Jacob Grimm beckons to in his Teutonic Mythology vol.2 (1883) ch. 21, lf.696 (awending J. S. Stallybrass):
Now all the gods have their following of heroes, although maybe only a few names can now be put to these followers. Following Hephaestus the greatest hero is Daedalus who made the labyrinth, and this is only a showing forth below of Hephaestus' own labyrinth-like work above that is the physical universe itself. The Hindus make a long tale shorter by making the smith-god Viśvakarman himself the builder of Ravana's castle on Lanka (Ramayana 4, 58, 20; 5, 2, 20, and so on).
Daedalus is moreover our own Wayland the Smith. The Northern Vǫlundur. Or rather he is a blend of Daedalus and Daedalus' helper Cedalion. Like Daedalus he is the maker of the labyrinth thus in Stjórn chapitle 24 we have the well-known gloss:
And we must believe that this was on the hólm or iland in Þiðreks saga af Bern - Velents þáttr smiðs where Wayland, here called Velent, is made an haftling (“Svá var gert, at skornar váru sinar í knésfótum, ok settr í hólm einn, er þar var fyrir landi, er hét Sævarstaðr. Þar smíðaði hann konungi alls kyns görsimar.” “So was it done: the sinews in his knee-joints were cut, and he was set in an island which was near the mainland, and was called Sævarstath.”). For both Wayland and Daedalus outleap these dwellings by flight. "Wayland smith's cave", a long barrow in Berkshire, cave-like and with blind side ways, would seem to strengthen all this understanding of the old tale. Wayland, as Völundr in the Völundarkviða is one of three, he there having two brothers: Egill and Slagfiðr. Athena in this tale is also threefold: Hlaðguðr Svanhvít, Hervör Alvitr and Ölrún Kjársdóttir af Vallandi.
Might these twins sometimes also have taken over Mithras' rôle? If so, we may well have a dim minning of it in the folktale found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ wherein Hengest and Horsa, for Cautes and Cautopates, carve up a bull's hide to mark out room for a stronghold, a thong-castle, this stronghold being an allegory for the physical universe, or middanȝeard, if you will.
Now with Porphyry's thoughts that the bull-slaying of Mithras is linked to the spring equinox in mind, I find that there is much muddling over dates; some of which muddling may well have been done to hide what only the initiated were meant to know. Athena who, as we have already marked, wields the spring equinox and its sign of Aries, is as much a craftsman-god in her own way as Hephaestus. Weaving, as well as smithcraft, being both understood as the work of the world-craftsman. And thus Hephaestus and Athena are well matched together at times. But in the end, whether the shaping of the physical universe is linked to the spring or autumnal equinox is down to the outlook of your own beliefs. Is the making of the physical universe a whole-hearted triumph of light over darkness? If so, then the spring equinox is your chosen time. But if you have the witherward outlook to this, that it is a triumph of the dark over the light, the binding of light souls in dark bodies, often as the outcome of some misdoing against the gods, then the autumnal equinox is your time. In the old mysteries it is moreover this last that is truly taught. The mythic Golden Age is the time when the souls are still with the gods, and this is dimly linked to the summer half of the year from the spring to the autumn equinox when the sun is in the houses of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Virgo. With Libra they come to their doom and their punishment in bodies in the prison-house that is our labyrinth-like physical universe. Thus Persephone, here understood as a soul is wed (=joined) to Hades. Hades, Johannes Lydus in his On the Months tells us, was understood as matter, and Sallustius in his On the Gods and the World tells us Hades and Persephone's "wedding" was timed for the autumnal equinox. Even as winter-wheat was sown into the earth at the same time. The downfalling souls are also the maidens and youths sent to the Minotaur in the dark labyrinth on Crete. And Helen stolen away and kept at Troy, and Sita kidnapped by Ravana to be kept at Lanka. And Attis in his mad falling away from Magna Mater to take up with some lowly nymph. And the sun-maiden stolen away by winter as the old tale was. The wild swans and geese fly away southward. But the gods are at work to heal these mad and erring souls and bring them back to the gods. The Heavenly Twins having no little hand in this and also Magna Mater herself. And the smith-god should not be overlooked here. For the Daedalus and Wayland tales, as also the myth of Hephaestus being hurled from Olympus, would seem to say that the craftsman himself was once also bound in what he had made until he freed himself. But this is more true to say of the souls he is said to be the father of, rather than of the god himself.
Dances at these times were to show forth here on earth the coming and going of souls like wandering birds into and out of matter. The labyrinth became a layout for a dance-floor. Iliad Book 18, lines 590 to 594 (awend. A. T. Murray):
ἐν δὲ χορὸν ποίκιλλε περικλυτὸς ἀμφιγυήεις, 590
τῷ ἴκελον οἷόν ποτ᾽ ἐνὶ Κνωσῷ εὐρείῃ
Δαίδαλος ἤσκησεν καλλιπλοκάμῳ Ἀριάδνῃ.
ἔνθα μὲν ἠΐθεοι καὶ παρθένοι ἀλφεσίβοιαι
ὀρχεῦντ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἐπὶ καρπῷ χεῖρας ἔχοντες.
Therein furthermore the famed god of the two strong arms
cunningly wrought a dancing-floor like unto that which in wide Cnosus
Daedalus fashioned of old for fair-tressed Ariadne.
There were youths dancing and maidens of the price of many cattle,
holding their hands upon the wrists one of the other.
Plutarch Theseus 21:
[Plutarch's Lives. with an English awending by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914]
Cranes are wander-birds (like swans and geese), and said to be holy to Demeter by Porphyry.
And for our full understanding it may be well here to think that the spring equinox must then be the time of atoning for our misdeeds in some way and going back to the gods. The time when Persephone is brought back to her mother, and Attis forsakes the nymph in the cave for the "Great Mother". The Minotaur is overcome, the maidens and youths should go back to the town of the goddess Athena. That the Athenians of yore acknowledged the againcome of these to be in the autumn is muddling. Helen goes back to her husband and it is now that Ravana should be overwon and Sita freed. The Heavenly Twins wield a hammer to free the sun-maiden from winter. Daedalus and Wayland fly away home as wild swans and geese fly northward.
That the hammer the Heavenly Twins wield is as much the smith-god's as the thunder-god's is a fyrwit thought. And at length the smith and the thunderer are seen to be much the same. For Vulcanus wields the upper fiery sphere of the old Ptolemaic cosmology and Servius' commentary on the Aeneid marks that he was one of the few gods to wield the thunderbolt. Moreover the smith-god also has twin sons (the Cabiri) that are evened with those Heavenly Twins that are the sons of Jupiter.
