Taking The Fall For Humankind: Psycho-Secrets Of The Celtic Pookas
By ashley cowie Mythology & Mystery
It is generally accepted that Fairies were mythological creatures from old European folklore, and that according to fairy folklorists the so-called wee folk prefer natural sweetened foods like honey, plain milk, sweet butter, scones with jam and honey cakes. However, what is more obscure is that buried within the timeworn stories of a certain scruffy little fairy called the Brownie, or Pooka, hides a trait that resides within every human, right now.
Family brownie of Northern England. (1866) ( Archivist /Adobe Stock )
All across Celtic Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Brittany, and to a certain extent England, pre-Christian peoples believed that eating or drinking with a resident of the fairies’ land (Sidhe) would render one unable to escape the fairy realm. However, if one were offered fairy foods and drinks in this world, and decided not to eat them, it could enrage the fairies, and nobody wanted that, for chaos would prevail. According to a source, refusing to eat fairy food in this world could have ‘potentially fatal consequences… and the mildest response may be that the fairies exact an indirect revenge.’ Standing testimony, one particular Scottish myth tells of a ploughman who was thirsty, and all of a sudden heard a metal butter churn offer him a drink of cool, fresh milk. When he succumbed to the temptation a beautiful maiden appeared, dressed all in green, who offered the farmer fresh buttermilk. The shrewd farmer had heard everything about this spectral female and he suspected she was the Fairy Queen, the mistress of seduction, and he refused the milk. In classic fairy lore tradition, the farmer died within 12 months of the interaction. And in another version of this tale, a second farmer who drank the milk was rewarded his wish, to never drown.
The Celtic Brownie High King of Chaos, And Order
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, which was one and the same, the Lares were helpful deities considered as guardians of fire hearths, boundaries, fields and harvests. Observing the meals and defending the family against contaminated foodstuffs, clay and wooden statues of Lares were placed on tables during family meals. Functionally similar to the Lares of ancient Roman traditions, the Brùnaidh or Gruagach (Brownie) of pre-Christian Pagan Scottish and Irish cultures that was said to come out at night to perform various useful chores, like cumbersome farm work.
The scruffy, and generally skinny, Brownie expected the human owners of any given household to leave bowls of milk or cream at their firesides for his consumption. Being of an exceptionally sensitive nature, if the food was not set out, the otherwise helpful spirits could vanish forever, and if they were really offended, they would stay in the house and cause chaos. Writer Katharine Mary Briggs’ 1967 book ‘The Fairies in Tradition and Literature,’ reports this Brownie tradition goes all the way back to ‘the family cult of deceased ancestors in ancient times that was centered around the hearth, which later became the place where offerings would be left for the brownie.’ Hearths were considered liminal spaces within homes, where fairies were able to enter, or cross over from their realm, and the later Christian tradition of leaving biscuits and milk out for Santa is linked directly from Celtic Brownie rituals.
Just like the Lares of ancient Rome, Celtic Brownies were associated with ghosts, and in the 16th-century tale ‘Cauld Lad of Hilton’, the Brownie from Hilton in County Durham, England was the naked ghost of a stable boy who was murdered by one of the Lords of Hilton Castle. However, the greatest difference between the Lares and Brownies is that the former was permanently bound in service to the house in which they resided.
In 1703, John Brand wrote of a Brownie in Shetland, the island group of the north coast of Scotland: ‘Not above forty or fifty years ago, every family had a brownie, or evil spirit, so called, which served them, to which they gave a sacrifice for his service; as when they churned their milk, they took a part thereof, and sprinkled every corner of the house with it, for Brownie’s use; likewise, when they brewed, they had a stone which they called "Brownie’s stane", wherein there was a little hole into which they poured some wort for a sacrifice to Brownie. They also had some stacks of corn, which they called Brownie's Stacks, which, though they were not bound with straw ropes, or in any way fenced as other stacks used to be, yet the greatest storm of wind was not able to blow away straw off them.’
Puck A Shrewd and Knavish Spirit
In England, the Brownie of Scotland was the Puck, who was made famous in William Shakespeare’s 16th-century A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ which featured a ‘shrewd and knavish spirit.’ The character Puck, also Robin Goodfellow and Hobgoblin, is a servant of the Fairy King, Oberon, who is responsible for the mischief that unfolds in the story. However, while the word ‘Brownie’ describes the appearance of the scruffy little brown man, it is unclear where the word ‘Puck’ originated, but it is generally agreed that it is an Anglicization of the Old Norse work púki, meaning a small devil. In Ireland the Brownie was the sometimes pleasing and sometimes terrifying, but always a shapeshifting, ‘Púca’ (Pooka) which like in Norway, meant a small spirit or ghost. Pooka played a central role in the hard work done by coastal fishing settlements, and they often took the form of black goats or powerful steeds. However, unlike in Scotland, Púcaí (plural) in Ireland did not always have dark hair and skin and sometimes they were reported with white fur or hair, allowing them to appear as white goats, cats, dogs and horses, and at times, they took on human forms with the power of speech.
The Often Devilish Keepers Of Human Destiny
In Celtic cultures, Samhain, marked the end of the harvest period and the beginning of winter, the darker half of the year. Falling about halfway between the autumn equinox and winter solstice, with celebrations beginning on the evening of October 31, Samhain occurred on November 1, and so old was this festival that many of Ireland and Scotland’s Neolithic passage tombs were aligned with the setting point of the Sun on the horizon on November 1. Around the time of Samhain, great gatherings and feasts were held at the Neolithic stone burial mounds peppered all over the fields which were seen as portals, or doorways to the fairy world, and it was at this time the Púcai came into full force.
