Truefastness: with yokis of a pleuch ...

Hail!

Luncarty

Hector Boece (1465-1536) in the eleventh book of his Historia Gentis Scotorum (1527) has a markworthy tale about the fightlock at Luncarty in Gowrie (in Perthshire, see post- postscriptum below) between the Scots and the Danes, and which was meant to have happened in 990:

The Latin is now [here] for those who would like it.

Which is awent by Dana F. Sutton of the University of California, Irvine thus:

“35. ... The Danish commanders were wearied with seafaring, and so they took this advice and gave the order that the fleet should quickly cross over to the mouth of the Esk. Where that river flows into the sea it washes the walls of Celurca, once the most populous town of Angus, and now called Montrose. The sailors obeyed with a will, weighed anchor, and went where they were bidden. Then the fighting men aboard followed their leaders and made their descent on nearby lands by the use of rowboats. The frightened locals beat a retreat to Celurca, but that town was quickly stormed by the Danes, and, by permission of their leaders, the soldiers sacked it. The Danes raged against the captured town with such savagery that they knocked down its walls, leveled its castle to the ground, killed its inhabitants, and fired its buildings both public and private, with the result that after their departure no living man could be seen. Then the Danes, having ruined the nearby fields, hamlets, and villages, and collected much provisions, made their way through Angus as they headed for the Tay estuary. Whatever terrified locals had not been consumed in this sudden disturbance, warned of their imminent danger by the destruction of Celurca, brought to King Kenneth the news of how much slaughter the Danish fury was working against the men of Kent, and especially of those who had lived at Celurca.
36. At the moment, he happened to be in Stirling, meeting with the more important of his nobles for the common welfare, intent on legislation and expecting nothing less than an enemy attack from any quarter. Amazed by this terrible news, Kenneth briefly consulted with his nobles, and decided, lest the kingdom be exposed to any further danger, to take up arms against the enemy and go to meet him, risking his all in the face of the utmost need. In accordance with royal command, on the day appointed for his muster a great number of men assembled in the fields adjoining the river Erne at the point where it flows into the Tay. On the next day, after Kenneth had heard Mass and was on the point of starting his march, he was informed by his scouts that the Danes had crossed the Tay and come to the town of Perth (ad Bertham oppidum), which they were holding under a very close siege. In Angus and Gourie, nether sex, nor age, nor reverence for religion had protected any Scotsman found in that district from being butchered by the swords of that savage nation. The king was stung by this affront, and , breaking camp and packing up his baggage, by his herald he vehemently urged his army to hasten against the enemy. On the following night he encamped at Loncart, a village not far from the Tay bankside, famous to posterity because of the battle fought there. Nor did the Danes shrink from a fight when they heard of the Scots’ arrival. Rather, with their customary ferocity they hastily made their dispositions for the battle. At daybreak Kenneth saw that the Danes were present, so he drew up his men in a battle-line and stationed them on suitable ground. Then, instead of a harangue, he promised them all five years’ freedom of taxation, adding that any man who brought him the head of a Dane would receive either ten silver shillings or its equivalent in land. Therefore they should arm themselves for a fight in which there should be no room for mercy. Then they had a choice: they could stand and fight with bravery and honor, or, if they preferred, they could flee from their very ferocious enemy wherever they wanted — and be shamefully put to death.
37. The king’s words put his soldiers in high hopes of reward and victory, so with great discipline they stood in battle order awaiting their leader’s command. Malcolm Duff, the Prince of Cumbria, commanded the right wing, Duncan, the governor of Athol, the left, and Kenneth led the van. For their part, the enemy drew up their battle-line on the slope of a small nearby hill, so that the Scots would be obliged to fight uphill. For a long time their lines stood in readiness. At length our men, excessively hot for a fight and believing the Danes were not going to come down to the flatland, moved quicker than military art would recommend, and started shooting arrows and slingshots at them. Appreciating this, with a great shout the Danes came down the hill in good order so that the hillside would not present them as such convenient targets. They came to blows almost before the signal was given by their commanders. Both armies struggled with such ferocity that great killing was dealt out and suffered by both sides and either army could barely withstand the onslaught of the other. For a while they fought without Fortune favoring either side, but nothing hindered a Scottish victory more than that their soldiers were far more concerned with cutting off Danish heads, so that they could carry them off, than with gaining the day. Observing this, the Danish commanders, by means of their loudest spokesmen, announced that there would be no hope for survival after that day, unless they returned to their camp victorious. Hearing this, the Danish soldiers were swept against the Scots with such violence that first our right wing could no longer withstand them. Then our left was driven in and turned tail, while the van nobly continued to resist the enemy assault. Hence our side was placed in utmost danger.
38. A large number of Danes gave chase to the runaways, doing great slaughter on those they could catch, and that day would have been by far the blackest of them all for Scotland, if in accordance with God’s will (as one may believe) a man had not come forth to renew the battle. For it chanced that in a nearby field was a certain peasant of rough and ready body, and yet of a great and noble spirit, whose business was farming his land with his two sons. It is said that his name was Hay. When he saw King Kenneth and the better of part of his nobility standing in the van, continuing the fight although stripped of their wings, with the king continuing to urge on his fighting soldiers and railing at those who fled, while all but overwhelmed by the violence of their enemy, he felt a surge of pity and, snatching up the yoke of his plough (atrati iugo), he told his sons to do the same. So that he might die for his nation fighting alongside all those brave men, he eagerly joined in the fight. There was a place near the battlefield made narrow by a lengthy series of old ditches and turf walls, and the Scots were being massacred as they tried to flee the slaughter by this route. There Hay quickly planted himself and his sons, thinking there was no better place to stop the flight. Whatever runaway he encountered, be he friend or foe, he killed with great ferocity, using his yoke as a weapon. Meanwhile those three very pugnacious fellows set up a loud cry that the Scots should return to the fray and rejoin the battle. They knew that new forces were at hand, with whose help they could easily get the best of those treacherous Danes, the cruelest of all men. So they should think hard whether they preferred to come to grips with their enemy once more or be put do death most cruelly by their own side.
39. Bawling out these things, or things just like them, father and sons bravely held back whatever fleeing Scotsmen and pursuing Danes chanced to come their way. The Danes were frightened by this, imagining (which was not the case) that a new contingent of Scotsmen had made a sudden appearance in aid of Kenneth. So they broke off their chase and attempted to return to their own men, being in disarray. Then the defeated Scots’ courage began to return, and they chased the victorious Danes back to the battlefield. The women and camp-followers, who were present in great numbers to gather up the spoils, began to cry out that some of the Danes, who had been giving pursuit to the Scots, had been caught in an ambuscade and killed, and that the rest had shamefully been put to flight and obliged to return to a place they could sail away. Hearing their cries, Kenneth realized that the enemies’ spirits were flagging and those of his own men were beginning to revive. So he praised some of his men and rebuked others, saying that they were fierce fellows at home but that when it came to a fight they were sluggish, timid, and feeble. He kept asking them, now that they had received reinforcements, what prevented them from driving back an enemy all but done in by his own fear. The soldiers heard their king’s words, and their minds were overcome by such an ardour for fighting that, disregarding all thought of danger, they blindly hurled themselves against their enemies’ weapons. This new Scottish battle-madness budged the enemy, already in a state of disorder, and put them to rout. A great massacre of Danes then followed. The ferocity of Hay and his sons killed many, but far more were slain by the anger and fury of the Scots who pursued them. This victory was a noble one for the Scottish nobility, which stood in the middle of the battle until its very end. But it was far nobler for Hay, who restored the lost situation and made the conquered and fleeing Scots regain their enthusiasm and chase the victorious Danish back to the battlefield.
40. That night, the victors occupied themselves with nothing other than singing songs on the battlefield, expressive of their common joy. But on the following day they took possession of the enemy camp, which was crammed with all manner of stuff. When this had been gathered up and the dead had been looted, Kenneth bestowed the best part of the plunder on Hay and his sons, with the approval of one and all. He gave the remainder to his soldiers to be divided in accordance with national custom. Thus having finished the battle and ready to depart to Perth with his nobles, the King commanded that chests full of splendid dress be given to Hay and his sons, so that they would appear more honorable in the sight of the people. Hay refused these, since he was devoted to his rustic work. He said he would he would wash off his dust and sweat and make his appearance wherever the king commanded, but without changing his clothes. When the king hastened to Perth, a great number of men poured out to have a look and see who this Hay was who, alone with his two sons, had withstood the onslaught of all those wild enemy when the battle was running against Scotland, renewed the fighting spirit of his countrymen, and rescued his king when the army had all but abandoned hope for his safety and he was facing the utmost danger. They hailed him as the saviour of his country, second only to the king, and received him into the town with happy cheers. Surrounded by the throng and bearing the plough-yoke (aratri iugum) which he had used as a weapon to preserve his nation’s liberty (all men thought it more honourable than a sword), he was escorted to the royal lodging, preceded by armed men, standard-bearers, and heralds marching in the order that King Kenneth had commanded. Thus relieved of the Danish threat, a few days later the king convened a parliament of nobles at Scone, where by unanimous vote Hay and his posterity were numbered among the nobles and friends of the kings. He was promoted out of the peasantry for his singular service and effort on behalf of the public safety, and, in addition to money and other magnificent gifts, he was given certain lands at the place of his choosing so that he might live in noble style.
41. They say that, at the urging of his sons, who were familiar with the fertility of the soil, the old man requested as much land as a freed falcon could fly over, in the part of Fife where the river Tay washes the village of Errol, and that he was freely granted this by royal bounty. Therefore, at a chosen place near Inschire [Inchyra in a detached bit of Kinoull parish](a name which survives down to our day), a falcon was set free and flew straight for a village of Ross about four miles from Dundee, where it alighted on a rock in the vicinity and folded its wings. So the old man and his sons received the heritage of all the tract of land lying between Inschire and that rock, more than six miles long and four wide. As evidence of this, the rock received the name of the Falcon Stone, as it is commonly called even in our time. And nearly the entire estate henceforth has remained the property of that man’s clan. And, lest Hay be lacking in anything which would record his fame for posterity, Kenneth command his clan henceforth to display as its crest three red shields on a silver background, the shields symbolizing his defense of his nation against its enemies, and the silver denoting how the man had been promoted from a humble origin to a great estate. Added to the coat of arms was a motto alluding to the yoke which the old man had used as his weapon when he came to help the endangered forces against their enemy, so that posterity might learn how great he was, how strong was his bodily strength, and how courageous in boldly confronting the enemy. The clan of Hays, possessed of no small standing among our fellow-countrymen for the glory of its accomplishments, took its origin, with its estates, lands, and that distinguished office which it later received by the favor of the kings of Scotland, that of the constable.”

[John Bellenden's or Ballantyne's Scots-English awending of Boece's Historia as the Croniklis of Scotland (1536), tells the same tale in Book eleven, chapitle 8 and may be found [here] (underneath Boece)].

Above: The Falcon Stone by Philip Blackwood [here]. The Falcon Stone is on the meare of the parishes of Longforgan and Rossie/Inchture. Some way to the west of this is the Hawkstone (see [here]) in St.Madoes parish. It is near the meare of St.Madoes parish with Errol parish and a little east of Inchyra. A falcon flying north-east from the Hawkstone to alight on the Falcon stone would wholly overfly the parishes of Errol and Rossie/Inchture. The water sprinkler in the background shows us that we are in the Carse of Gowrie - the "Garden of Scotland".

A tale of the Heavenly Twins?