Now the thunder-god is our Þunor. His links to the summer solstice and the autumn equinox that follow it seem now outfolded. The craftsman rôle is bestowed on his father Wōden, and an ettin is switched for a bull. The “godesse of cornes”, by whatever name you may call her, should be markedly linked to Þunor above all. And she is belike Þunor's wife whom the Northerners call Sif, and who would be called Sib, as we have said, in Old English. Pausanias, Guide to Greece 9.39.4 tells us that Demeter Europe (Εὐρώπη) shared a halidom at Lebedæa in Bœotia with Zeus of Rain:
Sif is moreover "móður Þrúðar" "mother of Þrúðr" (Skáldskaparmál 29), and it is Þrúðr that I believe best answers (see Alvíssmál, Skáldskaparmál 11 and 29 and Gylfaginning 36) to the Romans' Minerva and the Greeks' Athena! As a valkyrja she is the evenling of Durga. But mother and daughter may have borrowed something from each other here. In Old English Þrúðr would be Þrȳþ. Þunor is moreover the father of the twin-like Magni and Móði (see Skáldskaparmál 11. Þórskenningar."faðir Magna ok Móða ok Þrúða") upon Járnsaxa (Skáldskaparmál 24 " Þá kom til Magni, sonr Þórs ok Járnsöxu").
The clincher: Bragi Boddason in his Ragnarsdrápa, says that the jötunn Hrungnir is called "thief of Þrúðr" (Þrúðar þjófr).
Some likenesses of Durga with more radiate arms about her head hark back to the sun goddess that she truly is; the arms betokening the rays of the sun (the onseen(=face) of the goddess).
 |
| Durga, Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo of Benjamín Preciado Centro de Estudios de Asia y África de El Colegio de México ᛋ |
Durga and Michael?
Still other likenesses may make us think of our Western Michael and the devil/dragon, and not without good grounds. For the Durga puja more or less falls about the time of the Autumn Equinox. Autumn Equinox, Seó hærfestlice emniht, was 22nd. September, 2017, but the traditional date was 24th. September, thus St. Alban’s Psalter:
“VIII Kl [A]Equi noctiu[m] s[e]c[un]d[u]m rom[anos]·” [see here]
And the nearest high feast being Michaelmas on 29th. September:
“III Kl. S[an]c[t]i Michael[is] archang[e]li[s].”
This autumnal equinox is when the sun is in Libra. The Sun being in Libra, or sēo Wæȝe in Old English, from 17th September to 17th. October in the old way of reckoning these things. And Michael is often shown with a weigh, or scales, seemingly weighing souls. And we may munie here once again that Magna Mater was said to hold the scales in the poem we set out above from Magnis; and often Virgo is understood as Justice who since the Renascita is shown with scales. But in her other hand is a sword. And as well as scales Michael is often shown holding a sword. A.C. Mukerji again lf.137:
“The sword is also one of the symbols of Durga, and is worshipped along with her.”
And I wouldn't be the first to see a sword-spike-spica word play going on in all this.
The kshatriyas moreover would seem to have taken Durga as their ghostly mother, and the Durga Puja was deemed to be their feast, Mukerji th'ilk Lf.92:
“Thus Raksha Bandhan is the festival for Brahmans, Durga Puja for Kshattriyas, Diwali for Vaishyas, and Holi for Sudras.”
Now there is a hidden link between the solstices and the equinoxes that follow them. That is, whatever may be said about the solstice feast, can also be said of the equinox feast that follows it. The Christians acknowledge this with what they say about the times of the begettings and births of John the Baptist and of Jesus (see Bede De Temporum Ratione, cap. 30), but it is much older. Thus in the star-signs in which the equinoxes and solstices fall we will see that a crab, Cancer, is somewhat akin to a scorpion, Scorpio, Libra once being the claws, Chelæ, of a great Scorpio. And a ram, Aries, has a kind of kinship to a goat, Capricornus. We have already written of John the Baptist and the summer solstice or Midsummer and the links to the thunder-god (here). And it is more than likely therefore, that the autumn equinox, and the Michaelmas feast which as good as marks it, will also have something to do with the thunder-god. Michael "the captain of the Lord's host" (Joshua 5:15) was the slayer of a dragon (Revelations 12:9 "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.") who fell "as lightning" (Luke 10:18 "And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."). Indeed his whole fight with the dragon, and the "war in heaven" can be understood as no more than the phenomena of a thunder-storm! It is afonding here moreover to see the stars about Virgo and Libra as giving rise to what we read in Revelations ch. 12 where Michael is fighting a dragon on behalf of "a woman clothed with the sun", that is, on behalf of Virgo, or the sun in Virgo. The dragon is Hydra, or Hydrus, and as it is so big, rises with Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio (see Capella Wedding of Mercury and Philology, Book 8, §§841 to 842). And Michael here is then maybe for the sign of Hercules whose right foot at least riseth with Libra (see Capella th'ilk), although the myth of the sign of Hercules is with a much greater right to be linked to the polar Draco and upon which it seems to tread.
Above: Mary "a woman clothed with the sun" from Hörnse Church on Gotland. Photo of Wolfgang Sauber ᛋ.
But the angel Michael often is shown with soft, woman-like features, not bearded and ruggedly man-like as John the Baptist is shown, and as such Michael himself may well stand in here for Athena and so on, and thus for Virgo - "Justice" holding the scales of Libra.
Mahish-asur and Minotaur
Now Durga, it is true, does not slay a dragon but a demon in "buffalo" shape. We might even say in the shape of a bull, and at times this same demon is even shown much like what we in the West might call a minotaur.
Above: Mahishasura sculpture at Mahabalipuram. By Jenith - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18650654.ᛋ
This is indeed odd, as wherever Durga's worship wanes in India Mukerji tells us, the Durga Puja is left off and at the self same time we find that the hero Rama is worshipped instead. It being understood as the feast marking Rama's overwinning of the demon Ravana and thereby getting back his wife, whom Ravana had stolen away and locked in the stronghold of Lanka. But the way to this stronghold, so Albiruni would have it in his India, was shaped like a labyrinth, even as the labyrinth of Knossos on Crete is shown where the minotaur is said to have lived (see below)!