The Irish hero Fionn fights the god of chaos, Aillen, who is said to have burned Tara each Samhain in Heroes of the Dawn (1940) (Public Domain)
However, do not think that the Pooka was ‘only’ an archetype for the chaos and successes associated with harvests and fishing seasons, for in 1825 Cork-born folklorist Thomas Crofton Croker published ‘Fairy Legends and Traditions’ in which he alleged: ‘the Pooka is a real flesh and blood person.’ Disguised as a human, the spirit was described as predicting unfortunate events in people’s lives, and that it vanishes to its supernatural realm to pull the strings of its forecasted catastrophic occurrences. Furthermore, the article titled ‘The Irish legend of the Pooka’ presents a July 2011 report by folklorist Owen Harding about an incident on Wednesday, November 1, 2006, about 7.30pm, when businessman Mr Denis O’Rourke reported meeting a Pooka: ‘A strange and well-dressed man was outside the front gate of Denis’ home. This man struck up a conversation with Denis, claiming he had known him for years. He went on to tell Denis about his family – true facts he could not have known, going back three generations, and how over years they had lost and gained money. This man, who did not give a name, also said that family finances were based on more than just heritage, they were also subject to greater economy of a nation. Over next couple of years O’Rourke witnessed not merely fiscal fall of country, but his own financial ruin, including his business, his family home and two other houses he had invested in."
Shakespear’s Puck was a master of confusion and a high king of chaos, and according to Celtic traditions this is generally what fairies did well. So how then does one best interpret the legendary Pooka, or Puck, in today’s world?
The Evolution Of The Pooka And Brownie
Imagine for a moment living in the old world, before technologies like microscopes, which enables one to see the genetic structures of plant risomas. What better way to rationalize in a failed crop, caused through root damage, than to blame a Pooka? One skill all humans have developed exceptionally well is their ability to reposition blame when chaos occurs. In days gone by it must have been so much easier on communities and societies to blame malevolent spirits for negative outcomes, than to point fingers at their leading farmers who often made wrong calls on when frosts would set or when rain would fall.
While the Pooka and Brownie may live on only in memories and stories, their malevolent functions have only transformed, and they persist in a range of other supernatural forces and associated belief systems. One would think that in the modern digital world, spirits, ghosts, gods and goddesses would have all but faded into the social background, but that would be a grave mistake. In 2019, a team of scientific researchers led by Dr Peter Bennett questioned 2,000 random people across Britain about their superstitious beliefs. While there was little mention of Brownies, the study demonstrated that ‘a fear of the unknown’ keeps ‘45 per cent of Brits saluting magpies, hoarding lucky pennies, being extra careful around mirrors and they never open umbrellas indoors.’
What was perhaps most interesting in the study was that 66 per cent of the 2,000 participants said they did not know the historical roots of their superstition. For example, nobody knew the origins of the opening umbrellas indoors causes bad luck belief. This tradition originated in ancient Egypt, where opening a sunshade of any sort was a deeply sacred act and was associated with worship of the Sun god Ra. Opening a shade willy-nilly, indoors, was believed to insult the god of the Sun because it caused a shadow, which was its antithesis.
Standing between Celtic Ireland’s Pooka and Scotland’s Brownie, the concept of a god being associated with undesirable results, negative outcomes and ill fortunes took root in Egypt, and continued in subsequent cultures. In Greek mythological traditions, standing opposite the goddess Harmonia, was Eris, daughter of Zeus and Hera. This divine mistress of discord and chaos would appear in Norse mythology as Loki, the trickster god of the Norse pantheon, and like the Pooka and Brownie, Eris and Loki were both described as shapeshifters whose deceptions seeded chaos among the people. Considering the deep antiquity of the lords of chaos archetype, it is maybe the case that a Pooka resides within all of humankind, perhaps representing the wild and chaotic nature that some manage to control better than others.
Mind Pookas, And Modern Blame Culture
Every time one utters the phrase ‘oh, for God’s sake’ in exasperation when things go wrong, it supports the human tendency to blame external forces for negative outcomes and this has unfortunately resulted in today’s so-called ‘Blame culture.’ Back in the day, encompassing all of history before the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, blaming a Pooka for a failed field of crops was an innocent act based on little scientific fact, but today, blame most often manifests in work environments where upper managers punch downwards on lower-level employees for their failures, rather than taking accountability themselves.
Blaming others, and making excuses in one’s defense, are mechanisms that lead to negative thought patterns like powerlessness, pessimism, helplessness, and anger. This type of negative thinking, according to Dr Loretta Graziano Breuning, in her ‘Habits of a Healthy Brain,’ leads to increased stress levels, hyper-reactivity, bad moods and a blaming culture even sparks accelerated cellular ageing, by increasing cortisol and alpha-amylase levels, two measurable indicators of stress in the body. Furthermore, when blame is replaced with attitudes of taking responsibility and being accountable, it leads to more positive thinking patterns like ‘self-confidence, autonomy, and self-reflection.’ And if this is not all good reason enough to stop blaming, in general, when a person resists and takes control of any given situation, the brain releases ‘Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins’ (a DOSE), which are all in the ‘feel good’ category of hormones.
In conclusion, whether one blames a god, or a Pooka, or an unknown malevolent deity, one is aligning with the perpetual chaos of the universe, and bringing into their lives a constant state of flux. And chaos is destined to return, time and time again, until one fixes the underlying real-world issues causing the confusion. To do so, to ‘blame,’ as the fairy tales tells, is to harvest more of the same negativity, and to live a life trapped not so much in a mythological fairy realm as a catastrophic self-replicating cosmic hamster wheel. The Pookas and Brownies of Celtic lore have gone nowhere, they only changed form, as all historical shapeshifters do.
Ashley Cowie is a Scottish historian, author and documentary filmmaker presenting original perspectives on historical problems, in accessible and exciting ways. His books, articles and television shows explore lost cultures and kingdoms, ancient crafts and artifacts, symbols and architecture, myths and legends telling thought-provoking stories which together offer insights into our shared social history. www.ashleycowie.com.
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/brownie
The Ancient Celtic Lords and Ladies of Death
Traditionally, history classes have been focused on installing widespread knowledge of the ancient Greek gods of the Underworld, led by Hades, but less is taught about Nyx, the goddess of night, and even less again about her sons, Hypnos, the god of sleep, and his brother Thanatos, the personification of death itself. In Norse mythology, Hel was a child of the trickster god Loki and served mythology and religion as the goddess of death, however, the names of the gods and goddesses of death from the Celtic Underworld are much less known, perhaps because they less often feature in action movies like their Greek and Norse counterparts.