From which we can see that we have here an odd offshoot of an old tale about the Heavenly Twins (as also thinks James Rendel Harris Boanerges (1913) Chapitle 23, lvs. 242 to 243) which has been taken up by the Hay kindred in Scotland as speaking about their own forefathers. And, as Boece says, it is harked back to in their armes:

Needless to say however, the Hays (notwithstanding the writings of one John Hay Allan, otherwise John Sobieski Stuart, wherein truth and falsehoods are unhappily blent) do not go back so far in Scotland as the fightlock at Luncarty in 990. Thus Sir Thomas Grey's Scalachronica tells us that when King William of Scotland went home in 1174, he went with "plusours dez filz pusnes dez seygnours Dengleterre" "many of the worthy sons of the lords of England" and bestowed lands upon them in Scotland. Among those listed by their surnoms are "lez Hayes" thus:

"…dez Baillolfs, de Bruys, de Soulis et de Mowbray, et les Saynclers; lez Hayes, lez Giffardis, lez Ramesays, et Laundels; lez Biseys, les Berkleys, lez Walenges, lez Boysis, lez Mountgomeris; lez Vaus, lez Coleuyles, lez Frysers, lez Grames, Lez Gourlays et plusours autres".

The first of "lez Hayes" in Scotland is a William II de Haya who was the son of William I de Haya and Juliana, sister to Ranulf I de Soulis. He was the cup-bearer to Malcolm IV of Scotland and William I of Scotland, and about 1178-9 was made the first Baron of the lands about Erroll in Gowrie by William I. David de Haya, the son of William II de Haya, on a charter of about 1230 is meant to have brooked the armes showing the three little shields or inescutcheons on his seal. These armes are not found borne by any of the de Haya/de La Haye kindreds of England (the main kindred of this name from Herefordshire bearing “argent a sun in splendour/an estoile of 16 points, gules”). But they are the same as those used by Jean de La Haye-Hue in Normandy about 1368–1375 (see Histoire Généalogique de la Maison de Gondi (1775) vol.2, lf.274 “Jean de le Haye-Hue, d'argent à trois Ecussons de gueules.”). And we can take it that the Scottish Hays were also from La Haye-Hue in the Côtentin, and were thus among the most Norman of Normans. It is worth marking here that the de Soulis kindred were from Soulles to the north of La Haye-Hue, or, as it is now called La Haye-Bellefond. Haye or haie in French means no more than "hedge", and it looks so much like our English words hay and haw, whence haythorn, hayward and hawthorn, for that it is a word borrowed into the Romance speech of France from one of the Germanic tongues.

This said, there is much in the tale which helps further our knowledge about the Heavenly Twins. Firstly, as we have marked elsewhere (see [here] and [here]), the twins might be three brothers instead of two, though it is true the historiographers words speak of them as a father and his two sons. That these turn the tide of the fight and bring about the Scots' victory fits into the well-known lore of the Heavenly Twins. That they do this as common men (Boece has Hay as a "homo erat agrestis quidam" Bellenden's Scots-English awending "ane landwart man") beweaponed with a plough yoke (atrati iugo) - which Bellenden's Scots-English awends as "yokis of a pleuch" - and without their wonted spears and horses is even more markworthy. And in the land-taking that follows the flight of a falcon has taken over from the kind of things we marked in our last blog post [here].

The Heavenly Twins and ploughs

James Rendel Harris in his Boanerges (1913) Chapitle 23, lvs. 234 to 249, goes to some lengths to show that the Heavenly Twins or Aśvinau are linked to plough making leaning on Ṛgvedaḥ 1.117.21 and 8.22.6.

1.117.21

yavaṃ vṛkeṇāśvinā vapanteṣaṃ duhantā manuṣāya dasrā |
abhi dasyum bakureṇā dhamantoru jyotiś cakrathur āryāya ||

Ploughing and sowing barley, O ye Aśvins, milking out food for men, ye Wonder-Workers,
Blasting away the Dasyu with your trumpet, ye gave far-spreading light unto the Ārya.

8.22.6

daśasyantā manave pūrvyaṃ divi yavaṃ vṛkeṇa karṣathaḥ |
tā vām adya sumatibhiḥ śubhas patī aśvinā pra stuvīmahi ||

Ye with your plough, when favouring Manu with your help, ploughed the first harvest in the sky.
As such will we exalt you, Lords of splendour, now, O Aśvins, with our prayer and praise. [Griffith awending]

Rendering service to Manu, early in the day you plow barley with a wolf.
O Aśvins, lords of beauty, today we would praise you together with your favors.[J. P. Brereton & S.W. Jamison awending]

"... before they drove chariots, they drove the plough" Harris says (see ch.23 lf.245), and those who wish to see the Aśvinau as fulfilling Monsieur Georges Dumézil's hypothetical "troisième fonction" (see [here]) have all that they need in this. It is a shame then, that "Hay, with his two sonnis" (Bellenden) are seemingly outdoing all the kṣatriyāḥ of the Scots here!

After speaking of the above tale of the fightlock at Luncarty, Rendel Harris links it to Shamgar of Judges 3.31 who overcomes six-hundred Philistines with an "ox-goad" (the vulgate has “vomere”, that is "ploughshare", for KJV’s “oxgoad”) (and Shamgar may well be the same as the Shammah of 2 Samuel 23.11-12, one of David’s “three mighty men”, and who is oddly either marked up twice as “the Hararite” (2 Sam. 23.33) and “the Harodite” (2 Sam. 23.25) or we are dealing with two men of the same name one marked in a pair or Hararites, the other in a pair of Harodites). And also to the hero called Echetlaeus (Ἐχετλαῖος) who showed up at the fightlock at Marathon and whose name means "ploughman", from ἐχετλη "plough handle" (see Hesychius "<ἐχέτλη>· ὃ κατέχει ὁ ἀροτὴρ τοῦ ἀρότρου. καὶ ἡ αὖλαξ. καὶ ἡ σπάθη τοῦ ἀρότρου " "[that with which] the ploughman holds the plough: [or] the furrow; [or] the share of the plough"), <ἐχετλεύειν>· ἀροτριᾶν (Hesychius) "to plough" , and whose tale is found in Pausanias' Guide to Greece 1.32.5:

συνέβη δὲ ὡς λέγουσιν ἄνδρα ἐν τῇ μάχῃ παρεῖναι τὸ εἶδος καὶ τὴν σκευὴν ἄγροικον: οὗτος τῶν βαρβάρων πολλοὺς καταφονεύσας ἀρότρῳ μετὰ τὸ ἔργον ἦν ἀφανής: ἐρομένοις δὲ Ἀθηναίοις ἄλλο μὲν ὁ θεὸς ἐς αὐτὸν ἔχρησεν οὐδέν, τιμᾶν δὲ Ἐχετλαῖον ἐκέλευσεν ἥρωα.

They say too that there chanced to be present in the battle a man of rustic appearance and dress. Having slaughtered many of the foreigners with a plough he was seen no more after the engagement. When the Athenians made enquiries at the oracle the god merely ordered them to honor Echetlaeus （He of the Plough-tail） as a hero.

[ Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Awending by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.]

Rendel Harris however, seems to have missed marking Jason's yoking of the fiery bulls at Colchis as Apollonius of Rhodes areacheth it in the third book of his Argonautica:

The Greek is now [here] for those who would like it.

(3.1278-1325) Now Aeson's son, as soon as his comrades had made the hawsers fast, leapt from the ship, and with spear and shield came forth to the contest; and at the same time he took the gleaming helmet of bronze filled with sharp teeth, and his sword girt round his shoulders, his body stripped, in somewise resembling Ares and in somewise Apollo of the golden sword (χρυσαόρῳ Ἀπόλλωνι). And gazing over the field he saw the bulls' yoke of bronze and near it the plough, all of one piece, of stubborn adamant. Then he came near, and fixed his sturdy spear upright on its butt, and taking his helmet, off leant it against the spear. And he went forward with shield alone to examine the countless tracks of the bulls, and they from some unseen lair beneath the earth, where was their strong steading, wrapt in murky smoke, both rushed out together, breathing forth flaming fire. And sore afraid were the heroes at the sight. But Jason, setting wide his feet, withstood their onset, as in the sea a rocky reef withstands the waves tossed by the countless blasts. Then in front of him he held his shield; and both the bulls with loud bellowing attacked him with their mighty horns; nor did they stir him a jot by their onset. And as when through the holes of the furnace the armourers' bellows anon gleam brightly, kindling the ravening flame, and anon cease from blowing, and a terrible roar rises from the fire when it darts up from below; so the bulls roared, breathing forth swift flame from their mouths, while the consuming heat played round him, smiting like lightning; but the maiden's charms protected him. Then grasping the tip of the horn of the right- hand bull, he dragged it mightily with all his strength to bring it near the yoke of bronze, and forced it down on to its knees, suddenly striking with his foot the foot of bronze. So also he threw the other bull on to its knees as it rushed upon him, and smote it down with one blow. And throwing to the ground his broad shield, he held them both down where they had fallen on their fore-knees, as he strode from side to side, now here, now there, and rushed swiftly through the flame. But Aeetes marvelled at the hero's might. And meantime the sons of Tyndareus for long since had it been thus ordained for them -- near at hand gave him the yoke from the ground to cast round them. Then tightly did he bind their necks; and lifting the pole of bronze between them, he fastened it to the yoke by its golden tip. So the twin heroes started back from the fire to the ship. But Jason took up again his shield and cast it on his back behind him, and grasped the strong helmet filled with sharp teeth, and his resistless spear, wherewith, like some ploughman with a Pelasgian goad, he pricked the bulls beneath, striking their flanks; and very firmly did he guide the well fitted plough handle (ἐχέτλην), fashioned of adamant. [awending R. C. Seaton]

Jason and the sons of Tyndareus (Τυνδαρίδαι) (-that is Castor and Polydeuces, otherwise called the Dioscuri, the Heavenly Twins of Sparta!) might seem to some here a little like Hay and his two sons at Luncarty. Jason himself has something of Herakles and Mithras here, but is nevertheless still only a ploughman. When we learn that Jason will sow the field he has ploughed with the "ὀδόντας|Ἀονίοιο δράκοντος" "teeth of the dragon of Aonia" (see book 3 lines 1177 to 1178) which Cadmus slew is setting up Thebes, and that "earthborn men" (3.1186 "γαιηγενῆ ... λαόν") will spring up from these teeth, we might begin to see that we have to deal here with a demiurgic myth shifted out of its true place to become the later deed of a hero. An earlier tale may well have told of the begiinings of mankind as a whole in this way, and the ploughing a demiurgic act.

Harris also seems to overlook Balarama, Krishna’s twin brother, who is always shown with a plough. Krishna and Balarama being the Heavenly Twins.

Above: Detail of Balarama from a scene of "Krishna and Balarama Fighting the Enemy", Folio from a Harivamsa (The Legend of Hari (Krishna)) now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City [here]. The "pick-like" weapon that Balarama holds in his left hand is meant to be a plough of the ard type.

the makers of the first ship and the first plough?

Rendel Harris does however, drawing upon Sanchoniathon/Philo of Biblus, mark that the Dioscuri were evened with the Cabiri (Κάβειροι) worshipped on Samothrace and with a number of gods worshipped in Phœnicia who Sanchoniathon understands to be the same as the Cabiri and who are said to be the first plough makers and the first ship-builders.