Above: Graffiti from Pompeii the staves read 'Labyrinthus: Hic habitat Min-otaurus' 'Labyrinth: Here lives the Minotaur'.
But the third and fourth things we need to know here before we unravel things here is that the Romans linked the same labyrinth layout to Troy.
Above: Drawing of an Etruscan oinochoë from Tragliatella with a labyrinth bearing the legend 'Truia' (ᛏ𐌓VIA written backwards with early Italic letters), and sometimes thought to show the "Troy Game" marked in Vergil, Aeneid 5.545–603.
And this was long kept in mind in the West, thus W. H. Matthews Mazes and Labyrinths (1922), chapitle 18, lf. 156:
“... a fifteenth-century French manuscript preserved in the British Museum ... is the record of a journey made by the Seigneur de Caumont to Jerusalem in 1418, and is entitled "Voyaige d’oultremer en Jhérusalem." Calling at the island of Crete en route, the Seigneur, like most other travellers on similar occasions, takes occasion to make a few remarks about the famous legend associated with it. He speaks of the "mervelleuse et orrible best qui fut appellé Minotaur," who, he says, was confined within "celle entrigade meson faite par Dedalus, merveilleux maquanit, lequelle meson fut nominée Labarinte et aujourduy par moultz est vulguelmant appellé le cipté de Troie." ...”.And later on the same was also understood as the layout of Jericho.
Above: From a codex made in Abruzzi
(Italy) between 806 and 822 (Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek,
cod. aug. CCXXIX, fol 61v), coming before a Chronica Sanctii
Hieronimi. To one side is written "UR-UEM GE-RI-CHO" (town of
Jericho)
and underneath this we have a "Solomon's Knot". This is for the "line of
scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by" (Josh.
2:18), having the same meaning as Ariadne's clue (=ball) of wool (μίτο
της Αριάδνης 'Ariadne's thread'). Thus the inwrit by the labyrinth
carved at Lucca Cathedral:
"HIC QUEM CRETICUS EDIT. DÆDALUS EST LABERINTHUS . DE QUO NULLUS VADERE .
QUIVIT QUI FUIT INTUS . NI THESEUS GRATIS ADRIANE . STAMINE JUTUS"
"This
is the labyrinth which Dædalus of Crete built; from which no one could
go who was inside, but Theseus, thanks to Ariadne, helped by a thread."
Which allows us to draw some sweeping conclusions:
i) mythically speaking, the Cretan labyrinth, Ravana's Lanka, Troy and Jericho must all betoken the same thing;
ii) the minotaur slain by Theseus, the demon Ravana slain by Rama, "the Trojans" slain by Menelaus, the folk of Jericho slain by Joshua and the buffalo-demon slain by Durga all betoken the same thing;
iii) Ariadne who Theseus makes off with, Sita the kidnapped wife whom Rama frees, Helen of Troy another kidnapped wife whom Menelaus frees and Rahab whom Joshua spares are all the same;
iv) Theseus, Rama, Menelaus and Joshua are all the same, and with Rama, Menelaus and Joshua there are worn down traces of being kind of twins - Rama being helped by his half-brother Laksmana, Menelaus by his brother Agamemnon and Joshua by the other leader of the Israelites to the Promised Land, Caleb.
Durga and the Heavenly Twins
What about Durga I hear someone say, she doesn't fit in with the above? Well it looks alot like she is ii) and iii) put together, a princess who is her own "knight in shining armour" as it were, and rescues herself! But we will call to mind that Mukerji tells us that the Durga puja and the navaratra fall in the month of "Kuar or Aswin" - two names for the same month and named, albeit somewhat indirectly, for the Aśvinau, the Heavenly Twins of India. So that the Twins are likely to be missing from the tale of Durga as told in India, a loss that the Rama/Laksmana tale goes some way to make up for. And we will call to mind here that the Heavenly Twins in old Greek lore were sometimes linked to the Dactyls or Curetes and Corybantes who were the followers of the "Great Mother" and her "knights" so to speak. And we call to mind that the angels Michael and Gabriel at the two equinoxes have much the same work to do for the Christian's "new goddess" Mary, the "woman clothed with the sun".
Two "Sun" Goddesses
But the goddess kidnapped into the labyrinth and so on, and rescued by the Heavenly Twins is the daughter of the "Great Mother", what the Greeks called Persephone. They are often seen to be two-in-one, but the daughter was a sister of the Heavenly Twins. Thus Demeter, as we have set out above, was said in Arcadia to give birth to a horse (=twins) and "the Mistress" who is her daughter Persephone. But in the fullest telling of this myth I believe there were at least three brothers and three sisters. Helen of Troy and Persephone are thus, mythically speaking, one and the same. Both have links to trees and worts, but this is only indirectly, for this is not what they are truly about.
We are lucky here that Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, put the deeds of the Bohemian monk Hieronymus Pragensis in Lithuania into chapitle 26 of his De Europa (1458):
“Profectus introrsus aliam gentem reperit, quae Solem colebat, et malleum ferreum rarae magnitudinis singulari cultu uenerabatur. Interrogati sacerdotes, quid ea sibi ueneratio uellet, responderunt olim pluribus mensibus non fuisse uisum Solem, quem rex potentissimus captum reclusisset in carcere munitissimae turris. Signa zodiaci deinde opem tulisse Soli, ingentique malleo perfregisse turrim, Solemque liberatum hominibus restituisse. Dignum itaque ueneratu instrumentum esse, quo mortales lucem recepissent.”
Nijolė Laurinkienė of the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, however writes:“He went further inward finding another folk, who worshipped the Sun, and an iron hammer of uncommon size with a markworthy worship. He asked the priests, what it was they themselves were worshipping, they answered: Once the sun had not been seen for many months, for that a mighty king had taken her and locked her up in the prison of a most strong tower. The "signs of the zodiac" had then brought help to the Sun, broken up the tower with the great hammer, freed the Sun and brought her back to men. And so the tool by which men had got back daylight was worthy of worship.”
"The motif of the Sun’s capture has not been found in Lithuanian folklore."[here]
But he does nevertheless beckon toward tales in the Kalevala, and in the folklore of Karelia where it is. Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen being the twain who do the work of the Heavenly Twins.
This then is the myth in its earliest shape, and the "Great Mother" would then be a higher divine principle, the source of the sun but still one with its essence. That is what we might call Āgneyī (आग्नेयी), that is the name of Agni's wife or daughter - Agni being understood as the one divine principle of yore as we have already marked ([here]).