The Bunworth Banshee, as depicted in the 1825 book, Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, by Thomas Crofton Croker, is a modern manifestation of the ancient Celtic deity, The Morrígan. (Public Domain)
The Otherworld Dwelling of Deities
According to Biblical texts and early theologians, God's definitive judgment and entry to heaven is what early Christians expected upon death, with the fear of hell being promised to those who rejected God’s will through life. However, in Celtic mythology there was no ‘Afterlife’ as such, but an ‘Otherworld’ that was not only the realm of the dead, but also the dwelling place for a pantheon of ancient deities that interacted with humans in life and death.
In Christianity, heaven and hell are taught to be actual places, most often causing both children and adults to struggle correlating this idea with the sky and the earth. This, however, was not an issue in old Celtic settlements across western Europe for the Afterlife was described as a parallel universe inhabited by all powerful deities. Celtic gods and goddesses were not believed to reside elsewhere, waiting for the departed souls to arrive after death, but they were perceived as often crossing back and forth to the human dimension, and Celtic heroes used magic to venture from here, into their realm.
Similarly, to ancient Inca priests in what is today Peru - who also lived in an animistic reality where animals and natural forms were imbued with life force - administrators of Gallic cosmology perceived the universe as comprising three primary parts. Historian John T. Koch’s 2006 Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia explains: Albios (heaven, white-world, upper-world), Bitu (world of the living beings), and Dubnos (hell, lower-world, dark-world) and the Latin name Orbis alius, described the place souls go to before being reincarnated.
While heaven and hell in the Christian tradition were accessible only after death, the Celtic Otherworld could be visited through magical rites performed at older Neolithic burial chambers, standing stone circles, forest groves, lakes, wells and caves. The ancient mounds and monuments served Celtic cultures as portals between the worlds and that dimension was populated by Aos Sí or Daoine Sí (Otherworld folk, or fairies). The portal locations were generally the reserve of the Celtic priesthood, the druids, but John Koch explains that ‘going underwater or across the western sea’ were publicly available portals to the Otherworld, which existed alongside the human realm. Furthermore, the presence of the Otherworld, and its hosts, was indicated by extreme changes in weather, like for example, an incoming magic mist from the Western Celtic Sea. Therefore, similarly to Greek and Roman myths, Scottish and Irish folklore reflect various aspects of nature.
While Greeks worshiped their all-powerful supreme god, Zeus, the Egyptians feared and revered Amun-Ra, as did the Vikings adore and venerate their god Odin. In Celtic Scotland the most powerful deity was the black-shawled, brutal old hag deity, Beira, or The Cailleach, the destructive Queen of Winter. After Beira created the mountains and rivers of Scotland with her magic pink hammer, she set about raising storms, ice and snow during January and February preventing the growth of greenery. It was only on Beltane, the Gaelic May Day festival, on May 1, halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice, that Beira was succeeded by the goddess Brighid who ruled the sky until Samhain on October 31 - November 1 (modern Halloween), marking the end of the harvest season and beginning of the ‘dark-half’ of the year.
According to researcher John MacCulloch in his 1911-book, The Religion of the Ancient Celts, in Welsh mythology the Otherworld was Annwn, which would evolve into the Isle of Avalon in later Arthurian legends. In Ireland, this dark parallel realm had many names: Tír nAill or Tír Tairngire (land of promise/promised land), Tír na nÓg (the other land), Tír fo Thuinn (land under the wave), Mag Mell (plain of delight), Mag Findargat (the white silver plain) and Mag Ildathach (the multicolored plain). In Ireland, where the supernatural realm operated as a parallel universe functioning with distorted time frames, it offered people everlasting joy, youth, beauty, and restored health. The Immrama (voyages) are Irish adventure tales in which beautiful young Otherworldly female deities seduce heroes into the ‘happy land’, from which they journey over the Western Sea and were generally never seen again.
Lord Of Darkness Dwelling in the House of Donn
Perhaps the most esoteric concept associated with the Celtic world was the realm, and place, Tech Duinn (the House of Donn or House of the Dark One), identified with Bull Rock Island off the west coast of County Cork in Ireland. According to Dáithí Ó hÓgáin’s 2006-book The Lore of Ireland this island resembles an ancient stone portal tomb and to visit Tech Duinn the House of The Dark One, was to succumb to ‘Dhuosnos’ or ‘Donn’ - The Dark Lord.
Modern folklore talks of Lord Donn as a phantom horseman riding a giant white steed, but in Ann Dooley and Harry Roe’s translation of Acallam na Senórach, the pagan Gaels regarded Donn as their ancestor, and it was a widespread belief that everyone would go to Tech Duinn when they died, thus, ‘to go to the House of Donn’ in Irish traditions meant to die. The House of Donn is a ‘zone’ where the souls of the dead gather before journeying to the Otherworld, and this is why Julius Caesar wrote that the Gauls claimed to descent from a god whom he likened to ‘Dīs Pater,’ the Roman god of the Underworld.
In the 11th-century Irish Lebor Gabála Érenn, or The Book of Invasions, the character Éber Donn was one of the mythical races of Milesians who drove the native race of gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann, below ground into the Irish Otherworld. Indeed, it was the Tuatha Dé Danann who became the fairies and deities of later cultures. As an ancestor of the Gaels, while Eber Donn was invading Ireland, he confronted Ériu, one of the most powerful goddesses of Ireland, and the destined to be ‘Lord of Death’ was drowned in a shipwreck off the southwest coast of Ireland where Tech Duinn, or Bull Rock Island, is located today. Further illustrating the nature of the House of Donn, in the Irish Metrical Dindshenchas or Lore of Places, a class of early Irish literature that offers the mythical origins of place names, the entry for Tech Duinn recounts the tale: “Through the incantations of the druids a storm came upon them, and the ship wherein Donn was foundered. ‘Let his body be carried to yonder high rock’, says Amairgen: ‘his folk shall come to this spot.’ So hence it is called Tech Duinn: and for this cause, according to the heathen, the souls of sinners visit Tech Duinn before they go to hell, and give their blessing, ere they go to the soul of Donn. But as for the righteous soul of a penitent, it beholds the place from afar, and is not borne astray. Such, at least, is the belief of the heathen”.