“ ἐκάλεσανἐκ δὲ Συδὺκ Διόσκουροι ἢ Κάβειροι ἢ Κορύβαντες ἢ Σαμοθρᾷκες. οὗτοι φησί πρῶτοι πλοῖον εὗρον. ἐκ τούτων γεγόνασιν ἕτεροι, οἳ καὶ βοτάνας εὗρον καὶ τὴν τῶν δακετῶν ἴασιν καὶ ἐπῳδάς.”

“'From Suduc came the Dioscuri, or Cabeiri, or Corybantes, or Samothraces: these, he says, first invented a ship. From them have sprung others, who discovered herbs, and the healing of venomous bites, and charms. …” [awend. Giffard, in Euseb. Prep. bk. 1 ch. 10§14]

And before going any further it will be well here to mark that Castor and Polyduces, the Dioscuri of Sparta, were not the only Dioscuri known to the Greeks though all were thought to be at heart the same, and that the Cabiri, Curetes and Corybantes were understood (among many other names) as bynames for the Dioscuri. Thus in the Orphic hymn to the Curetes (38) we find the lines:

" Κουρῆτες Κορύβαντες, ἀνάκτορες εὐδύνατοί τε
ἐν Σαμοθράικηι ἄνακτες, ὁμοῦ <δὲ> Διόσκοροι αὐτοί, ..."

"Curetes, Corybantes, kings and good-mighty ones
on Samothrace the "Anaktes" (kings), one and the same as the Dioscuri themselves, ...".

"on Samothrace the "Anaktes" (kings" is another way of saying the Cabiri. The same hymn by the way is where "Heavenly Twins" comes from as another line calls the same the:

"... οὐράνιοι δίδυμοι κλήιζεσθ' ἐν Ὀλύμπωι"

"... heavenly twins well-known in Olympus".

In saying the Heavenly Twins are the first ship-builders and plough-makers, Rendel Harris has in mind at least I think, Hyginus' words in his Astronomica about the star-sign of Gemini. If it does not show Castor and Polyduces, as most will think, it might show, Apollo and Hercules, or Iasius and Triptolemus. And Iasius and Triptolemus is what Rendel Harris has in mind. But he straightaway asks a great deal of us, so that we are to understand Iasius (Ἰάσιος), otherwise Iasion (Ἰασίων) (sometimes also called Etion (Ἠετίων)), as the same as Jason (Ἰάσων) of the Argo (Ἀργώ), though these are not the same in Greek myth even if their names might share the same etymology. That the Argo, however unlikely it might seem, was thought of by at least some of the ancients as the first ship can be found in the Scholion on Euripides Medea 1.1 and in Catullus 64 ("Illa rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten" "that rough work first stained Amphitrite") and in Eratosthenes Catasterismoi 35. Castor and Polyduces sail in it we are told, but it is worth marking here Harris' words that~:

"There may be as many as eighteen twins on board Apollonius' ship." (ch.22 lf.226).

And so the myth edledges itself.

That Triptolemus was the first to make a plough seems a mythic likelihood, but for the open acknowledging of this we have to go to Servius' commentary on Virgil, Georgics 1. 19 :

"uncique puer monstrator aratri"
"and the youth the first finder of the hooked plough."

About which Servius' first words are:

" alii Triptolemum, alii Osirim volunt:"

"some think this is Triptolemus, others Osiris".

And Pliny's Natural History 7. 56.199:

"bovem et aratrum Buzyges Atheniensis, ut alii, Triptolemus"
"The ox and the plough [were first found] by Buzyges of Athens, or, as others say, by Triptolemus."

Iasius and Triptolemus' other brothers

Although both Iasius and Triptolemus are not themselves brothers by birth, and are paired only from their being the helpers of the goddess Demeter, Iasius and Triptolemus do however, have brothers who it seems might well have been thought of as betokening the Heavenly Twins at one time.

Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 1. 14. 2 has Triptolemus (Τριπτόλεμος) “thrice soldier” and Εὐβουλεύς, Eubuleus "Good Counsel" as the sons of Τρόχιλος Trochilus "wren" (Trochilus is from τρέχειν "to run" and the "wren" is also called τύραννος "king" in Old Greek) by a woman of Eleusis. Triptoloemus also said to be the son of Κελεός Celeus < κελεός “orderer, commander; caller of time to rowers” also "green woodpecker" and Μετάνειρα Metaneira. Trochilus and Celeus are ways of naming Zeus without naming him if you follow me. Demophon is another brother of Triptolemus in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. That Eubuleus was a brother of Triptolemus leads us to think that when Cicero De Natura Deorum Book III, ch. 21. speaks of the first Dioscuri at Athens, the "Anaces" (<ἄνακτες "kings"), as "Tritopatreus, Eubuleus, Dionysus" he understands Tritopatreus "third father", "great grandfather" as seemingly another name for Triptolemus. Cicero's Dionysus here is for Iacchus (Ἰακχος) which is, and is not, a byname for Dionysus. However, Professor Cook marks the underlying samenesses of Triptolemus and Dionysus, by setting Triptolemus's chariot taking the gift of corn about the world beside Dionysus' chariot taking the gift of wine as they are shown on old Greek vases.

With the forebisening below see how Hermes is shown leading Triptolemus and a satyr or silenus is shown leading Dionysus as if these two are to be linked in some way as well.

Clement seems to know three brothers: Triptolemus, Eubuleus and Eumolpus (Dusaules being reckoned the father):

“2.20.2 Ωἴκουν δὲ τηνικάδε τὴν Ἐλευσῖνα οἱ γηγενεῖς· ὀνόματα αὐτοῖς Βαυβὼ καὶ Δυσαύλης καὶ Τριπτόλεμος, ἔτι δὲ Εὔμολπός τε καὶ Εὐβουλεύς· βουκόλος ὁ Τριπτόλεμος ἦν, ποιμὴν δὲ ὁ Εὔμολπος, συβώτης δὲ ὁ Εὐβουλεύς· ἀφ' ὧν τὸ Εὐμολπιδῶν καὶ τὸ Κηρύκων τὸ ἱεροφαντικὸν δὴ τοῦτο Ἀθήνησι γένος ἤνθησεν.”

“The indigenous inhabitants then occupied Eleusis: their names were Baubo, and Dusaules, and Triptolemus; and besides, Eumolpus and Eubouleus. Triptolemus was a herdsman, Eumolpus a shepherd, and Eubouleus a swineherd; from whom came the race of the Eumolpidæ and that of the Heralds — a race of Hierophants — who flourished at Athens.”

Here twins have been muddled with the forefathers of mankind and the forefathers of mankind have become thought of more narrowly as the forefathers of this or that kindred.

Iasius on the other hand has Dardanus as his brother. Iasius and Dardanus betoken the Cabiri of Samothrace, upon which island they are said to have grown up (see Diodorus Siculus Library 5.48.2). Whilst their mother Electra, notwithstanding that she is a Pleiad, is a sun-goddess, Electra being, as we marked in the last blog post, the feminine of Elector which is brooked as a byname of the sun by Homer (see Iliad 6.513 and 19.398). Apollonius of Rhodes speaks of Samothrace thus in his Argonautica 1.916:

νῆσον ἐς Ἠλέκτρης Ἀτλαντίδος,

the island of Electra daughter of Atlas.

Dardanus is said to have been "πρῶτον εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν ἐπὶ σχεδίας διαπεραιωθέντα" "the first to make his way across to Asia in a make-shift boat" (Diod. Sic. Lib. 5.48.3). Dardanus is said to have come from Samothrace to settle in Asia Minor near Mount Ida at what became known as Dardania from him, and from which Troy was later settled and ruled over by men of his stock.

The tale of the Heavenly Twins has been blended with the beliefs about the first men to walk the earth, or about the first men to live after the Great Flood

That Iasius and Dardanus are linked to a Great Flood in which the peaks of Samothrace were said to be their refugium (see Diodorus Siculus Library 5.47), leads us to see how the Heavenly Twins become blent with the beliefs about first men, either those that first walked the earth, or those who lived in the aftermath of a Great Flood. At both times the men then living had to find out those things needful for life, as it were, for the first time. This is why the Aśvinau were linked to Yama and Yami, and Manu the first man, and that they are said to be the brothers of the Aśvinau. Thus Ṛgvedaḥ 10.17.1 to 2 is filled out for us by Yāska in his Nirukta 12.10 (awend. Lakshman Sarup) :

     “tvāstrī.saranyūr.vivasvata.ādityād.yamau.mithunau.janayām.cakāra/
    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.”

It may well then be that the Heavenly Twins are not themselves the first ship-buiilders or the first plough-makers and that these things belong to the first men who are their (half) brothers. The Shahnameh of the Parsees bestow these things on Húsheng and Jemshíd, the latter being the same as the Yama of the Ṛgvedaḥ to begin with. Or it may be that the Heavenly Twins were thought to have bestowed the knowledge of these things on mankind, and indeed over and over again "descend to works" to help the forgetful and erring stock of their (half) brother(s) to wisdom.

the fire-bringers?

We know that the Aśvinau were linked to fire, thus Ṛgvedaḥ 10.184.3, and Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 6.4.22:

Hiranmayi arani yâbhyâm nirmanthatâm asvinau,

The golden fire-drills with which

the Aśvins churned the fire; …

[awend. Patrick Olivelle lf.91 1996 Oxford World’s Classics]. See also RV 10.24.4-5.

That they were the fire bringers themselves at one time seems likely from a dreadfully far spread myth. Thus Sir J. G. Frazer Myths of the Origin of Fire (1930), Chap. II, lf.3 :

“A NATIVE of the Oyster Bay tribe in Tasmania gave the following account of the introduction of fire among his people:

“My father, my grandfather, all of them, lived a long time ago, all over the country; they had no fire. Two black fellows came, they slept at the foot of a hill—a hill in my own country. On the summit of a hill they were seen by my father, my countrymen, on the top of the hill they were seen standing: they threw fire like a star, it fell among the black men, my countrymen. They were frightened they fled away, all of them; after a while they returned, — they hastened and made a fire,—a fire with wood; no more was fire lost in our land. The two black fellows are in the clouds; in the clear night you see them like two stars. These are they who brought fire to my fathers.” ...”.

[Joseph Milligan, in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, vol. iii, p.274, quoted by James Bonwick, Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians (London, 1870), pp.202 sq.; R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria (Melbourne and London, 1878), I. 461 sq.; H. Ling Roth The Aborigines of Tasmania (London, 1890), pp.97 sq.]

Footnote the "two stars" are "Castor and Pollux", that is Gemini!

Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (lf.251 vol. 2):

Llaman á estas estrellas mamalhoaztli, y por este mismo nombre llaman a los palos con que sacan lumbre, porque les parece que tienen alguna semejanza con ellas, y que de allí les vino esta manera de sacar fuego.

They call these stars mamalhoaztli, and by this same name they call the sticks with which they make fire, for that it seems to them that they have some likeness to them, and that from there came this way of making fire.

And (lf.282 vol. 2):

"mastelejos que ellos llaman mamalcaztli" -
"they call Gemini mamalcaztli".

See also here Alonso de Molina's Vocabulario (1571):

"mamalhuaztli. astillejos, constelacion."

m-astelejos and astillejos being old Spanish names for the star sign of Gemini.

We might then think that we are not that far here from the Greek myths about Prometheus and Epimetheus, who it seems must stem from the same mythic background as the Heavenly Twins do although something seems to have gone awry.

The Greek is now [here].

Prometheus
... I will not speak to upbraid mankind but to set forth the friendly purpose that inspired my blessing.