Durga and Mithras
Durga's slaying of a demon in bull shape is also a match for the god Mithras' well known bull-slaying found in not a few of those Roman carvings and tiverings of him doing even this. And never far away when he does this, is an Hydra, or Hydrus. The star-sign of Taurus moreover, must always set as Libra and Scorpio rise.
Above:Santa Maria Capua Vetere. Mithraeum, fresco of Mithras slaying a bull. By Miguel Hermoso Cuesta - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37938469.
Now Michael of Michaelmas belike owes more than a little to Mithras as the autumn equinox with the Parsees falls on the 16th day of Mihr-Mâh "Mithras (Mihr)-moon/month", the feast of Mihrajân (<*miθrakāna). Albiruni writes in his Chronology - (Edward Sachau awending 1879 lvs. 208 to 209):
"...Aleranshahri says: God has made the treaty between Light and Darkness on Naurôz and Mihrajân. ... The Persian theologians have derived various symbolic interpretations from these days. So they consider Mihrajân as a sign of resurrection and the end of the world, because at Mihrajân that which grows reaches its perfection and has no more material for further growth, and because animals cease from sexual intercourse. In the same way they make Naurôz a sign for the beginning of the world, because the contrary of all these things happens on Naurôz.
Some people have given the preference to Mihrajân by as much as they prefer autumn to spring. In their arguments they chiefly rely upon what Aristotle said in reply to Alexander, when he was asked by him regarding them : " O king, in spring the reptiles begin growing, in autumn they begin to die away. From this point of view autumn is preferable.” …"
The "resurrection and the end of the world" being understood as a great ordeal by fire that only the rightful would outlive, the mythic forebisening of all those lesser ordeals by fire known in our old laws. And so you can see this was a well known thing long before there were any of the Christian name at all. And for the Parsees it seems this was overseen by Mithras, as the Jews and Christians would later understand Michael as doing. Indeed Mithras was a god of justice to whom oaths were sworn (see Xenophon Cyropaedia 7.5.53, Oeconomicus 4.24 and Plutarch, Artaxerxes 4). So, all things umbethought, Mithras, whose month is at the time of the autumn equinox among the Parsees, and Durga whose feast falls at more or less the same time in India, must be at heart the same. Now Herodotus says something odd about Mithras in his Histories 1.131.3 which until now I think has been misunderstood but from the above I hope it may be seen why Herodotus might say this :
... καλέουσι δὲ Ἀσσύριοι τὴν Ἀφροδίτην Μύλιττα, Ἀράβιοι δὲ Ἀλιλάτ, Πέρσαι δὲ Μίτραν.That is, Mithras is a goddess! And indeed that it has long been known that Mithras' bull-slaying is "the imitation of the motif of the classical Greek group of Nike sacrificing a bull" (Cumont) need not worry us here in the least. Nike indeed often being blended with Athena. So we are back to a Western Durga again! When Michael slays the dragon, the bull has maybe become a dragon, although Hydra/Hydrus could have brought about bit of muddling. But both bull and dragon here are at heart the same.
... and the Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta, the Arabians Alitta, and the Persians Mitra.
Why slay a bull (1)?
We have already marked that among the Greeks the bull was, or evolved into, a lunar symbol. In the old art such as we find at Persepolis, we often find a lion fighting a bull. As A. Bailey Caves of the Sun (1997) ch. 15, lf.225:
"... Mithras is the solar lion who kills the bull...".The "solar lion" overwinning a bull is maybe most helpfully shown forth in the token of Hercules' fighting clad in a lion-skin with the shape-shifting water-god Achelous.
Deianeira says of Achelous in Sophocles' The Trachiniae 9 ff., awend. by Sir Richard Jebb.
μνηστὴρ γὰρ ἦν μοι ποταμός, Ἀχελῷον λέγω,
ὅς μ᾽ ἐν τρισὶν μορφαῖσιν ἐξῄτει πατρός, 10
φοιτῶν ἐναργὴς ταῦρος, ἄλλοτ᾽ αἰόλος
δράκων ἑλικτός, ἄλλοτ᾽ ἀνδρείῳ κύτει
βούπρῳρος: ἐκ δὲ δασκίου γενειάδος
κρουνοὶ διερραίνοντο κρηναίου ποτοῦ.
τοιόνδ᾽ ἐγὼ μνηστῆρα προσδεδεγμένη 15
δύστηνος αἰεὶ κατθανεῖν ἐπηυχόμην,
πρὶν τῆσδε κοίτης ἐμπελασθῆναί ποτε.
χρόνῳ δ᾽ ἐν ὑστέρῳ μέν, ἀσμένῃ δέ μοι,
ὁ κλεινὸς ἦλθε Ζηνὸς Ἀλκμήνης τε παῖς:
ὃς εἰς ἀγῶνα τῷδε συμπεσὼν μάχης 20
ἐκλύεταί με:
For my suitor was a river-god, Achelous,
who in three shapes was always asking me from my father— [10]
coming now as a bull in visible form, now as a serpent,
sheeny and coiled, now ox-faced with human trunk,
while from his thick-shaded beard
wellheads of fountain-water sprayed.
In the expectation that such a suitor would get me, [15]
I was always praying in my misery that I might die,
before I should ever approach that marriage-bed.
But at last, to my joy,
the glorious son of Zeus and Alcmena came and
[20] closed with him in combat
and delivered me.
"ἄλλοτ᾽ ἀνδρείῳ κύτει/βούπρῳρος: " "now ox-faced with human trunk" is, needless to say, one with the Minotaur slain by Theseus.
If we think to ourselves that this bull fighting is timed for the autumnal equinox it is easy to see this as a rain myth.
A. Bailey Caves of the Sun (1997) ch. 16, lf.237:
"In the shrines of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia ... clay models of bulls' heads were found protruding from shrine walls, some with wavy horns imitating water."
And lf.240:
"The bull as the catalyst of rain was a stylised image developed by the potters of Samarran and Halaf ware, 5000BC, where raindrops fall from the bull's horns."And. ch.14, lf.206:
"In the springtime the bull with the golden horns ushered in the year. In the autumn the weak 'dying' bull, the sacrificed bull on its knees, signalled the start of the rains, the rain was the tauric semen that fertilised the earth, and hastened the crops of wheat and barley. Ancient astronomers, observing a group of stars that rose and set with these seasons, named the constellation after the great celestial bull. To the Sumerians the fertilising rains were compared to semen - one word in their language stood for both."Vergil Georgics, Bk.1, lvs. 217 to 218 (awending J. B. Greenough):
Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum
Taurus et averso cedens Canis occidit astro.