The Celtic hero, Fionn, who fought the nature god Aillen, who is said to have burned the royal kingmaking site of Tara every Samhain (Public Domain)
There exists a revealing twist in the tale of Donn, Lord of Death, in the ancient tale of Togail Bruidne Dá Derga (The Destruction of Dá Derga's Hostel). On his way to the great hall or hostel of the Red God, king Conaire Mór met his death in Bruiden Dá Derga (Dá Derga's Hostel). According to writer Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, Dá Derga's Hostel is another name for the house of death, but it refers to the god of death as the ‘Red God,’ placing him in the context of ‘violent death or sacrifice.’ However, this is not the oldest version of Donn, or a Lord of Death, for in the tale Tochmarc Treblainne (The Wooing of Treblann), Donn is described as the son of a much more ancient Celtic god of life and death - The Dagda.
The Dagda: Celtic Father of Life and Death
In Irish mythology the warrior-king, druid and father-god, Eochaid Ollathair, meaning ‘All-Father,’ is perhaps better known as The Dagda (Irish: An Dagda) ‘the good god’ or ‘the great god.’ As leader of the Tuatha Dé Danann his lover was The Morrígan, goddess of fate and predictor of the outcome of war, and just like many of the Greek gods, The Dagda played a harp to herald in the seasons. He also possessed a cauldron of plenty that never went empty, and his soup ladle was said to be so large that two men could sleep in it. The Dagda owned fruit trees that were always in season, and he had two pigs: one alive and one that was always roasting, and his club could both restore and take life. Having both the wisdom and magic of the druid class and the manliness and strength of the warrior, The Dagda was associated with the mysteries of fertility and agriculture and was perceived as a protector of all life and death, on earth.
The Dagda’s lover was the shape-shifting banshee, The Morrígan, a term that translates to ‘phantom queen.’ Primarily associated with the crow (badb), The Morrigan could foretell victory or defeat in battle and she often appeared as three land-goddess sisters, Ériu, Banba and Fódla. According to John Koch she was ‘a manifestation of the earth and sovereignty-goddess, chiefly representing the goddess' role as guardian of the territory and its people.’ Just like Beira, the Winter Queen of Scotland, The Morrigan came into power on Samhain (Halloween), when one of the central myths of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the ‘Cath Maige Tuired’ (Battle of the Plain of Pillars) played out. In this tale, while battling with the Fomorians, The Morrigan incited the god Lugh (the Sun) to fight, and around the time of Samhain she united with The Dagda. The Dagda’s army battled on the day of Samhain and The Morrigan encouraged his people to fight, and together the two deities eventually defeated the Fomorians.
In Irish mythology, the Tuatha de Danann were gods of growth and civilization; the Fomorians represented the chaotic and destructive powers of nature, darkness, and death. (Public Domain)
Samhain was when cattle were brought down from summer pastures and livestock were slaughtered in preparation for the forthcoming winter months. This was a time of feasting and drinking, excessively, and fires were burned across the hill tops of Scotland and Ireland to purify and recharge the perceived energies that united heaven and earth. This is when the veils between this world and the Otherworld were at their thinnest, when the Sidhe (fairy folk) crossed over into this realm.
However, from an astro-mythological perspective the tale of The Morrigan and The Dagda uniting is a not so veiled reference to the transitional period between the harvest and winter. In the real world, The Morrigan is associated with Rathcroghan, or Cruachan Cave and Fairy Mounds, or ‘Oweynagcat’ - ‘Cave of Cats.’ A story called Fled Bricrenn (Feast of Bricriu) speaks of the cave as Ireland’s ‘Hellmouth,’ where three monstrous cats emerge at night, which is clearly a motif for the three black Morrigan sisters dwelling in the Otherworld.
The Souterain leading into Oweynagcat – the cave of Cruachan. Like most Celtic portals to the Otherworld, Rathcroghans a complex of archaeological sites near Tulsk in County Roscommon, Ireland. (Davsca / CC BY-SA 3.0)
Preparing To Meet Donn
When people died in the Celtic world their bodies were treated in a wide range of different ways, from tomb burials to cremation, the latter of which, according to Christiane Eluere’s 1993-book The Celts First Masters of Europe, became more popular after the second century BC. In Celtic Britain excarnation was a popular ‘way to go’, where corpses were left exposed to the elements, and birds. When the bodies had been stripped of flesh the bones were buried and sometimes preserved and used in religious ceremonies. However, the prime way to transition to the Afterlife, physically, was to be interred in a purpose-built stone burial mound. According to Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars, the Celtic Gauls ‘executed and buried the slaves and attendants of leaders who had died,’ and he says this method of burial was abandoned by the first century BC.
To get to the ancient origins of burial and death traditions in Celtic times one must look towards the 2001-discovery of a cremated body and burial pits on the banks of the River Shannon in Limerick, that dated to 7,530 BC and 7,320 BC. Being twice as old as the famous passage tomb at Newgrange this discovery revealed the funeral practices of Ireland's early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. In 2016, Professor Aimée Little, an archaeologist at the University of York, England, analyzed a highly polished ceremonial adze, (ax) that was recovered from the burial site, which today represents the oldest polished ax ever unearthed in Europe. With no signs of having ever been used, yet blunted, the researchers think this weapon was a ritual component that was used in the man’s funerary rites, with the blunting being some kind of ritualistic or symbolic act. Dr Little told Irish Times that this discovery ‘contradicted the assumption that people living in Ireland during the Mesolithic period were just hunter-gatherers roaming around the island, chipping away at bits of stone.’ She added that the find represents ‘a very complex behavior... in terms of the making and treatment of the adze as part of the funerary rights.’
A study of the polished ax was published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal in October 2016, in which it is argued that the ax was ‘commissioned for the burial and was probably used as part of the funerary rights, possibly to cut the wood for the pyre for the cremation, or to cut the tree used as the grave post marker.’ The inclusion of this ax in the burial informs that at least 9,000 years ago there existed a belief that a weapon/tool was required in the Afterlife, which suggests that even at that early time in Ireland existed conceptions of a soul, and one was believed to live on in another dimension.