First of all, though they had eyes to see, they saw to no avail; they had ears, but they did not understand ; but, just as shapes in dreams, throughout their length of days, [450] without purpose they wrought all things in confusion. They had neither knowledge of houses built of bricks and turned to face the sun nor yet of work in wood; but dwelt beneath the ground like swarming ants, in sunless caves. They had no sign either of winter [455] or of flowery spring or of fruitful summer, on which they could depend but managed everything without judgment, until I taught them to discern the risings of the stars and their settings, which are difficult to distinguish.

Yes, and numbers, too, chiefest of sciences, [460] I invented for them, and the combining of letters, creative mother of the Muses' arts, with which to hold all things in memory. I, too, first brought brute beasts beneath the yoke to be subject to the collar and the pack-saddle (σάγμα), so that they might bear in men's stead their [465] heaviest burdens; and to the chariot I harnessed horses and made them obedient to the rein, to be an image of wealth and luxury. It was I and no one else who invented the mariner's flaxen-winged car that roams the sea.

Wretched that I am—such are the arts I devised [470] for mankind, yet have myself no cunning means to rid me of my present suffering.

[Aeschylus, with an English awending by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes. 1.Prometheus. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1926. ]

Prometheus it should here be marked, was understood by some to be the father of Deucalion who outlasted a Great Flood in a chest (λάρναξ), and to then be the forefather of the Greeks/mankind by his wife Pyrrha (see Apollodorus Bibliotheca 1.7.2; Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica book 3 lines 1083 -1090). And it is worth marking here that Pausanias seems to want to call the Cabiri (see his Guide 9.25.6) by the names of Prometheus and Ætnæus (Αἰτναίῳ (dat.)>Αἰτναῖος “of or belonging to Etna (Αἴτνη)” - a byname of Hephæstus who had a smithy in Mount Etna (see Aelian hist. Ann. 11.3) or his helpers the Cyclopes (Virgil Æneid 8.440)). Sometimes we find all is hopelessly blended into one. Thus Lydus' words in his fourth book on the Months 4.17:

" οἱ δὲ περὶ Ἐπιμενίδην ἄρρενα καὶ θήλειαν ἐμύθευσαν τοὺς Διοσκόρους, τὸν μὲν αἰῶνα, ὥσπερ μονάδα, τὴν δὲ φύσιν, ὡς δυάδα, καλέσαντες· ἐκ γὰρ μονάδος καὶ δυάδος ὁ πᾶς ζωογονικὸς καὶ ψυχογονικὸς ἐξεβλάστησεν ἀριθμός. ἰστέον δὲ κατὰ ταύτην τὴν ἡμέραν τοὺς ἐρίφους δύεσθαι καὶ τροπὴν γίνεσθαι κατὰ Φίλιππον."

" The [school] of Epimenides related that the Dioscuri were male and female, calling the one Aiôn, as a "monad," the other Physis, as a "dyad." For from the monad and the dyad the whole of life-producing and soul-producing number sprang up. (awend. Mischa Hooker)"

And thus also why only women swore by Castor "ēcastor", but both men and women by Polyduces or Pollux "edepol". And the begetting of "Bleidwn, Hydwn, Hychdwn Hir" by Guydyon and Giluathwy in the Welsh tale of Math uab Mathonwy. We may also understand from this why all those medieval tokens of the star-sign of Gemini show a man an a woman, and seemingly as lovers. They are not mistaken copies of earlier Classical art, but rather done with a reason all of their own. For they look back to the first man and the first woman, who, you will now see (I hope), are as much tokens in their own way of the "Heavenly Twins" as any tokens of Castor and Polyduces might be. Though to speak rightly the first man and woman are truly the brother and sister of the Heavenly Twins.

Above: Gemini from Amiens Cathedral by Vassil [here].

Some further muddlings unmuddled

When we call to mind that the Parsees think of Yama - Jamshīd - as a kind of king ruling over a Golden Eld at the dawn of history, we cannot help but think him one with the Northern Freyr and the Romans' Saturnus who we have written about before anent such things (see [here]). That the Hindus now know Yama as a kind of god of the dead, matches what is said of Saturnus ruling over the blessed souls in Elysium (Pindar) and Freyr as the lord of the Elves or Alfar of Alfheimr (see Grímnismál 5) . That both Freyr and Yama have sisters with the feminine form of their own name makes it more than likely that the Jumis and Jumala (Jumīts and Jumaliņa are diminutive forms) of Latvia belong here as well, who are linked to the horse head gables:

Jumīts meklēj Jumaliņu
Pa tīrumu staigādams;
Brālīts meklēj līgaviņas
No māsiņas vaicādams.

Jumīts looks for Jumaliņa
Walking in the field;
The brother is seeking a bride
Asking his sister.

These are Freyr and Freyja, and it seems not unlikely that Apollo and Artemis belong here too. Thus we find all those odd markings in Roman and Greek writers of Apollo and Artemis to the god and goddess of the dead (Pluto and Persephone). Whilst the name of Apollo and Artemis' mother, Leto (Λητώ) is almost the same as Leda (Λήδα) the mother of Castor and Polydeuces. And most scholars would acknowledge that these two names stem from an Anatolian word, namely the Lycian lada, and meaning "wife". Apollo is, after all, (ὁ) Λύκιος “the Lycian (god)”! Why Apollo is also linked to Hyperborea, but this will have to abide its unfolding in the next posts, though it belongs here too. That Apollo and Artemis are doubles for Castor, Polydeuces and their sisters, Helen and Clytemnestra, would be a bold thing to say, but the myths of the Heavenly Twins (=) and the first man and woman (Yama and Yamī, or Manu and Savarṇī) who are their brother and sister, can be seen to have gotten themselves hopelessly muddled up in many ways. Thus also whilst the Aśvinau are daivyā bhiṣajā "godly healers" (RV 8.18.8), the Greeks bestow healing on Apollo who is himself the father of Asclepius (Ἀσκληπιός) and Eriopis (Ἐριῶπιν), and Asclepius of the Aśvinau-like Machaon (Μᾰχάων) and Podalirius (Ποδαλείριος) the doctors of the Greek army at the besetting of Troy both of whom seem to have a hero cult linked to their graves at Drium and Gerenia [see Homer, Iliad 2.729–32; Pausanias 4.3.2; Strabo Geography, 6. 3. 9; Lycophron, Alexandra, 1047]. And then there is the worship of Machaon's sons, Nichomachus & Gorgasos, at Pharae (Paus. 4.30.2)! But so that we know the underlying mythic truth was not wholly lost sight of, we find that whilst Coronis, the daughter of Phlegyas, is mainly understood to be the mother of Asclepius, in Messenia they said she was Arsinoe (Ἀρσινόη), the daughter of Leucippus, and thus the sister of Hilaeira and Phoebe the wives of Castor and Polydeuces!

the twin gods of Samothrace

Above: the island of Samothrace. By "ROFI44WIK" [here]

From book 14 of Nonnus's Dionysiaca lines 17 to 22 (awend. W. H. D. Rouse) we learn that the Heavenly Twins on Samothrace, the Cabiri, are there called Alkon ( Ἄλκων) "the strong" and Eurymedon (Εὐρυμέδων) "far ruler":

      πρῶτα μὲν ἐκ Λήμνοιο πυριγλώχινος ἐρίπνης
    φήμη ἀελλήεσσα Σάμου παρὰ μύστιδι πεύκῃ
    υἱέας Ἡφαίστοιο δύω θώρηξε Καβείρους,
    οὔνομα μητρὸς ἔχοντας ὁμόγνιον, οὓς πάρος ἄμφω                20
    οὐρανίῳ χαλκῆι τέκε Θρήισσα Καβειρώ:
    Ἄλκων Εὐρυμέδων τε, δαήμονες ἐσχαρεῶνος.

     First from the firepeak rock of Lemnos the two Cabeiroi
    in arms answered the stormy call beside the mystic torch of Samos,
    two sons of Hephaistos whom Thracian Cabeiro
     had borne to the heavenly smith,
    Alcon and Eurymedon well skilled at the forge,
    who bore their mother’s tribal name.

See Herodotus 3.37. As Alkon seems to be behind Cicero's "Alco", these would seem to be what he meant by his third lot of Dioscuri in his De Natura Deorum. He lists the third Dioscuri in full as "Alco et Melampus et Tmolus, Atrei filii, qui Pelope natus fuit". After Alco however it would seem that the list is miswrought. The sons of Atreus are Agamemnon and Menelaus who do indeed stand in for Castor and Polyduces in Greek myth. Melampus is a prophet and Tmolus a peak in Lydia. Neither of these last two have much to do with the Heavenly Twins worshipped on Samothrace.

These sons of Hephaestus may well have been understood as smith's apprentices, and almost any of the mythic beings that help Hephaestus might be thought of as doubles of them. A short list would have two of the three kinds of Cyclopes known in Greek myth.

The three great Cyclopes (Κύκλωπες)-Brontes (Βρόντης), Steropes (Στερόπης) and Arges (Ἄργης)- formenged with the three, Hundred-handers (Ἑκατόγχειρες) - Briareos (Βριάρεως), Gyges (Γύγης) and Cottos (Κόττος)- thus these latter are understood as the Τριτοπάτορες "third fathers" in the Suda? It should be marked here that without the help of the three, Hundred-handers, Zeus would never have beaten the Titans, and the so-called "pillars of Heracles" were earlier called the "pillars of Briareos" Βριάρεω στῆλαι (cf. Aelian, Var. Hist. V.3 = Aristotle, frag. 678) as if Briareos=Herakles.

The lesser Cyclopes or "Belly-hands" (γαστερόχειρες) from Lycia who build walls and things for Perseus or Proeteus seem akin to these. Strabo Geography 8.6.11:

Τῆι μὲν οὖν Τίρυνθι ὁρμητηρίωι χρήσασθαι δοκεῖ Προῖτος καὶ τειχίσαι διὰ Κυκλώπων, οὓς ἑπτὰ μὲν εἶναι καλεῖσθαι δὲ γαστερόχειρας τρεφομένους ἐκ τῆς τέχνης, ἥκειν δὲ μεταπέμπτους ἐκ Λυκίας· καὶ ἴσως τὰ σπήλαια τὰ περὶ τὴν Ναυπλίαν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς ἔργα τούτων ἐπώνυμά ἐστιν.

Now it seems that Tiryns was used as a base of operations by Proetus, and was walled by him through the aid of the Cyclopes, who were seven in number, and were called "Bellyhands" because they got their food from their handicraft, and they came by invitation from Lycia. And perhaps the caverns near Nauplia and the works therein are named after them.

And 8.6.2:

“ ἐφεξῆς δὲ τῆι Ναυπλίαι τὰ σπήλαια καὶ οἱ ἐν αὐτοῖς οἰκοδομητοὶ λαβύρινθοι, Κυκλώπεια δ᾽ ὀνομάζουσιν. ”

“Next after Nauplia one comes to the caverns and the labyrinths built in them, which are called Cyclopeian.”

But the third and maybe more better known kind, the Cyclopes of the Odyssey are nothing like these and should never be thought of here.

The Τριτοπάτορες at Athens however, seem to have matched the Romans' Penates, whom some Romans understood as Apollo and Poseidon whom Homer has building the walls of Troy.

From Herodotus' words in his Histories about the Cabiri at Memphis, it would seem that the same might be shown as pygmy-like. Indeed in the so-called Catalogue of Women Hephaestus is the father of a kind of pygmies.

Ἥφαιστος γ]ένεθ᾿ υἱὸς ὑπερ[μ]ενέος Κρονίωνος·
τοῦ δ᾿ ὑϊδοῖ] Μέλανές τε καὶ Αἰ[θ]ίοπες μεγάθυμοι
ἠδὲ Κατου]δαῖοι καὶ Πυγμαῖ[οι] ἀμενηνοὶ
τοὶ πάντες] κρείοντος Ἐρικτύπου εἰσὶ γενέθλης.