What time the white bull with his gilded horns
Opens the year, before whose threatening front,
Routed the dog-star sinks.
Mithras then makes an opening in the bull's shoulder, that is in the moon, and sets free the rainwaters upon which all life on earth rests. The moon being thought of as a kind of cistern of rain water of yore. Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, bk. 1, chap. 8:
"... and the Moon (which notwithstanding by many is accounted watery) seeing, as if it were Earth, it attracts to it self the Celestiall waters, with which being imbibed, it doth by reason of its neerness [nearness] to us, power [pour] out, and communicate to us."The thunder-god is in the background here, and we can see how the Mithraea at Carnuntum and the temple of Jupiter Dolichenus there seem linked though this could be for many reasons. And it is tempting to see Mithras and Michael as the thunder-god.
Much of this rain tokening of Mithras slaying the bull is shared by Perseus' slaying of Medusa who has here become a water-goddess. It should be born in mind here that Perseus, through his son Perses, was believed to be the forefather of the Parsees.
It is also worth marking here that in Euripides’ Ion, lines 987–96, and in Hyginus De astronomia 2.12, Athena herself kills Medusa, or a gorgon much like Medusa, and there is no Perseus.
Now there are old Greek scholia on Hesiod's Theogony where Medusa and Perseus are marked which would help our understanding of this myth no end if they were better known in English.
line 276 ΣΘΕΝΝΏ Τ᾽ ΕΥ̓ΡΥΆΛΗ ΤΕ. διὰ τὸ δὑνασθαι πολλοῖς καὶ δεινοῖς περιβάλλειν κακοῖς τὸυς ἐκεῖ παραγενομένους. Εὐρυάλην δὲ, τὸν ἐκ τοῦ πλάτους τῆς θαλάσσης φόβον, Μέδουσαν δὲ, τὴν ἀναδιδομένην ἄνω δύναμιν τῶν ὑδάτων. ... Τὸ δυνατὸν καὶ κατάμηκες πέλαγός φησι, Μέδουσαν δὲ τὴν λεπτοτάτην οὐσίαν. Περσέα δὲ τὸν ἥλιον καλεῖ παρὰ τὸ περισσῶς σεύειν, τουτέστιν ὁρμᾶν· καί φησιν ὅτι ὁ ἥλιος κινούμενος τῇ οὐρανίᾳ φορᾷ τὴν μὲν Σθενὼ καὶ τὴν Εὐρυάλειαν, ἤγουν τὸ δυνατὸν καὶ κατάμηκες πέλαγος τῆς θαλάσσης, οὐκ ἀναιρεῖ, ἤγουν οὐκ ἀνιμᾶται· τὴν δὲ Μέδουσαν ὡς θνητὴν ἀναιρεῖ, ἤγουν τὸ βασιλικώτατον καὶ λεπτόν τῇ κινήσει τῇ ἑαυτοῦ ἀνιμᾶται. Ὁρμᾷ δὲ ἀπό τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ ὁ Πήγασος. Ἀνιμωμένου γὰρ τοῦ ἥλίου καὶ τοῦ ἀέρος τὸ κεφαλαιῶδες καὶ ἀτμῶδες, συμβαίνει τὸ βαρύτερον ἀναφερόμενον κάτω πηγάζειν καὶ χέεσθαι. <ἄλλως.> Μέδουσα ὁ πρὸς καιρὸν φόβος καὶ ἡ φροντίς, ἢ ἡ ἀναδιδομένη ἄνω κίνησις δύναμις τῶν κυμάτων. Περσεὺς δὲ ὁ ἥλιος ὁ πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἕλκων τὴν ἰκμάδα, ὡς ἀποτέμνων αὐτήν.
line 276 STHENNO AND EURYALE [Sthenno] is 'strong in many and terrible circumstances throwing about evils there at hand/present'. Euryale on the other hand from 'fear of the wideness of the the sea'. And Medusa from 'the rising up of the power of water'. ... He means the powerful and vast sea: with Medusa (he means the finest substance.) He calls the sun Perseus of 'excessive chasing', that is, driving on. Medusa the finest nature. And he says that when the sun is moved by the movement of heaven, he does not kill Sthenô and Euryale, that is, the powerful and vast sea, that is, does not evaporate; but Medusa, since she is mortal, he kills, that is, he evaporates by his own movement that which is most royal and fine. From her head springs out Pegasos. For when the sun and the sky are filled with water, it happens that the main and vaporeous part, which was heavier, rises and then springs=out and flows down. <Or>Medusa is the fear and care at the right time, or the evaporating power of the waves. Perseus is (then) the sun that draws the moisture to itself, as if cutting off its head.
And most markworthy of all:
line 281 ΚΑῚ ΠΉΓΑΣΟΣ ἽΠΠΟΣ. Τοῦ γὰρ ὕδατος ἀναχθέντος, τίκτονται ἀστραπαὶ καὶ ὄμβροι ὄ έστι Χρυσάωρ, καὶ Πήγασος. Χρυσάωρ, ὁ λαμπρός ἀήρ.So Chrysaor and Pegasus that spring from Medusa's neck are tokenings of thunder and lightning and A. B. Cook Zeus (1925) Part 1, chap.1 §3 Zeus and the Lightning, (c) Lightning as a weapon, iii. The sword of Zeus, lvs. 721 to 722:
For the rising up of water produces lightnings and rains that is Chrysaor and Pegasus. Chrysaor, the bright air [i.e. lightning].
"According to Hesiod and Euripides, Pegasos carries the thunder and lightning of Zeus. And scholars both ancient and modern have seen in Chrysaor a personification of the lightning. I am no devotee of meteorological mythology, but I admit the attractiveness of this hypothesis, which explains well the ' golden sword ' of our earliest authority and falls into line with the folk-concepts of various peoples. If valid, it leads us to conclude that Zeus Chrysaoreus of Stratonikeia was viewed by the Greeks as a lightning-god, ' He of the Golden Sword,'—a deity essentially akin to Zeus Stratios the sword-bearer of Labranda."
Along the way here it is worth marking Perseus wears a "cap of darkness" (Apollodorus Library 2. 4. § 2. "τὴν Ἄϊδος κυνῆν"). On the tokening of which see here.