The Resurrection Deity
James Frazer's seminal 1890-book, The Golden Bough, analyses different forms of magic in ancient and modern (at that time) indigenous cultures - the ‘death-rebirth’, ‘dying-and-rising’ or ‘resurrection deity.’ This motif of religion, in which gods and goddesses die and are reborn, is a representation of yearly cycle of vegetation and while Frazer’s list includes Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis and Attis, Dionysus and Jesus, now, Scotland’s Queen of the Winter, Beira, and Ireland’s The Morrigan, can be added to this list as both were all powerful during the winter and were overcome, or died, in the spring, being reborn on Samhain.
One can conclude that in Ireland, since at least 9,000 years ago, the cycles of life and death that were witnessed in nature were perceived as being a part of ‘one’ All-Thing, that would eventually become personified as The Dagda. His son, Donn, the Lord of Death, administered souls on that remote island to the west of Ireland on the very fringe of the Celtic world, where the dearly beloved lived on not in hell, but in another dimension. And someday, when it is time for one’s light to dim, one will visit the House Donn on the voyage to that legendary ‘happy place’ in the west, where the Sun is witnessed setting, causing darkness to prevail.
Ashley Cowie is a Scottish historian, author and documentary filmmaker presenting original perspectives on historical problems, in accessible and exciting ways. His books, articles and television shows explore lost cultures and kingdoms, ancient crafts and artifacts, symbols and architecture, myths and legends telling thought-provoking stories which together offer insights into our shared social history. www.ashleycowie.com.
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/celtic-mythology
Ireland’s Hidden Animals and Shadow People
Just when one thinks everything that could possibly be said about monsters had been vocalized at least 1,000 times over, comes a fresh approach to the marvelous world of hidden animals and shadow people in Ireland. For decades, many scholars have criticized ‘belief’ as being a highly misleading discipline, not only distorting one religion into another, but it is argued that beliefs are one of the key reasons that so many nations have marched to war over the years. Contrary to the religious world, science functions without any requirement for its practitioners to hold beliefs, which is why it would be a mistake to petition open believers of Bigfoot type primates roaming North American forests, or an Ice Age serpent inhabiting a certain Scottish Loch, or a reported mysterious creature said to inhabit the Lakes of Killarney in Ireland, when one is one the hunt for hidden animals and shadow people.
However, Irish presenters Rob Billington and Eamonn O'Neill offer a more practical approach by exploring tales from world mythology and folklore, leaning heavily on themes relating to cryptozoology, the paranormal and UFO encounters. Each narrative is broken up with humorous detours and they often branch into more serious issues like the possible mental health conditions that might underlie many of the most bizarre reports of monsters, ghosts and demons.
The Guts Of Cryptozoology
The term ‘cryptozoology’ was first coined in 1959 by Bernard Heuvelmans (1916 –2001). This Belgian-French scientist, writer and explorer can be called a grandfather of the cryptozoology subculture, still thriving today, as Heuvelmans formally outlined the study of what he termed ‘hidden animals. At that time new species were being discovered thick and fast as explorers charted and exploited the last corners of the planet.
Following in the footsteps of Heuvelmans, Billington and O’Neill are very thorough researchers. However, unlike Heuvelmans, the Irish presenters are not trying to convince their audience that any of the reported monsters, ghosts or demons are, or ever were real, but instead, they explore other people's encounters, experiences and subsequent beliefs.
The question if either one of them are convinced that there are any ‘hidden animals’ which might pose a threat to humans, brought a very well-considered reply, that put cryptozoology into a new, and much more respectable light. According to Billington and O’Neill in 2020 alone hundreds of new species were discovered and presented in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Although most of these were critters like ants and sea snails, one is not to overlook the fact that ants and snails can pack a venomous punch to thin skinned humans. The latter has a species called Conus Geographus whose venom can kill a man easily. So, in conclusion, there absolutely are unknown animals out there that are yet to be discovered that pose a threat to humans.
Conus geographus is indeed a species of predatory cone snail, but it is more often called the ‘Geographer cone’. A 2010 WoRMS paper explains that the snail inhabits coral reefs of the tropical Indo-Pacific and hunts small fish using an insulin-based venom potent enough to kill humans. The paper explained that the venom can be up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine and because it does not have the same addictive properties as morphine it has serious applications in pain-killing medical procedures.
This little monster sends insulin as a venom through fish's gills, causing the fish to experience a hypoglycaemic shock, which confuses the fish long enough for the snail to eat it. (Public Domain)
This snail brings one down to earth with a bang from the furry heights of giant primates and lake monsters to a more accessible form of cryptozoology. Billington is of the opinion that the general public naturally tends to revert to big creatures like Sasquatch or Nessie because they are fun to talk about, and the stakes are high with these bigger creatures, as discovering one would be such a huge deal. However, he adds that while the truth is probably a little more mundane, that same truth might be even more lethal than the giants of cryptozoology. Billington and O’Neill pose the question whether one would rather bump into a Bigfoot or find out that one has just stepped on, and have been bitten by, a yet to be discovered snake whose venom has no antidote?
Encounter With A Shadow Person
Many religions, legends and spiritual belief systems describe shadowy supernatural entities, for example the Jinn of Islam and the Tariaksuq of Inuit mythology. According to Diane Ahlquist's 2007 book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Life After Death most historic reports describe a shadowy patch of air behaving like a humanoid form, which are generally interpreted as the spirits of deceased people and animals.
Faramarz kills the shah of demons (ghuls), from the Shah Nameh, 10th century Persian epic of the Kings (Wellcome Images / CC BY-SA 4.0)
Billington recalls a personal experience with such a shadow phenomenon, in his early twenties. He has not had any similar experience either before or since. So often when a person experiences something that they ‘perceive’ to be paranormal, they become predisposed to interpreting everything else they do not understand as having supernatural origins, not for a second considering that it is perhaps their own cognitive restrictions that create the perceived paranormality.
Billington describes his experience: One night he had just climbed into bed and was waiting upon his partner to join him. He could see her brushing her teeth in the bathroom and then she went to the kitchen to fetch water. Momentarily he closed his eyes and when he opened them, he observed shadowy figure in the bathroom, peering into the mirror mimicking his partner a few seconds prior. The body was translucent yet shadowy, cloudy almost. Billington did not pay much attention to the experience.