Hephaestus] was born, son of Cronus’ very strong son,
and his grandsons,] the Black Men and the great-spirited Ethiopians
and the Subterranean Men] and the strengthless Pygmies:
they all] belong to the lineage of the sovereign Loud-Sounder.

[Hesiod. The Shield. Catalogue of Women. Other Fragments. Outset and awent by Glenn W. Most. Loeb Classical Library 503. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. lvs.170 to 171]

And we are not far here from the Northern dvergar or dwarves. That a dwarf who we might think of as more to do the mountains and mines, might nevertheless also be a "kobold" can be seen in the tale of Goldemar and Burg Hardenstein. And thus we have the tale of Die Wichtelmänner from the Brothers Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmärchen.

Above: Walter Crane's drawing to go with an English awending of the tale of Die Wichtelmänner. Shoemaking is a thing long linked to the Heavenly Twins in the folk mind.

A little further thought here will bring the reader to Wayland (O. E. Wēland) and his two brothers who we find in Völundarkviða in the Codex Regius ("Bræðr váru þrír, synir Finnakonungs. Hét einn Slagfiðr, annarr Egill, þriði Völundr."). Though his myth is better minned in Velents þáttr smiðs from Þiðrekssaga af Bern . That the skald of the Völundarkviða often understands Wayland as "lord of the elves" ( alfa ljóði, 10, vísi alfa, 12, 32) is markworthy, and anyone whose been to Wayland's Smithy in Berkshire (now said to be in Oxfordshire) - so called even in Old English charters - will see that our forefathers may well have thought of Wayland as a dwarf. For if this long barrow is indeed Wayland's smithy it is fair to say he couldn't have been an awfully tall man! But what I have to say about Wayland will have to abide a later post.

A further thing to mark here is that at Lebadeia in Bœotia (see Paus, 9.37.1-5) we also have the builder brothers Trophonius & Agamedes (Τροφώνιος ... καὶ Ἀγαμήδης), athelings of the Minyans of Orchomenos.

Curetes, Corybantes, Dactyls

Muddling Penates for Lares I mark Hyginus Fabulæ 139 :

“qui Græce Curetes sunt appellati; alii Corybantes dicuntur, hi autem Lares appellantur.”

"In Greek they are called Curetes; others call them Corybantes; these in Italy, however are called Lares."

Diodorus Siculus will have the Idaean dactyli as separate from, and earlier to, the Curetes (book 5, ch. 64 to 65) but Strabo thinks of them as being essentially the same (geog. 10.3.7 & 11-12). Pausanias (5.7.6):

… Ἰδαίοις Δακτύλοις, καλουμένοις δὲ τοῖς αὐτοῖς τούτοις καὶ Κούρησιν: ...
… the Dactyls of Ida, who are the same as those called Curetes ...

Diodorus says there are 100 or 10 (5.64.3), but Pausanias knows only five Dactyls (Paus. 5.14.7 & 5.7.6ii) who he names: Heracles (˂ Ἡρακλέα); Paeonaeus (˂Παιωναῖον); Epimedes (˂Ἐπιμήδην) Iasius (˂Ἰάσιόν) and Idas (˂Ἴδαν) . Diodorus calls the dactyls “wizards” (γόητας) who “practised charms and initiatory rites and mysteries” (“ἐπιτηδεῦσαι τάς τε ἐπῳδὰς καὶ τελετὰς καὶ μυστήρια”), set up the mysteries on Smothrace and taught Orpheus (5.64.4). “discovered both the use of fire and what the metals copper and iron are, as well as the means of working them, ” “τοῦ πυρὸς χρῆσιν καὶ τὴν τοῦ χαλκοῦ καὶ σιδήρου φύσιν ἐξευρεῖν”(5.64.5). They also set up the Olympic Games (Diod. Sic. 5.64.7 & Paus. 5.7.6), and Pausanias even says the five yearly interval was in minning of the five brothers. That the “wild olive” with which they crown the winners at the games is to be linked to this Heracles is markworthy as it was said to have been brought by him from Hyperborea. Diodorus who understands the Curetes as the downstream offspring of the dactyls, says there are nine of them (5.65.1), but we see that they are in essence much the same as the dactyls, thus book5, ch.65, 2-4:

“Διενεγκόντας δ´ αὐτοὺς συνέσει πολλὰ τῶν κοινῇ χρησίμων καταδεῖξαι· τάς τε γὰρ ποίμνας τῶν προβάτων τούτους ἀθροῖσαι πρώτους καὶ τὰ γένη τῶν ἄλλων βοσκημάτων ἐξημερῶσαι καὶ τὰ περὶ τὰς μελιττουργίας καταδεῖξαι.Ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὰ περὶ τὴν τοξικὴν καὶ τὰς κυνηγίας εἰσηγήσασθαι, καὶ τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους κοινῆς ὁμιλίας καὶ συμβιώσεως, ἔτι δ´ ὁμονοίας καί τινος εὐταξίας ἀρχηγοὺς γενέσθαι. Εὑρεῖν δὲ καὶ ξίφη καὶ κράνη καὶ τὰς ἐνοπλίους ὀρχήσεις, δι´ ὧν ποιοῦντας μεγάλους ψόφους ἀπατᾶν τὸν Κρόνον.”

“2 And since these Curetes excelled in wisdom they discovered many things which are of use to men generally; so, for instance, they were the first to gather sheep into flocks, to domesticate the several other kinds of animals which men fatten, and to discover the making of honey. 3 In the same manner they introduced the art of shooting with the bow and the ways of hunting animals, and they showed mankind how to live and associate together in a common life, and they were the originators of concord and, so to speak, of orderly behaviour. 4 The Curetes also invented swords and helmets and the war-dance, by means of which they raised a great alarum and deceived Cronus.”

[These mythic Curetes, it is worth marking here, are nothing to do with the historic folk of that name in Acarnania (Strabo 10.3.7)].

How these hundred/ten/five/nine Curetes/Dactyls might ever be thought of as the same as the two Dioscuri can be seen from the words of Apollonius of Rhodes in book 1 of his Argonautica. The Argonauts are wind-bound on Bear Island (Cyzicus peninsula) and the seer Mopsus finds out that the only way to get off the island is to make an offering to the “mother of all the blessed [gods]” (“μητέρα συμπάντων μακάρων”) also spoken of as the “mountain goddess” (“δαίμονος οὐρείης”) and named for this or that mountain “the Dindymian Mother” (“Μητέρα Δινδυμίην” - here for Mount Dindymum on Bear Island, there was another mountain of this name in Phrygia) “the Idaean mother” (Μητέρος Ἰδαίης – for Mount Ida on Crete or in the Troad):

1117 ἔσκε δέ τι στιβαρὸν στύπος ἀμπέλου ἔντροφον ὕλῃ,
1118 πρόχνυ γεράνδρυον: τὸ μὲν ἔκταμον, ὄφρα πέλοιτο
1119 δαίμονος οὐρείης ἱερὸν βρέτας: ἔξεσε δ' Ἄργος
1120 εὐκόσμως, καὶ δή μιν ἐπ' ὀκριόεντι κολωνῷ
1121 ἵδρυσαν φηγοῖσιν ἐπηρεφὲς ἀκροτάτῃσιν,
1122 αἵ ῥά τε πασάων πανυπέρταται ἐρρίζωνται.
1123 βωμὸν δ' αὖ χέραδος παρενήνεον: ἀμφὶ δὲ φύλλοις
1124 στεψάμενοι δρυΐνοισι θυηπολίης ἐμέλοντο
1125 Μητέρα Δινδυμίην πολυπότνιαν ἀγκαλέοντες,
1126 ἐνναέτιν Φρυγίης, Τιτίην θ' ἅμα Κύλληνόν τε,
1127 οἳ μοῦνοι πολέων μοιρηγέται ἠδὲ πάρεδροι
1128 Μητέρος Ἰδαίης κεκλήαται, ὅσσοι ἔασιν
1129 Δάκτυλοι Ἰδαῖοι Κρηταιέες, ...”

“Now there was a sturdy stump of vine that grew in the forest, a tree exceeding old; this they cut down, to be the sacred image of the mountain goddess; and Argus smoothed it skilfully, and they set it upon that rugged hill beneath a canopy of lofty oaks, which of all trees have their roots deepest. And near it they heaped an altar of small stones, and wreathed their brows with oak leaves and paid heed to sacrifice, invoking the mother of Dindymum, most venerable, dweller in Phrygia, and Titias and Cyllenus, who alone of many are called dispensers of doom and assessors of the Idaean mother, ...”

"Titias" and "Cyllenus", it should here be said, would be pseudonyms for Alcon and Eurymedon.

With Alkon we are not far from what is almost the same name, namely Alcæus (Ἀλκαῖος), which was the true name of Herakles or Hercules. And Pausanias tells us he was one of the dactyls! Herakles was himself a twin brother of Iphicles, and we have already marked that Hyginus in his Astronomica gives Hercules and Apollo as what some folk thought the star-sign of Gemini showed.

Moreover, from an inwrit found at Pergamon (CIG 3538), the Cabiri, here interestingly called the "sons of Heaven", are said to have witnessed the birth of Zeus on the heights of Pergamon:

οἷσι πάρ’ Οὐρανοῦ υἷες ἐθηήσαντος Κάβειροι
πρῶτοι Περγαμίης ὑπὲρ ἄκριος ἀστεροπη<τ>ὴν
τικτόμενον Δία, μητρώιην ὅτε γ<α>στ[έρα] λῦσεν·

Among whom Ouranos’ sons, the Kabeiroi, first
kept watch on the heights of Pergamon over the new-born
Zeus the lightener, when he opened the maternal womb;

[awending T. L. Robinson from his Theological oracles and the sanctuaries of Claros and Didyma, (1981) Diss. Harvard.]

ἀστεροπητὴν> Ἀστεροπή or Στεροπή, Asteropē "lightning"

And this, needless to say, brings them close to what is traditionally said of the Curetes as warding the child Zeus on Crete.

" Κουρῆτες Κορύβαντες, ἀνάκτορες εὐδύνατοί τε
ἐν Σαμοθράικηι ἄνακτες, ὁμοῦ <δὲ> Διόσκοροι αὐτοί, ..."

"Curetes, Corybantes, kings and good-mighty ones
on Samothrace the "Anaktes" (kings), one and the same as the Dioscuri themselves, ...".

Above: a terracotta relief of the Curetes "armed with shields and short swords dancing over the infant Zeus" from lf.22 of Jane Harrison's Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek religion (1912) and taken by her from the Annali dell'Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica XII (1840).

And in both cases Zeus has become muddled with ideas of his son Dionysus, this last is even called "Zeus Bacchus" (Βάκχος > “Διὶ καὶ Διὶ Βάκχωι”) on the aforesaid Pergamon inwrit. But we are getting ahead of ourselves here, and must go back a little to go forward again.