Why Slay a Bull (2)?
The links to the "resurrection and the end of the world" would make Libra betoken not only the end, but also the beginning, for:
Finis origine pendet
In every end is a new beginning.
Albiruni in his Chronology - (Edward Sachau awending 1879 lvs. 207 to 208) under Mihr-máh also has this:
"According to others, Mihr is the name of the sun, who is said to have for the first time appeared to the world on this day; that therefore this day was called Mihr. This is indicated by the custom of the Kisrâs of crowning themselves on this day with a crown on which was worked an image of the sun and of the wheel on which he rotates. On this day the Persians hold a fair. ... On the same day, they say, God spread out the earth and created the bodies as mansions for the souls. In a certain hour of this day the sphere of Ifranjawi breathes for the purpose of rearing the bodies.So a time that the Parsees thought somehow looks back to the shaping of the world.
On the same day God is said to have clad the moon in her splendour and to have illuminated her with her light, after He had created her as a black ball without any light. Therefore, they say, on Mihrajan the moon stands higher than the sun, and the luckiest hours of the day are those of the moon."
And it is about time we marked that the smith-god Hephaestus or Vulcanus, long linked to fire, who is said by Manilius in his Astronomica to be the lord of Libra. Bk. 1, lines 442 to 443:
"...fabricataque Libra
Vulcani ..."
"... and Libra made
by Vulcanus...".
And although seldom found written, it is truly this smith-god who is the craftsman of the physical universe. And here we should set down beside this that Mithras is said to be such a craftsman as well by Porphyry at least among Greek and Roman writers. On the Cave of the Nymphs §2:
"πρώτου μέν, ὡς ἔφη Εὔβουλος, Ζωροάστρου αὐτοφυὲς σπήλαιον ἐν τοῖς πλησίον ὄρεσι τῆς Περσίδος ἀνθηρὸν καὶ πηγὰς ἔχον ἀνιερώσαντος εἰς τιμὴν τοῦ πάντων ποιητοῦ καὶ πατρὸς Μίθρου, εἰκόνα φέροντος αὐτῷ τοῦ σπηλαίου τοῦ κόσμου, ὃν ὁ Μίθρας ἐδημιούργησε, τῶν δ' ἐντὸς κατὰ συμμέτρους ἀποστάσεις σύμβολα φερόντων τῶν κοσμικῶν στοιχείων καὶ κλιμάτων·"
"For, as Eubulus says, Zoroaster was the first who consecrated in the neighbouring mountains of Persia, a spontaneously produced cave, florid, and having fountains, in honour of Mithra, the maker and father of all things; a cave, according to Zoroaster, bearing a resemblance of the world, which was fabricated by Mithra. But the things contained in the cavern being arranged according to commensurate intervals, were symbols of the mundane elements and climates."And §11:
"δημιουργὸς δὲ ὢν ὁ Μίθρας καὶ γενέσεως δεσπότης ..."For "generation" read "matter". It is worth marking here that Porphyry wants to link Mithras to the spring and not to the autumn equinox. But the bull-slayings of Mithras that have a scorpion shown with its claws on the bull's testicles would seem to beckon toward the autumn equinox which, as we have said, falls when the sun is in the Claws of the old Scorpio and which we now call Libra (the Greek name for this of Zyge (ζυγή) hedges between both understandings as zyge is a yoke or pair of anything, evenly scales or claws). When Albiruni in his Chronology says some of the Parsees hold the sun to have been made at the autumnal equinox he is moreover offering this date up for the shaping of the physical universe; the sun being named under the law of pars pro toto. Are we then to understand the slain bull as the wellspring of all matter, the "first matter" from which the craftsman shapes the physical universe? It would seem so, as matter has long been linked to the moon, as the ghost or mind that shapes has been linked to the sun. Praśna upaniṣad 1.5
"Mithra. as well as the Bull, is the Demiurgus and lord of generation."
ādityo ha vai prāṇo rayir eva candramāḥ |
rayir vā etat sarvaṃ yanmūrtaṃ cāmūrtaṃ ca |
tasmān mūrtir eva rayiḥ ||
Lifebreath is clearly the sun, while the moon is simply substance. And this whole world – both what has form and what is without form – is substance. Substance, therefore, is a form.” [awend. Patrick Olivelle The Upaniṣads (1996) lf.279]
By rayiḥ (रयिः) which Olivelle awends as "substance" we must understand "matter".
Bailey in his The Caves of the Sun is so nearly there when he writes (chap. 15, lf.226):
"The bull ... following its death is dragged back to its cave. Here it will undergo its metamorphosis, to generate life in its female role, as the buried carcass was thought to generate bees."
Jericho's name, it should here be marked, was long understood as having the word for the moon (Jerich - Yerah) in it (thus Johannes Trithemius in his third oration of 1493: "Iericho enim, luna, vel defectio eius, interpretatur." "Jericho may be interpreted moon, or rather the waning thereof"). As to the tale of seven, I mark Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, bk. 2, chap. 10 - Of the Number Seaven, and the Scale thereof:
"The Moon is the seventh of the Planets & next to us observing this number more then the rest, this number dispensing the motion, and light thereof. For in twenty eight dayes it runs round the Compass of the whole Zodiack, which number of dayes, the number seven, with its seven tearms, viz. from one to seven, doth make, and fill up, as much as the several numbers, by adding to the Antecedents, and makes four times seven dayes, in which the Moon runs through, and about all the longitude, and latitude of the Zodiack by measuring, and measuring again: with the like seven of dayes it dispenseth its light, by changing it; For the first seven dayes unto the middle as it were of the divided world, it increaseth; the second seven dayes it fils [fills] its whole Orb with light; the third by decreasing is again contracted into a divided Orb; but after the fourth seven dayes, it is renewed with the last diminution of its light, and by the same seven of dayes it disposeth the increase, and decrease of the Sea, for in the first seven of the increase of the Moon, it is by little lessened; in the second by degrees increased: but the third is like the first, and the fourth doth the sure as the second."And it may well be that Mithras is helped in this by his twinned followers Cautes and Cautopates who are never far away from him when he is slaying the bull. A letter said to have been written by Dionysius the Areopagite marks that:
"μάγοι τὰ μνημόσυνα τοῦ τριπλασίου Μίθρου τελοῦσιν"
"Magi celebrate the memorials of the threefold Mithras." [here]
Thus the "Burs synir" of Völuspá 4.