His description matches most historic and modern reports of shadow people, in that the phenomena is most often perceived as taking a human form, similarly to most reports of ghosts. While the very word ‘ghost’ not so long ago sent shivers up peoples’ spines, a group of scientists in a July 2021 article in Live Science looked at ghosts from a scientific perspective. The article said ghosts are among the most widely ‘believed’ of all paranormal phenomena and it discussed a 2019 Ipsos poll that found 46% of Americans firmly believe in ghosts, reportedly much more than vampires, which only seven percent of respondents said they believed in.
The effects of such experiences can range from someone totally disregarding it, to others developing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A 2008 paper published on Pub Med titled Psychological aspects of the alien contact experience, by Professor Christopher French, showed that people who reported contact with aliens, commonly known as ‘experiencers’ had “distinctly different psychological profiles compared to control participants.” Similarly to people who see ghosts, people who report interacting with aliens were found to show higher levels of “dissociative disorders, absorption, paranormal belief, paranormal experience, self-reported psychic ability, fantasy proneness, tendency to hallucinate, and self-reported incidence of sleep paralysis. According to Billington it was the first, and pretty much the only paranormal experience he has ever had, so one can safely assume he is not in the afore mentioned category with a “distinctly different psychological profile,” that would make him susceptible to such things.
Billington’s experience affected him in the sense that it opened his mind to unusual occurrences, of which he was formerly dismissive. Although Billington does not rule out the idea that what he saw was a ghost he also considers perhaps the shadow person was some type of residual energy of his partner's 'spirit', or some type of imprint. Asked if he personally believes in the existence of any kind of paranormal force that affects humans’ lives, Billington is of the opinion that spirituality by definition is paranormal, and that if one believes in a spiritual higher power, then that power helps guide one in their day-to-day existence.
Scientific Explanations for Shadow People
If this report of a shadow person from a credible eyewitness was put in front of a team of scientists to review spirits and residual energies, firstly, they would consider that perhaps Billington had been lucid dreaming on the nights running up to the experience, and that he had experienced a mild hallucination which he interpreted as a shadow person. A 2017 paper titled Inner ghosts: Encounters with threatening dream characters in lucid dreams explains that both sleep paralysis and lucid dreams are dissociated experiences related to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The study looked at the experiences of 1,928 participants (age range: 18-82 years; 53% female) and the results confirmed previously gathered anecdotal evidence that sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming frequency were related positively. Furthermore, this association was most apparent between lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis episodes featuring what they called vestibular-motor hallucinations. This particular type of hallucination means sufferers specifically think that they are floating, flying, or moving and this goes some way to explaining the thousands of reports of out-of-body experiences (OBEs) in which experiencers think that their spirit or mind has left their body and is moving and observing events from above.
This line of reasoning falls apart when one considers Billington was wide awake and not even sleepy, so one can disregard vestibular-motor hallucinations as a reasonable solution for what he experienced. However, a side result of the 2017 study showed that dissociative experiences during wakefulness are reflected in dissociative experiences during REM sleep. The team of scientists concluded that while sleep paralysis is related primarily to issues of sleep quality and wellbeing, lucid dreaming may reflect a continuation of greater imaginative capacity and positive imagery in waking states. Therefore, Billington might have ‘thought' he saw a shadow person, which might actually have been a mild hallucination sparked by lucid dreaming in the nights learning up to his experience.
In another paper titled “Men Fear Most What They Cannot See: sleep paralysis, Ghost Intruders and faceless Shadow-People Professor Jalal explains that what are known as hypnogogic and hypnopompic visions can create repeatable hallucinations of terrifying ghosts. Hypnogogic and hypnopompic visions are common worldwide and involve seeing and sensing shadow beings. This study offers a neuroscientific account for why people see shadow people during sleep paralysis and why these tend to manifest as faceless shadows. This experiment required calculating the distinctive computational styles of the right and left hemispheres of the brain and assessing their functional specializations vis-à-vis “florid intruder hallucinations and out-of-body experiences (OBEs) during these dream-like states.” The team of researchers also provided a solid neuro-based explanation for what they called ghost hallucinations and OBEs, suggesting they originate in the right hemisphere, and understanding this, they suggested a treatment to eradicate the resulting ghost hallucinations.
It would be easy to conclude that Billington had hallucinated in some way. According to the first team of scientists it was because he had lucid dreams in the nights leading up to the appearance of the shadow person. But according to the second paper Billington was the victim of a ghostly apparition caused by sleep paralysis. However, what else might Billington have seen if it was not a lucid dream inspired hallucination? While just less than half of Americans believe in ghosts, an entry in Britannica says 10 percent of the population believe they have actually encountered a departed spirit at some point in their lives. One can safely assume not every one of these 40 million people suffer sleep paralysis, so what then might so many people be experiencing if it is not all in their heads?
Grasping To Make the Paranormal, Normal
A 2019 Smithsonian Mag article providing the latest scientific explanations for ghosts pointed towards infrasound. Falling below the audible range of humans, infrasound is created by the earth’s geomagnetic field, severe storms and extreme climatology like earthquakes, but also by certain animals. Because infrasound stimulates the temporal lobe of the brain it causes humans to experience anxiety, sorrow, and waves of feelings, associated with paranoia. Furthermore, Smithsonian Mag explains that modern scientific experiments have shown that infrasound creates a sensation similar to that experienced during an alleged haunting, and people’s senses get confused causing them to think they are seeing things that are not really there.
If infrasound was proven not to be occurring in Billington’s bedroom, scientists might then suggest that he accidentally ingested ergot, a fungal precursor of LSD, or that maybe a draft had whipped up his partner’s talk in the bathroom causing Rob to blink, taking a momentary snapshot in time that he perceived as a human form. The point is, scientists now have endless lists of possible explanations for so-called Shadow People, but Billington has something they would all be envious off, a real-life experience of a phenomenon that has haunted humans since flames cast shadows on cave walls.
Ashley Cowie is a Scottish historian, author and documentary filmmaker presenting original perspectives on historical problems, in accessible and exciting ways. His books, articles and television shows explore lost cultures and kingdoms, ancient crafts and artifacts, symbols and architecture, myths and legends telling thought-provoking stories which together offer insights into our shared social history. www.ashleycowie.com. The author thanks Rob Billington and Eamonn O’Neill of Monsterfuzz for their participation.