Cadmus/Cadmilus - a mythic name of shifting meaning

Heracles was born at Thebes said te Greeks, and Cadmus who set up Seven gated Thebes in Bœotia, otherwise Aonia, did so after wedding Harmonia the sister of Iasius and Dardanus on Samothrace. Notwithstanding the myths that bring Cadmus from Phœnicia, Cadmus is seen to be a shortening of Cadmilus or Casmilus (Κασμῖλος - see the scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 1.916-8 ). Lycophron in his Alexandra line 162, brazenly puts Cadmilus for where others would write Hermes as the father of Myrtilus. And in line 219 we have a bit of a bombshell for our understanding, for he brooks the name Cadmus itself as only another name for Hermes when he writes of the father of the seer Prylis (Πρύλις) from Lesbos! And the underrated Nonnos plays with all this in his Dionysiaca book 4 lines 83 to 89. Cadmilus on Samothrace is said to be the father of the Cabiri himself. Strabo’s Geography 10.3.21:

“21. Ἀκουσίλαος δ᾿ ὁ Ἀργεῖος ἐκ Καβειροῦς καὶ Ἡφαίστου Καδμῖλον λέγει, τοῦ δὲ τρεῖς Καβείρους, ὧν Νύμφας Καβειρίδας·”

“21. Acusilaüs, the Argive, calls Cadmilus the son of Cabeiro and Hephæstus, and Cadmilus the father of three Cabeiri, and these the fathers of the nymphs called Cabeirides.”

[Strabo. Geography, Volume V: Books 10-12. Awent by Horace Leonard Jones. Loeb Classical Library 211. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928. lvs.114 to 115]

But when Herodotus 2.51 and Hippolytus Refutation of all Heresies 5.3 (8) speak of two likenesses of Hermes on Samothrace, seemingly shown side by side, we may guess that the father and the sons were often formenged with eachother. Apollodorus 3.1.1 tells us Cadmus had two brothers Phoenix and Cilix, and a sister Europa.    And in their company was also “Thasus, son of Poseidon, or according to Pherecydes, of Cilix” and their mother Telephassa (Τηλέφασσα, Tēléphassa, "far-shining") .

However, something has gone awry withal as Cadmilus or Casmilus   is transparently from Hasammili the Hittite smith god! And when Pliny (H. N. vii. 56) writes that Cadmus is the father of stone-cutting (“lapicidinas Cadmus Thebis, aut ut Theophrastus in Phoenice”) and mining and smelting gold at mount Pangaeum in Thrace (“auri metalla et flaturam Cadmus Phoenix ad Pangaeum montem”) we find we suddenly have a god much more like the Greeks’ Hephaestus than their Hermes.

Although the Greek mythographers went to some lengths to weave the tales of Cadmus setting up Thebes with the words of Homer's Odyssey (book 11 lines 260 -265) which have Amphion and Zethus doing this, we can see that Amphion and Zethus are only the Cabiri of Samothrace shifted to Bœotia, and it is well to mark here that Bœotia was thought to have been settled by the folk of Thrace (see Strabo Geog. 9.2.3 & 9.2.25), and Lycophron in his Alexandra line 755 even goes so far as to call Anthedon "Θρῃκίας Ἀνθηδόνος" “Thracian Anthedon”. There was a temple of the Cabeiri in the middle of the town (Paus. 9.22.5) but here it seems they were understood by the profane as the Aloadae (Ἀλωάδαι) whose graves were in the borough (see Paus. 9.22.6). Samothrace being an island belonging to Thrace whence its name which is as much to say as "Samos of Thrace".   In Iliad book 13, lines 12 to 13, Poseidon watches the fight at Troy from:

ὑψοῦ ἐπ᾽ ἀκροτάτης κορυφῆς Σάμου ὑληέσσης Θρηϊκίης:
high on the topmost peak of wooded Samos, the Thracian....

See also Diodorus Siculus Library of History 5.47. The Sinties of Lemnos who were dear to Hephaestus and among whom Homer has the god falling when thrown down from the height of Olympus are also a folk of Thrace Strabo Geography book 7 fragments:

45.(46). Ὅτι Σιντοί, ἔθνος Θρᾳκικόν, κατῴκει τὴν Λῆμνον νῆσον· ὅθεν Ὅμηρος Σίντιας αὐτοὺς καλεῖ, λέγων·

ἔνθα με Σίντιες ἄνδρες.

45.a. Λῆμνος· ὠκίσθη δὲ πρῶτον ὑπὸ Θρᾳκῶν, οἳ Σίντιες ἐκαλοῦντο, ὡς Στράβων. (Stephanus Byzantinus, s.v. Λῆμνος.)

45 (46) The Sinti, a Thracian tribe, inhabit the island Lemnos; and from this fact Homer calls them Sinties, when he says, "where me the Sinties . . ."[Iliad 1.594]

Strabo Geog. book 19 chapitle 21:

“ μάλιστα μὲν οὖν ἐν Ἴμβρῳ καὶ Αήμνῳ τοὺς Καβείρους τιμᾶσθαι συμβέβηκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν Τροίᾳ κατὰ πόλεις· τὰ δ᾿ ὀνόματα αὐτῶν ἐστὶ μυστικά.”

“Now it has so happened that the Cabeiri are most honoured in Imbros and Lemnos, but they are also honoured in separate cities of the Troad; their names, however, are kept secret. ”

That Amphion was shown as a harper and Zethus as a strong man should make us think of Apollo and Herakles/Hercules and also gives us the true meaning on Hyginus's words on Gemini marked above. For Amphion and Zethus see my earlier blog post [here].

The dragon's teeth sown by Jason came from the dragon Cadmus slew as he was setting up seven-gated Thebes. Cadmus' sowing of the dragon's teeth was the first sowing. And if Jason's sowing was a demiurgic myth then Cadmus' is even more so. It is all the same thing as the stones that Deucalion and Pyrrha threw behind them that became men and women (see Apollodorus Bibliotheka 1.7.2). And before you can sow you have to plough. As Castor and Polydeuces helped Jason, we might well guess that the Cabiri helped Cadmus, and when the helpers are sundered from the god they helped, we get the belief that Amphion and Zethus, who are for the Cabiri, and not Cadmus, set up Thebes. Thebes with its seven gates (“Θήβης ... ἑπταπύλοιο” – Iliad 11.263 & 4.406) , each one hallowed to one of the seven planets is a true "cosmopolis" (see Nonnos Dionysiaca 5.49 to 87). Ovid therefore interestingly likens the dragon Cadmus slays to that among the stars which “geminas qui separat arctos” “sunders the twin bears” (line 45). The track of the cow that Cadmus is following from Delphi may well be for the “milky way” (see Nonnos’ areaching of it in his Dionysiaca book 4 lines 344 347). Seven gated Thebes is thus one with the labyrinth we spoke about in an earlier blog post, and it betokens the material universe. The ploughing is not only a needful thing for sowing, but of old Varro tells us cities were set up by ploughing a furrow to mark their outline, whence the word play in Latin of urbs and urves. And for those who maybe wondering where it fits into the scheme of things, before you plough you have to win your ploughland and you do that by the bull's hide trick we spoke of in the last blog post.

Cadmus the dragon -slayer and demiurgus however, has left Hermes behind, if the Greeks did right in linking him to Hermes in the first place, for aside from bringing in letters, Cadmus is seen to be much more like the eastern Indra or even the Greeks' Herakles who will be born in his city at a later time. It is worth marking here that Ovid in his Metamorphoses has Cadmus wearing a lion’s skin while slaying the dragon (lines 52 to 53):

… Tegimen derepta leoni
pellis erat, …

… his covering was a skin taken from a lion…

But none of the old likeness of Cadmus on pots however, seem to show him thus. Nonnos has Cadmus slay the dragon with a “μάρμαρον ... οὖρον” (4.409) a “boundary stone or marble/crystal pillar” also called a “κραναὸν βέλος” “rocky bolt” (4.410). Whilst Ovid has Cadmus throw a mill-stone (“molarem” line 59) at the dragon, but will nevertheless have it slain either by a “telum … iaculum” (lines 53-4) or a “splendenti lancea ferro” (line 53, see “hastile” “by a spear shaft” (line 69)) which not only transfixes the dragon but also an oak tree (“quercus” l. 91 “robore” l. 92) behind it.

I can't help thinking here how Vishnu, Indra's erstwhile comrade who was linked to Hermes/Mercury at one time hence his vahana the garuda (Dionysiaca 3.433 Hermes calls himself “ἄγγελος ἀθανάτων τανυσίπτερος,” “wing-spreading Messenger of the immortals.” [lvs.130 to 131]), has all but eclipsed Indra today in India. Vishnu whose deeds are Indra's!

It should also be marked here that Hephaestus and Zeus as the thunder-god, and match of the eastern Indra, are not that far apart to begin with. And in the east both Indra, and Tvaṣṭṛ (त्वष्टृ) the smith god, have the byname of Viśvakarman.

That Cadmus and Harmonia were thought to have become snakes is worth marking here.

Above: Cadmus and Harmonia by Bernard Salomon, La Métamorphose d'Ovide figurée, éditée par Jean Tournes, Lyon 1557.

Hyginus Fabulae 6 (awend. Grant):

"Cadmus Agenoris et Argiopes filius ira Martis quod draconem fontis Castalii [recte Ismenii] custodem occiderat suorum prole interempta cum Harmonia Veneris et Martis filia uxore sua in Illyriae regionibus in dracones sunt conversi."

"Cadmus, son of Agenor and Argiope, along with Harmonia his wife, daughter of Venus and Mars, after their children had been killed, were turned into snakes in the region of Illyria by the wrath of Mars, because Cadmus had slain the Draco, guardian of the fountain of Castalia [Ismenia]."

Their son Illyrius is said to have given his name to Illyria (see Apollodorus Bibliotheka 3.5.4). If we understand Cadmus and Harmonia here as a kind of first man and first woman matching Deucalion and Pyrrha, we find that they also match, in a most wonderful way, the twin brother and sister Fuxi and Nüwa who are found in China:

By Anonymous - Zhongguo gu dai shu hua jian ding zu (中国古代书画鑑定组). 1997. Zhongguo hui hua quan ji (中国绘画全集). Zhongguo mei shu fen lei quan ji. Beijing: Wen wu chu ban she. Volume 1., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9923834

In the myth of Cadmus, Hermes is more truly betokened by Teiresias (Τειρεσίας) Cadmus' helper who is linked up to the copulating snakes that are the same that we see twined about Hermes' caduceus, and which the shaft thrust in between seems to impede (the star of Hermes/Mercury is exalted in the sign of Virgo). From what Hyginus says we might think that Cadmus and Harmonia (=the snakes on the caduceus) begin the "wheel of generation" (=saṃsāraḥ), the cycles of death and rebirth which has penance for sin as its basis. Teiresias betokens that wisdom (he was blinded after seeing Athena naked) which brings all the cycles and the penances to a end (=mokṣa). But Apollodorus sets out the plot in another way. He has Cadmus alone serving Ares for a ἀίδιος ἐνιαυτός "Great Year" (see Bibliotheka 3.4.2) to atone for the death of the dragon. His service then betokens everyman's lot, that is the putting of soul into body. And there he would abide forever unless Athena (=Wisdom) brought it to an end. Thus Apollodorus' words:

μετὰ δὲ τὴν θητείαν Ἀθηνᾶ αὐτῷ τὴν βασιλείαν κατεσκεύασε, ...
After his servitude Athena procured for him the kingdom, ... .

He wasn't king before this, and his accession to kingship as also his wedding with Harmonia which in Apollodorus' telling is made to follow afterwards, are tokens of Cadmus' accession to wisdom and corrresponding spiritual promotion and also of the gods forgiveness of his sins (eadem 3.4.2). And Cadmus here is one with Dionysus who is made out to be his downstream offspring.