That a tale like this underlies what we find in the Völuspá may be seen from the beginnings of the dwarves written up therein, as Jacob Grimm beckons to in his Teutonic Mythology vol.2 (1883) ch. 21, lf.696 (awending J. S. Stallybrass):
"It seems natural, in connexion with these bustling winged creatures, to think of the silent race of elves and dwarfs, which like them obeys a queen. It was in the decaying flesh of the first giant that dwarfs bred as maggots; in exactly the same way bees are said to have sprung from the putrefaction of a bullock's body: 'apes nascuntur ex bubulo corpore putrefacto,' Varro, 2, 5; 'amissas reparari ventribus bubulis recentibus cum fimo obrutis,' Plin. 11, 20 (23); conf. Virg. Georg. 4, 284-558. Ov. Met. 15, 364. To this circumstance some have ascribed the resemblance between apis bee and Apis bull, though the first has a short a, and the last a long. What seems more important for us is the celebrated discovery of a golden bullock's-head amongst many hundred golden bees in the tomb of the Frankish king Childeric at Doornik (repres. in Eccard s Fr. or. 1, 39. 40)."What overlies this in the Völuspá is however more of a borrowing from the widely reaching Manichees as the following I think shows:
"Mani, in fashioning his religion, took over parts of Zoroastrian demonology, and in a rendition of the myth of Manichean cosmogony preserved in Škand Gumānik Wizār, the macrocosm was created by dismembering Kūnī/Kunda, who is the demon commanding Ahriman’s (q.v.) army: “The sky is from the skin, the earth from the flesh, the mountains from the bones, and the trees from the hair of the demon Kūnī who was captured and killed by being bound to the (celestial) sphere (de Menasce, 1945, chap. 16.10-16). This reading parallels in part the Zoroastrian cosmogony, according to which Ohrmazd created the plants from his hair (Pahlavi Rivāyat, ed. and tr. Williams, chap. 46.13, p. 74)."
[Mahnaz Moazamki, “KUNDA(G),” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2018, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kundag-demon (accessed on 15 February 2018).]
Now all the gods have their following of heroes, although maybe only a few names can now be put to these followers. Following Hephaestus the greatest hero is Daedalus who made the labyrinth, and this is only a showing forth below of Hephaestus' own labyrinth-like work above that is the physical universe itself. The Hindus make a long tale shorter by making the smith-god Viśvakarman himself the builder of Ravana's castle on Lanka (Ramayana 4, 58, 20; 5, 2, 20, and so on).
Daedalus is moreover our own Wayland the Smith. The Northern Vǫlundur. Or rather he is a blend of Daedalus and Daedalus' helper Cedalion. Like Daedalus he is the maker of the labyrinth thus in Stjórn chapitle 24 we have the well-known gloss:
“laborintho huert er sumir menn kalla Vǫlundar hús”
“labyrinth, which some men call Vǫlund’s house” (Unger outlaying 1862, lf. 85).
And we must believe that this was on the hólm or iland in Þiðreks saga af Bern - Velents þáttr smiðs where Wayland, here called Velent, is made an haftling (“Svá var gert, at skornar váru sinar í knésfótum, ok settr í hólm einn, er þar var fyrir landi, er hét Sævarstaðr. Þar smíðaði hann konungi alls kyns görsimar.” “So was it done: the sinews in his knee-joints were cut, and he was set in an island which was near the mainland, and was called Sævarstath.”). For both Wayland and Daedalus outleap these dwellings by flight. "Wayland smith's cave", a long barrow in Berkshire, cave-like and with blind side ways, would seem to strengthen all this understanding of the old tale. Wayland, as Völundr in the Völundarkviða is one of three, he there having two brothers: Egill and Slagfiðr. Athena in this tale is also threefold: Hlaðguðr Svanhvít, Hervör Alvitr and Ölrún Kjársdóttir af Vallandi.
Might these twins sometimes also have taken over Mithras' rôle? If so, we may well have a dim minning of it in the folktale found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ wherein Hengest and Horsa, for Cautes and Cautopates, carve up a bull's hide to mark out room for a stronghold, a thong-castle, this stronghold being an allegory for the physical universe, or middanȝeard, if you will.
Spring or Autumn Equinox?
Now with Porphyry's thoughts that the bull-slaying of Mithras is linked to the spring equinox in mind, I find that there is much muddling over dates; some of which muddling may well have been done to hide what only the initiated were meant to know. Athena who, as we have already marked, wields the spring equinox and its sign of Aries, is as much a craftsman-god in her own way as Hephaestus. Weaving, as well as smithcraft, being both understood as the work of the world-craftsman. And thus Hephaestus and Athena are well matched together at times. But in the end, whether the shaping of the physical universe is linked to the spring or autumnal equinox is down to the outlook of your own beliefs. Is the making of the physical universe a whole-hearted triumph of light over darkness? If so, then the spring equinox is your chosen time. But if you have the witherward outlook to this, that it is a triumph of the dark over the light, the binding of light souls in dark bodies, often as the outcome of some misdoing against the gods, then the autumnal equinox is your time. In the old mysteries it is moreover this last that is truly taught. The mythic Golden Age is the time when the souls are still with the gods, and this is dimly linked to the summer half of the year from the spring to the autumn equinox when the sun is in the houses of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Virgo. With Libra they come to their doom and their punishment in bodies in the prison-house that is our labyrinth-like physical universe. Thus Persephone, here understood as a soul is wed (=joined) to Hades. Hades, Johannes Lydus in his On the Months tells us, was understood as matter, and Sallustius in his On the Gods and the World tells us Hades and Persephone's "wedding" was timed for the autumnal equinox. Even as winter-wheat was sown into the earth at the same time. The downfalling souls are also the maidens and youths sent to the Minotaur in the dark labyrinth on Crete. And Helen stolen away and kept at Troy, and Sita kidnapped by Ravana to be kept at Lanka. And Attis in his mad falling away from Magna Mater to take up with some lowly nymph. And the sun-maiden stolen away by winter as the old tale was. The wild swans and geese fly away southward. But the gods are at work to heal these mad and erring souls and bring them back to the gods. The Heavenly Twins having no little hand in this and also Magna Mater herself. And the smith-god should not be overlooked here. For the Daedalus and Wayland tales, as also the myth of Hephaestus being hurled from Olympus, would seem to say that the craftsman himself was once also bound in what he had made until he freed himself. But this is more true to say of the souls he is said to be the father of, rather than of the god himself.