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Hippoi Athanatoi: Immortal Horses of the Gods And Heroes
The gods of Olympus often procreated semi-divine children with morals, but not all of their offspring were human. Especially Poseidon, god of sea and horses, sired a lineage of immortal divine equines, the Hippoi Athanatoi, who in their turn sired semi-divine herds of horses. Gods crossed the heavens in their chariots drawn by magnificent horses, to descend on to battlefields and joined the mortals and the demi-god heroes astride their valiant semi-divine war horses, who were fiery, fierce, fast and loyal. These semi-divine horses galloped in the adventures and quests of the heroes, who would not have succeeded without them.
Pegasus, The Horse That Could Fly
Medusa was a daughter of the marine deities and chthonic monsters, Phorkys and his sister Keto. She had two sisters Stheno and Euryale, but Medusa was half mortal and therefore beautiful as opposed to her monstrous sisters. When Poseidon, God of the sea, laid eyes on the marine maiden, he momentarily fell in love with her. Unfortunately, he had his way with her inside Athena’s temple, and the goddess punished the mortal maiden Medusa by turning her hair into snakes. The lust and vengeance of the gods had turned alluring Medusa into a Gorgon monster. She was cursed that who-ever would gaze upon her face would turn into stone. Along came Perseus, son of Zeus and the mortal Danaë, who was tasked by King Polydectes to kill Medusa, in a sinister plot to get rid of him. But Perseus was semi-divine and aided by Athena, who had not forgiven Medusa for defiling her temple, he managed to trick Medusa, cut off her head and present it to Athena, who embedded it in her aegis.
However, Medusa had been impregnated by Poseidon and upon her death the twins she was carrying were released from her severed neck. One was Chrysaor, a giant wielding a golden sword and the other was Pegasus, the beautiful-winged stallion.
Mosaic emblem with Pegasus, the immortal winged horse which sprang forth from the neck of Medusa when she was beheaded by the hero Perseus, second century AD, Archaeological Museum of Córdoba, Spain (Public Domain)
In the meantime, Bellerophon, son of Glaucus, King of Corinth and grandson of Sisyphus, had been exiled as a suppliant to Proetus, King of Tiryns. The king’s wife took a fancy to him, but he rejected her and she accused him of attempting to defile her. Proetus sent Bellerophon to his father in-law King Iobates in Lycia. Hesitant to kill a guest, King Iobates tasked Bellerophon to kill the Chimera of Caria. The Chimera was a fire-breathing monster with the body of a goat, the head of a lion and the tail of a serpent. On his way Bellerophon met a seer, Polyeidos who advised him to take shelter and sleep in the temple of Athena. Athena came to Bellerophon in his dream and presented him with a golden bridle to catch Pegasus. Bellerophon was also the secret son of Poseidon, and therefore half-brother to the horse, begotten with Medusa.
Pegasus had created the Fountain of Pyrene in Corinth by striking the ground with his hoof, and this is where Bellerophon easily found him, as Corinth was also the city of his birth. With the help of their joint father Poseidon and Athena’s golden bridle, Bellerophon managed to tame Pegasus. On winged Pegasus’ back Bellerophon flew to Lycia to slay the Chimera. He killed the fire-breathing beast by dropping lead into its mouth from Pegasus’ back. The fiery breath melted the lead and the beast died. Upon returning to King Iobates, Bellerophon was set more tasks.
From Pegasus’ back he dropped boulders on the Amazon warriors and when he had to face a Carian pirate, Cheirmarrhus, the pair implored Poseidon for aid, who flooded the plains of Xanthus. Bellerophon returned victorious to King Iobates, who offered him his daughter’s hand in marriage. Eventually the hero Bellarophon’s hubris caught up with him when he mounted Pegasus and attempted to fly to Olympus to join the gods. Zeus would have none of it and sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus, who threw Bellarophon from his back, where he fell to earth and died. Pegasus, being semi-divine, was welcomed on Olympus where Zeus had him carry his thunderbolts. Zeus rewarded Pegasus by immortalizing him into a constellation.
Arion, The Swiftest Horse That Could Talk
Poseidon was not only the father of Pegasus. While the goddess Demeter was searching for her daughter Persephone, Poseidon desired her and to avoid his unwanted attentions she turned herself into a mare and hid amongst the herd of horses of Onkios, ruler of Onkeion. Not to be duped Poseidon changed himself into a stallion and had his way with Demeter and from this divine union the magnificent colt Arion was born. Arion was described as fabulously fast with luscious black mane. Poseidon himself was the first to tame his colt. “He is said to have been the first to bruise the youngling’s mouth with the bit and break him in on the sand of the shore, sparing the lash; for indeed there was no satisfying the horse’s passion to be moving and he was as changeful as a winter sea. Often he was wont to go in harness with the swimming steeds through Ionian or Libyan deep, carrying his caerulean father to every coast,” wrote Statius, first century Roman poet in Thebaid.
Some say Poseidon gave the immortal horse to Copreus, King of Haliartus, and some say he belonged to King Onkios, but he was gifted to the demi-god Herakles, son of Zeus and Alcmene, who rode him into battle. One of Herakles’ labors was to clean the stables of King Augeas of Ellis in the northwestern Peloponnese, which he accomplished in a day. Augeas cheated Herakles of his reward and Herakles declared war. Astride Arion, the fast immortal horse, Herakles commandeered an army of Argives, Thebans and Arcadians, and gained victory over Ellis, which he gave to Phyleus, King Augeas' son.
Pylopia (or Perene) was the lover of both the war god Ares and Herakles. With Ares she bore a son Cycnus, who was notorious for his cruelty and killing his guests. One day, Herakles was traveling through Thessaly on his way to Trachis, where he happened to cross paths with the dark duo of Ares and Cycnus. Cycnus challenged Herakles to a chariot race, which the hero accepted, spurred on by Apollo. Athena warned Herakles to be mindful of Ares’ revenge, should he kill Cycnus. Herakles mounted his mighty steed, Arion, colt of Poseidon, and promptly slayed Cycnus. As predicted Ares turned upon Herakles but his attack was warded off by Athena.