"three Cabeiri"

The name of the "Cabeiri" as also the title of "Great Gods" was variously misapplied to the many gods worshipped on Samothrace. The main gods to whom the title of the "Great Gods" maybe most truly belongs are to be found in the scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 1.916-8 :

“Τοὺς δὲ μυοῦντας ἑν Σαμοθράκῃ Καβείρους εἶναί φησι Μνασέας τρεῖς ὄντας τὸν ἀριθμὸν, Ἀξίερον, Ἀξιόκερσαν, Ἀξιόκερσον. Ἀξίερον μὲν εἶναι τὴν Δήμητραν, Ἀξιόκερσαν, δὲ τὴν Περσεφόνην, Ἀξιόκερσον δὲ τὸν Ἅιδην. Οἱ δὲ προστιθέασι καὶ τέταρτον, Κασμῖλον. Ἔστι δὲ οὗτος ὁ Ἑρμῆς, ὡς ἱστορεῖ Διονυσόδωρος. … Καβείρους δὲ ὀνομασθῆναι ἀπὸ Καβείρου ὄρους ὲν Φρυγίᾳ, ὅθεν εἰς Σαμοθράκην μετηνέχθησαν. ”

“On Samothrace there are held initiations to the Kabeiroi, as Mnaseas says. Their names, four in number, are Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos. Axieros is Demeter, Axiokersa is Persephone, and Axiokersos is Hades. Kasmilos, added as the fourth, is Hermes, as Dionysodorus relates. … The title “Kabeiroi” seems to come from the Kabeira mountains in Phrygia, since they were transferred from there. … ”

The link to Phrygia ties in the goddess here identified with Demeter to the “mother of the Gods” worshipped in Phrygia, and indeed Pausanias acknowledges this when he says 9.25.5:

“οἵτινες δέ εἰσιν οἱ Κάβειροι καὶ ὁποῖά ἐστιν αὐτοῖς καὶ τῇ Μητρὶ τὰ δρώμενα, σιωπὴν ἄγοντι ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν συγγνώμη παρὰ ἀνδρῶν φιληκόων ἔστω μοι. ”

“I must ask the curious to forgive me if I keep silence as to who the Cabeiri are, and what is the nature of the ritual performed in honour of them and of the Mother.”

From what Acusilaüs the Argive says about the gods of Samothrace it seems that Axiokersos was identified with the Greeks' Hephaestus, notwithstanding that he is identified with the Greeks' Hades in the scholion, whilst Axieros or Demeter was also called Cabeiro (Nonnos Dionys. 17.21 calls her "Θρήισσα Καβειρώ" "Thracian Cabeiro"). Thus Pausanias refers to her as Demeter Cabeiria (Καβειρία - 9.25.8). The gods who are said to be the match of the Dioscuri, and who are often spoken of as the Cabeiri, and Acusilaüs refers to them as the "three Cabeiri", are the offspring of these, and it seems they are called the Cabeiri from their mother being called Cabeiro/Cabeiria. Their proper name seems to have been however, the Anaktes (ἄνακτες) "kings" as the main temple on Samothrace was called from them the Anactorium.

" τὸ δὲ ἀνακτόρειον <διὰ> τὸ ἄνω."
"But "Anactorium" is of the same import with the expression "to ascend upwards." ...".

Axiokersa or Persephone must be their sister and one of the Cabeirides. Casmilos whom the scholiast links and other writers have linked to Hermes was originally the name for Hephaestus the father of the Cabeiri! We have already marked how what was said of the original Casmilos might have leant itself to an identification with Hermes, but the Anaktes also have a Hermes-like character as will be seen in what follows. And Cadmus, whose name is actually a shortening of Casmilos, as the founder of seven-gated Thebes, is only a mythic double of Amphion and Zethus who are the twin-gods of Samothrace transferred to Bœotia.

From what Nonnus says of Alcon and Eurymedon, the idea that there are "three Cabeiri" seems a bit odd. But if they are the same as the Cyclopes or Curetes, who are often shown as three, this threeness will maybe seem much less of a mystery. Clement of Alexandria however, in his Protrepticus (Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας: "Exhortation to the Greeks"), 2.19.1 & 4 lifts the veil for us here:

"Εἰ θέλεις δ' ἐποπτεῦσαι καὶ Κορυβάντων ὄργια, τὸν τρίτον ἀδελφὸν ἀποκτείναντες οὗτοι τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ νεκροῦ φοινικίδι ἐπεκαλυψάτην καὶ καταστέψαντε ἐθαψάτην, φέρον τες ἐπὶ χαλκῆς ἀσπίδος ὑπὸ τὰς ὑπωρείας τοῦ Ὀλύμπου ... Καβείρους δὲ τοὺς Κορύβαντας καλοῦντες καὶ τελετὴν Καβειρικὴν καταγγέλλουσιν·"

"If you wish to inspect the orgies of the Corybantes, then know that, having killed their third brother, they covered the head of the dead body with a purple cloth, crowned it, and carrying it on the point of a spear, buried it under the roots of Olympus. ... Those Corybantes also they call Cabiri; and the ceremony itself they announce as the Cabiric mystery."

Now this is the profane version to say the least, but it is enough to see what is going on. We have two acts. The first act is that the two of the brothers who are our Heavenly Twins proper so to speak, "kill" a third brother who is sometimes shown to be, in other profane versions, only a half-brother. And sometimes we find the myth simply has one brother "kill" the other. These actually are doing the same demiurgic work here as Typhon or Seth does in the myth of Osiris and the Titans in the myth of Dionysus for their brother is all the same as Osiris and Dionysus is (and thus Clement also speaks of the two brothers as holding the “τοῦ Διονύσου αἰδοῖον”). The slain brother is for the ἀρχανθρωπος (=first man, archetypal man), who is here seen to be one with Dionysus. And thus the aśvinau are the brothers of Yama and Manu both of whom stand for the ἀρχανθρωπος in his mortal and immortal paradigms. Thus Pausanias (9.25.6) tells us the Cabeiri are called Prometheus (Προμηθέως) and his son Ætnæus (Αἰτναῖος). This is a bit garbled, but nevertheless reminds us that Prometheus stands in the place of the killed brother, that is, of Dionysus. Thus the giant fennel stalk or narthex is shared by both. At the beginning of Æschylus’ Prometheus Bound (Προμηθεὺς Δεσμώτης) we thus find Hephæstus with Cratos (Κράτος) "Strength" and Bias (Βίας) "Might" binding the Titan Prometheus. Cratos and Bias are here the helpers of Hephæstus and are for the Heavenly Twins (Pindar speaks of Castor as βίας<βίαν “mighty” in the eleventh Pythian). Prometheus is here for the ἀρχανθρωπος. Thus Damascius’ commentary on Plato’s Phædo 69b-c:

Ὅτι Κορικῶς μὲν εἰς γένεσιν κάτεισιν ἡ ψυχή,
Διονυσιακῶς δὲ μερίζεται ὑπὸ τῆς γενέσεως,
Προμηθείως δὲ καὶ Τιτανικῶς ἐγκαταδεῖται τῷ σώματι.

"Like Kore, the soul desends into genesis
like Dionysus she is scattered by generation,
like Prometheus and the Titans she is chained to the body."

[awending L. G. Westerink §130 of Prometheus Trust outsetting lvs.80-83]

Thus the twins slay the bull whose hide marks out the plot for the city to be, or plough the furrow that marks out its walls, and build the city or castle or labyrinth that is actually our world and sow the seeds of mankind in it. Dionysus is the bull. When the tale is misunderstood, we find that one brother is sometimes said to be slain by the other (like Romulus and Remus) who is then the one "set ... to watch" as the nursery rhyme of London Bridge is Falling Down would have it. A further misunderstanding leads to those myths whereby evrything is literally made out of the body of the brother who inevitably takes on gigantic proportions.

Thus also we may understand why Dionysus in the Orphic hymns is a "twofold god" "many shaped" (30, 39 "θεὸν διφυῆ, πολύμορφον", see also 5). Diodorus Siculus' (lib. 4.5.2) words are worth thinking about:

“Δίμορφον δ´ αὐτὸν δοκεῖν ὑπάρχειν διὰ τὸ δύο Διονύσους γεγονέναι, τὸν μὲν παλαιὸν καταπώγωνα διὰ τὸ τοὺς ἀρχαίους πάντας πωγωνοτροφεῖν, τὸν δὲ νεώτερον ὡραῖον καὶ τρυφερὸν καὶ νέον, καθότι προείρηται. ”

“He was thought to have two forms, men say, because there were two Dionysi, the ancient one having a long beard because all men in early times wore long beards, the younger one being youthful and effeminate and young, as we have mentioned before.” (awend. C. H. Oldfather)

The ἀρχανθρωπος is thus the beginning of both men and women, and is both the material copy and divine immaterial archetype. Hippolytus Refutation of all Heresies book 5, chapitle 2 (Greek 7):

" Χαλδαῖοι δὲ τὸν Ἀδάμ. Καὶ τοῦτον εἶναι φάσκουσι τὸν ἄνθρωπον, ὃν ἀνέδωκεν ἡ γῆ μόνον· κεῖσθαι δὲ αὐτὸν ἄπνουν, ἀκίνητον, ἀσάλευτον, ὡς ἀνδριάντα, εἰκόνα ὑπάρχοντα ἐκείνου τοῦ ἄνω, τοῦ ὑμνουμένου Ἀδάμαντος ἀνθρώπου, γενόμενον ὑπὸ δυνάμεων τῶν πολλῶν, περὶ ὧν ὁ κατὰ μέρος λόγος ἐστὶ πολύς.

"The Chaldeans, however, say that this Adam [Ἀδάμ] is the man whom alone earth brought forth. And that he lay inanimate, unmoved, (and) still as a statue; being an image of him who is above, who is celebrated as the man Adam [Ἀδάμαντος], having been begotten by many powers, concerning whom individually is an enlarged discussion."

ἀδάμαντος from ἀδάμας "untamed".

By confusion the twin statues of his brothers at Samothrace were misinterpreted by some along these lines, thus Hippolytus again book 5, Chapitle 3 (greek 8):

Τουτέστι, φησί, τὸ μέγα καὶ ἄρρητον Σαμοθπᾴκων μυστήριον, ὃ μόνοις ἔξεστιν εἰδέναι τοῖς τελείοις, φησίν, ἡμῖν. Διαρρήδην γὰρ οἱ Σαμόθρᾳκες τὸν Αδὰμ ἐκεῖνον παραδιδόασιν ἐν τοῖς μυστηρίοις τοῖς ἐπιτελουμένοις παῥ αὐτοῖς ἀρχάνθρωπον. Ἕστηκε δέ ἀγάλματα δύο ἐν τῷ Σαμοθπᾴκων ἀνακτόρῳ ἀνθρώπων γυμνῶν, ἄνω τεταμένας ἐχόντων τὰς χεῖρας ἀμφοτέρας εἱς οὐρανὸν καὶ τὰς αἱσχύνας ἄνω ἐστραμμένας, καθάπερ ἐν Κυλλήνῃ τὸ τοῦ Ἑρμοῦ. Εἰκόνες δέ εἰσι τὰ προειρημένα ἀγάλματα τοῦ ἀρχανθώπου καὶ τοῦ ἀναγεννωμένου πνευματικοῦ, κατὰ πάνθ’ ὁμοουσίου ἐκείνῳ τῳ ἀνθρώπῳ.