Dances at these times were to show forth here on earth the coming and going of souls like wandering birds into and out of matter. The labyrinth became a layout for a dance-floor. Iliad Book 18, lines 590 to 594 (awend. A. T. Murray):
ἐν δὲ χορὸν ποίκιλλε περικλυτὸς ἀμφιγυήεις, 590
τῷ ἴκελον οἷόν ποτ᾽ ἐνὶ Κνωσῷ εὐρείῃ
Δαίδαλος ἤσκησεν καλλιπλοκάμῳ Ἀριάδνῃ.
ἔνθα μὲν ἠΐθεοι καὶ παρθένοι ἀλφεσίβοιαι
ὀρχεῦντ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἐπὶ καρπῷ χεῖρας ἔχοντες.
Therein furthermore the famed god of the two strong arms
cunningly wrought a dancing-floor like unto that which in wide Cnosus
Daedalus fashioned of old for fair-tressed Ariadne.
There were youths dancing and maidens of the price of many cattle,
holding their hands upon the wrists one of the other.
Plutarch Theseus 21:
[1] ἐκ δὲ τῆς Κρήτης ἀποπλέων εἰς Δῆλον κατέσχε: καὶ τῷ θεῷ θύσας καὶ ἀναθεὶς τὸ ἀφροδίσιον ὃ παρὰ τῆς Ἀριάδνης ἔλαβεν, ἐχόρευσε μετὰ τῶν ἠϊθέων χορείαν ἣν ἔτι νῦν ἐπιτελεῖν Δηλίους λέγουσι, μίμημα τῶν ἐν τῷ Λαβυρίνθῳ περιόδων καὶ διεξόδων, ἔν τινι ῥυθμῷ παραλλάξεις καὶ ἀνελίξεις ἔχοντι γιγνομένην. [2] καλεῖται δὲ τὸ γένος τοῦτο τῆς χορείας ὑπὸ Δηλίων γέρανος, ὡς ἱστορεῖ Δικαίαρχος. ἐχόρευσε δὲ περὶ τὸν Κερατῶνα βωμόν, ἐκ κεράτων συνηρμοσμένον εὐωνύμων ἁπάντων. ποιῆσαι δὲ καὶ ἀγῶνά φασιν αὐτὸν ἐν Δήλῳ, καὶ τοῖς νικῶσι τότε πρῶτον ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου φοίνικα δοθῆναι.
[1]On his voyage from Crete, Theseus put in at Delos, and having sacrificed to the god and dedicated in his temple the image of Aphrodite which he had received from Ariadne, he danced with his youths a dance which they say is still performed by the Delians, being an imitation of the circling passages in the Labyrinth, and consisting of certain rhythmic involutions and evolutions.
[2] This kind of dance, as Dicaearchus tells us, is called by the Delians The Crane, and Theseus danced it round the altar called Keraton, which is constructed of horns ( ‘kerata’) taken entirely from the left side of the head. They say that he also instituted athletic contests in Delos, and that the custom was then begun by him of giving a palm to the victors.
[Plutarch's Lives. with an English awending by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914]
Cranes are wander-birds (like swans and geese), and said to be holy to Demeter by Porphyry.
And for our full understanding it may be well here to think that the spring equinox must then be the time of atoning for our misdeeds in some way and going back to the gods. The time when Persephone is brought back to her mother, and Attis forsakes the nymph in the cave for the "Great Mother". The Minotaur is overcome, the maidens and youths should go back to the town of the goddess Athena. That the Athenians of yore acknowledged the againcome of these to be in the autumn is muddling. Helen goes back to her husband and it is now that Ravana should be overwon and Sita freed. The Heavenly Twins wield a hammer to free the sun-maiden from winter. Daedalus and Wayland fly away home as wild swans and geese fly northward.
That the hammer the Heavenly Twins wield is as much the smith-god's as the thunder-god's is a fyrwit thought. And at length the smith and the thunderer are seen to be much the same. For Vulcanus wields the upper fiery sphere of the old Ptolemaic cosmology and Servius' commentary on the Aeneid marks that he was one of the few gods to wield the thunderbolt. Moreover the smith-god also has twin sons (the Cabiri) that are evened with those Heavenly Twins that are the sons of Jupiter.
Now the thunder-god is our Þunor. His links to the summer solstice and the autumn equinox that follow it seem now outfolded. The craftsman rôle is bestowed on his father Wōden, and an ettin is switched for a bull. The “godesse of cornes”, by whatever name you may call her, should be markedly linked to Þunor above all. And she is belike Þunor's wife whom the Northerners call Sif, and who would be called Sib, as we have said, in Old English. Pausanias, Guide to Greece 9.39.4 tells us that Demeter Europe (Εὐρώπη) shared a halidom at Lebedæa in Bœotia with Zeus of Rain:
–Ἔστι δὲ καὶ Δήμητρος ἱερὸν ἐπίκλησιν Εὐρώπης· καὶ Ζεὺς Ὑέτιος ἐν ὑπαίθρῳ.And we have already marked that the "sun-goddess of Arinna" who is ancestral so to speak, of Demeter, was the wife of the thunder god Tarhunzas. At Lebedæa moreover we also have the worship of the twin-like heroes Trophonius and Agamedes.
There is also a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Europa, and a Zeus Rain-god in the open.
Sif is moreover "móður Þrúðar" "mother of Þrúðr" (Skáldskaparmál 29), and it is Þrúðr that I believe best answers (see Alvíssmál, Skáldskaparmál 11 and 29 and Gylfaginning 36) to the Romans' Minerva and the Greeks' Athena! As a valkyrja she is the evenling of Durga. But mother and daughter may have borrowed something from each other here. In Old English Þrúðr would be Þrȳþ. Þunor is moreover the father of the twin-like Magni and Móði (see Skáldskaparmál 11. Þórskenningar."faðir Magna ok Móða ok Þrúða") upon Járnsaxa (Skáldskaparmál 24 " Þá kom til Magni, sonr Þórs ok Járnsöxu").
The clincher: Bragi Boddason in his Ragnarsdrápa, says that the jötunn Hrungnir is called "thief of Þrúðr" (Þrúðar þjófr).
Farewell.
Above: Sunset as seen looking over the fields from the landing window of our old house on the farm where I grew up.
Above: Sunset as seen looking over the fields from the landing window of our old house on the farm where I grew up.