This is, he says, the great and ineffable mystery of the Samothracians, which it is allowable, he says, for us only who are initiated to know. For the Samothracians expressly hand down, in the mysteries that are celebrated among them, that (same) Adam as the primal man. And habitually there stand in the temple of the Samothracians two images of naked men, having both hands stretched aloft towards heaven, and their pudenda erecta, as with the statue of Mercury on Mount Cyllene. And the aforesaid images are figures of the primal man (ἀρχανθώπου < ἀρχανθρωπος = ἀρχή+ἄνθρωπος), and of that spiritual one that is born again, in every respect of the same substance with that man.

And thus we should also understand the words of the scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 1.916-8:

“ Οἱ δὲ φασι, δύο πρότερον εἶναι τοὺς Καβείρους, Δία τε πρεσβύτερον καὶ Διόνυσον νεὡτερον. ”
“Others say there are two Kabeiroi, the elder Zeus, and the younger Dionysus.”

The younger Dionysus would here be for earthly, the elder Zeus for the spiritual man. This Dionysus it seems was the original speaker of the words "I and my father are one"!

From the same mistake we have all those things which seem to show the Heavenly Twins as witherward to eachother, or as having unlike fathers or mothers, thus Yāska ’s bold but revealing words about the Aśvinau in his Nirukta Ch. 12. 2 (awending Lakshman Sarup):

"vāsātyas.anya.ucyata.usas.putras.tava.anyah''

One is called the son of night (vasatí), the other son of dawn (uṣā́ḥ).

And this from Capella’s Wedding of Mercury... I. 82-83:

“Dehinc admissi Tonantis ipsius filii. … Post hos duorum una quidem germanaque facies; sed alius lucis sidere, opacae noctis alius refulgebat.

“Then the sons of the Thundering One himself were let in …/ And after these came two brothers with the same anseens (=faces)-but one seated himself shining with light; the other darkened by night.”

Whence our black and white twins (see last post [here]). When pushed to the utmost we have outright dualism and "war in heaven".

It is tempting to understand Homer's riddling words about the Dioscuri in his Odyssey book 11, lines 298 to 304, as belonging with the above, were it not that both twins spend alternately a day among the dead and a day among the gods.

καὶ Λήδην εἶδον, τὴν Τυνδαρέου παράκοιτιν,
ἥ ῥ᾽ ὑπὸ Τυνδαρέῳ κρατερόφρονε γείνατο παῖδε,
Κάστορά θ᾽ ἱππόδαμον καὶ πὺξ ἀγαθὸν Πολυδεύκεα, 300
τοὺς ἄμφω ζωοὺς κατέχει φυσίζοος αἶα:
οἳ καὶ νέρθεν γῆς τιμὴν πρὸς Ζηνὸς ἔχοντες
ἄλλοτε μὲν ζώουσ᾽ ἑτερήμεροι, ἄλλοτε δ᾽ αὖτε
τεθνᾶσιν: τιμὴν δὲ λελόγχασιν ἶσα θεοῖσι.

“And I saw Lede, the wife of Tyndareus,
who bore to Tyndareus two sons, stout of heart,
[300] Castor the tamer of horses, and the boxer Polydeuces.
These two (ἄμφω) the earth, the giver of life, covers, albeit alive,
and even in the world below they have honor from Zeus.
One day they live in turn, and one day they are dead;
and they have won honour like unto that of the gods."

ἑτερήμερος means "every other day". And the words are to be literally taken to mean that every other day both the twins are "in the world below" (νέρθεν γῆς = lit. "under the earth") with the dead, and in heaven with the gods above. But by the "world below"/"dead" here, it has long been understood that it is our world, the world of nature (physis), the physical or material plane, that is truly meant where death is, as it were, the king of all. Thus Plato Gorgias 492e:

“τίς δ᾽ οἶδεν, εἰ τὸ ζῆν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν,
τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῆν; ... ”

“Who knows if to live is to be dead,
And to be dead, to live?”

[Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 awent by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967. ]

Thus the life of the mortal body is to be thought of as the "death" (=imprisonment) of the immortal soul, and the "life" of the immortal soul (=freeing from prison) is the death of the mortal body. Lessening the one was always thought to reveal the working of the other.

“τὸ δὲ ἕτερον ἐλαττωθὲν τὴν τοῦ ἑτέρου ἐφανέρωσεν ἐνέργειαν”
“but lessening the one reveals the activity of the other” (Hermetica IV. §6 see B. Copenhaver’s outsetting lf.16).

We now come to the second act of the Heavenly Twins of Samothrace.

"they covered the head of the dead body with a purple cloth, crowned it, and carrying it on the point of a spear, buried it under the roots of Olympus"

At face value this looks as dismal as the foregoing act, but when we know that purple cloths and crowns were handed to initiates we can begin to see that what is actually being signified here is that the two brothers are actually rescuing their lost brother, bringing him back to life so as to live with them among the gods. And thus on Samothrace the Heavenly twins it seems were sometimes understood as the sons of Hephæstus (=Demiurgus), sometimes as the sons of Hermes with this latter being thought of as an anagogic god, leading upward things from below. And thus the Heavenly Twins are together what Hermes or Mercurius is, or rather he is the twain put into one.

“Mercurius enim, qui animas ducere et reducere solet,...”
“Mercurius indeed, who is wont to bring souls over and to lead them back,...” – Petronius Satyricon 140.

But to the theologos Gemini was Apollo's token thus Manilius writes in his Astronomica book 1 line 440:

"formosos Phoebus Geminos [tuetur]"
"Phœbus (=Apollo) oversees the fair twins" .

Yet the things of Apollo are often also the things of Mercury, thus Pliny Nat. Hist. 2.6§39:

“... Mercurii sidus, a quibusdam appellatum Apollinis,...”
“the star of Mercurius is by some called that of Apollo” .

This is the true "Genesis" and "Exodus" which some badly misunderstand as history when it is myth.

"Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared." (Exodus 23:20)

But the "an Angel" nevertheless, may be understood to be two/twofold (LORD+Angel, or "pillar of a cloud"+"pillar of fire") :

"And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:" (Exodus 13:21)

Or if we withmete this with Genesis 18.1-2 we can see that when the "LORD" is marked "three men" are nevertheless to be understood:

"1 And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; 2 And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, ...".

The true meaning of the Aśvinau of the Ṛgvedaḥ matches this. Although they are mainly sung about in that work as gods of the dawn, the dawn truly meant here is that wherein men rise from their death-like sleep to a new life in the kingdom of light.

Because their brother is the ἀρχανθρωπος every human being is a part of him and so the Heavenly Twins have a great ongoing work to save all mankind! Indeed, it would seem this was the penance enjoined upon them for the transgressive nature of their first demiurgic act. Thus the twins are everywhere understood as daivyā bhiṣajā "godly leaches/healers/doctors/saviours" and all that goes with that. Ṛgvedaḥ 8. 18.8 (Griffith):

    uta tyā daivyā bhiṣajā śaṃ naḥ karato aśvinā |
    yuyuyātāmito rapo apa sridhaḥ ||

    And may the Asvins, the divine Pair of Physicians, send us health:
    May they remove iniquity and chase our foes.

Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 4:1:5:8:

    "aśvinau ha vā idam bhiṣajyantau ceratuḥ ... "

    " Now the Asvins then wandered about here on earth performing cures."

For the Greeks they are here the ministers of Apollo. Although Dionysus and Apollo are themselves sometimes understood as the higher and lower aspects of the ἀρχανθρωπος (as Plutarch seems to in his On the E at Delphi), and Apollo and his sister have something both of the Heavenly Twins themselves (Hyginus understands Gemini as Hercules and Apollo, as well Castor and Polyduces, or Iasius and Triptolemos), and of the first man and first woman about them, it is much the better to understand Apollo as the the divine principle which heals/saves the wayward ἀρχανθρωπος, Dionysus.    Thus Damascius:

“ Ὅτι τὰ ὅμοια μυθεύεται καὶ ἐν τῷ παραδείγματι. ὁ γὰρ Διόνυσος, ὅτε τὸ εἴδωλον ἐνέθηκε τῷ ἐσόπτρῳ, τούτῳ ἐφέσπετο καὶ οὕτως εἰς τὸ πᾶν ἐμερίσθη. ὁ δὲ' Απόλλων συναγείρει τε αὐτὸν καὶ ἀνάγει καθαρτικός ὢν θεὸς καὶ τοῦ Διονύσου σωτὴρ ὡς ἀληθῶς, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο Διονυσοδότης ἀνυμνεῖται. ”

“The myth describes the same events as taking place in the prototype of the soul. When Dionysus had projected his reflection into the mirror, he followed it and was thus scattered over the universe. Apollo gathers him and brings him back to heaven, for he is the purifiying god and truely the saviour of Dionysus, and therefore he is celebrated as The Dionysus-Giver. ” (see leaves 80-81 The Greek Commentary On Plato's Phaedo no date, Prometheus Trust, awending by L. G. Westerink).

The next lines of Damascius’ commentary on Plato’s Phædo 69b-c which follow on from those already given above:

λύει μὲν οὖν ἑαυτὴν Ἡρακλείως ἰσχύσασα,
συναιρεῖ δὲ διὰ Ἀπόλλωνος καὶ τῆς Σωτείρας Ἀθηνᾶς ... ἀνάγει δὲ εἰς τὰ οἰκεῖα αἴτια ἑαυτὴν μετὰ τῆς Δήμητρος.

She [the soul] frees herself by acquiring the strength of Hercules,
gathers herself together through the help of Apollo and of Athena the Saviour,...
and she elevates herself to the causes of her being with Demeter.

[awending L. G. Westerink §130 of Prometheus Trust outsetting lvs.80-83]

When the soul rather than the intellect is considered we have the descent and ascent of Persephone and the like myths.

The Heavenly Twins are the archetypal knights, so to speak, of the Great Mother of the Gods, Magna Mater Deorum, a goddess "clothed with the sun" indeed (the "true Electra"), and understood by the Greeks as Demeter. And their great work through the whole of time is to bring all her lost children back home.

"... to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

Farewell.

P. S. Those readers who know their Golden Bough and hoped to see something of the "oak of Errol" "not far from the Falcon Stone" with its mistletoe, and so on, should know that this oft overgone tale comes from the editorial notes of “The Bridal of Caolchairn and other Poems,’ by John Hay Allan, Esq., London, Hookham; and Edinburgh, Tait. 8vo. 1822, wherein an "old MS. history" is marked. But of this "old MS. history" "we know no more than is contained in the above references to it in the Editorial Notes of 1822" (see The London Quarterly Review June 1847, vol. 81, lf.45) and "we have no doubt ... that were the ‘old MS. history of the Hays' itself before us, it would prove a genuine elder brother of the Vestiarium ‘from the Douay papers.’" In other words, it never was, and the whole thing was made up by John Hay Allan, otherwise John Sobieski Stuart.

P. P. S. For "Sassenachs" like myself, Gowrie (<Gobharaidh - from gobhar, a goat) is the same as the Deanery of Gowrie in the Archdeaconry of St Andrews and is made up of the parishes of:
    1. Benvie
    2. Blair (now Blairgowrie)
    3. Cambusmichael
    4. Collace
    5. Errol
    6. Forgan (now Longforgan)
    7. Forteviot
    8. Fowlis
    9. Inchture
    10. Kilspindie
    11. Kinfauns
    12. Kinnoull
    13. Luncarty
    14. Methven
    15. Perth
    16. Pottie (now Dunbarney)
    17. Rait
    18. Rhynd
    19. Rossinclerach (now Rossie)
    20. Scone

And the "Carse of Gowie" is the name given to the rich lands therein near the Tay.

Truefastness

Monday 4 November 2019

with yokis of a pleuch ...