Herakles then gifted Arion to Adrastus, King of Argos. Adrastus had vowed to restore his son in-law Polynices, son of Oedipus, to his throne of Thebes. Adrastus mustered his own army as well as those of Polynices, Tydeus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Parthenopaeus and Hippomedonto to form the famous Seven against Thebes. Mounted on Arion, Adrastus led the armies to Thebes, but at Nemea, they stopped to water their horses. Hypsipyle, the nurse of the baby prince Opheltes, son of Lycurgus of Nemea, assisted them, but when she put the baby down, he was bitten and killed by a serpent. In his honor the Seven against Thebes proclaimed the Theban Games. Adrastus allowed his son in-law Polynices to ride Arion in the race, but Apollo had nominated the seer – and one of the Seven – Amphiaraus, to be his champion. Arion was a divine colt and the fastest of all horses. When Apollo realized Arion would win, he raised a serpent to scare Arion. The horse shied away and threw his rider off, but he still won the race. Statius, first century Roman poet, writes in the Thebaid: “So in fair division the horse kept his glory, victory went to the seer."
The Seven proceeded to Thebes, with King Adrastus in Arion’s saddle. The battle at Thebes did not go well for the Seven. Capaneus was felled as he scaled the walls of city – some say it was Zeus’ thunderbolt that struck him. Tydeus, a favorite of Athena, was mortally wounded, but she was disgusted when he ate his opponent’s brains and abandoned him. Amphiaraus, was a combat brother of Tydeus, but also his rival. Zeus intervened again in the battle and before a spear could struck the seer in the back, the mighty god opened the earth to swallow Amphiaraus. Polynices faced his rival to the throne, his brother Eteocles, in single combat and both were killed. But valiant Arion saved his master Adrastus from the battlefield.
Arion was deemed immortal, and according to the first-century BC Latin poet Sextus Propertius, the horse could speak. No-one knows what happened to the fast horse with the beautiful black mane but if someone should encounter such an animal grazing in the fields of the Peloponnese or roaming the Ionian or Libyan beaches, ask him his name and if he answers “Arion”, do not attempt to ride him. He belongs to the gods.
Hades abducting Persephone by an unknown painter. (18th Century) (Public Domain)
Chariots of the Gods
A quadriga is a chariot drawn by four animals and the gods all had their divine animals, drawing their chariots through the skies. Some gods had swans like Apollo and Aphrodite, but some preferred horses.
“Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains. And the mountains were mountains of bronze. The first chariot had red horses, the second black horses, the third white horses, and the fourth chariot dappled horses—all of them strong. Then I answered and said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” And the angel answered and said to me, “These are going out to the four winds of heaven, after presenting themselves before the Lord of all the earth…” (Zechariah 6:1-7)
The Combat of Diomedes, by Jacques-Louis David depicting a battlefield at Troy where gods and divine horses intervene in the battle of mortal men (1776) (Public Domain)
The Combat of Diomedes, by Jacques-Louis David depicting a battlefield at Troy where gods and divine horses intervene in the battle of mortal men (1776) (Public Domain)
Swift as the wind, Zeus, god of the earth, harnessed the Anemoi, the gods of the four winds, Boreas the North-Wind, Zephryos the West, Notos the South, and Euros the East, to double up as transformed horses to draw his chariot. In their horse form they were stabled by Aeolus, ‘harnesser of the winds’, on the floating island of Aeolia. Nike, goddess of victory, was Zeus’ charioteer.
Boreas sired the Hippoi Troiades, the 12 immortal horses owned by the kings of Troy. They were sired upon the mares of the Trojan King Erikhthonios. The Trojans were known as horse breeders and -handlers, which is why they were easily duped by the Achaean’s gift of the Trojan Horse. Boreas also sired the two immortal horses, the stallion Xanthos and the mare Podarkes, whom he presented to Erekhtheus, King of Athens, as compensation when he had abducted Erekhtheus’ daughter as a bride.
Hera’s chariot was drawn by peacocks, but when she joined the Trojan War, she came down in a chariot drawn by winged horses. Homer describes them as such in the Iliad: “Hera laid the lash swiftly on the horses; and moving of themselves groaned the gates of the sky that the Horai (Horae) guarded . . . Through the way between they held the speed of their goaded horses . . .Hera lashed on the horses, and they winged their way unreluctant through the space between the earth and the starry heaven. As far as into the hazing distance a man can see with his eyes, who sits in his eyrie gazing on the wine-blue water, as far as this is the stride of the gods' proud neighing horses.”
Poseidon the god of horses and the sea, had his chariot drawn by Hippocampoi, huge seahorses, with the torse of a horse and the tail of a fish. Skylla and Sthenios were two of their names. In Thessaly Poseidon had hit a rock and the very first horse, Skyphios, appeared. Thessaly was considered the best suited region for horse breeding in ancient Greece, due to the fertile pastures. Incidentally, this is also where Alexander the Great’s horse Bucephalus, was bred and he was a colt from the wild mares of Diomedes.
The last of the triad of godly brothers, Hades, God of the Underworld, had four black horses drawing his chariot when he rose from the Underworld to bring Persephone down with him. They were Alastor, Orphnaeus, Aethon, and Nycteus. Hermes rode Hade’s chariot out of the Underworld to bring Persephone back to her mother Demeter.
Every morning Helios the Titan deity of the sun harnesses his ‘fire-darting steeds’ - as Pindar the poet from Thebes described them - to the chariot of the sun, to cross the sky from the east to the west. The horses of the sun god were aptly named Pyrois (Fiery One), Aeos (He who turns the sky), Aethon (Blazing), and Phlegon (Burning). They were white stallions with golden manes and eyes. Helios’ mortal son Phaeton had hoodwinked his divine father into allowing him to take the reins and ride the sun chariot one day. Phaeton of course could not control the sun god’s fiery horses, flew to close to the earth and scorched it and this is how the African Sahara Desert originated. Phaeton fell to his death.
Eos, goddess of dawn and mother of the Anemoi, had her chariot pulled across the sky by Lampus (Firebright) and Phaëton (Daybright). Quintus, poet of Smyrna, in his Posthomerica describes Eos exulting in her heart over the radiant horses, “that drew her chariot, amidst the bright-haired Horae, the feminine Hours, climbing the arc of heaven and scattering sparks of fire”.
The war god Ares’ four chariot horses were offspring of Boreas the North Wind, and they were named Aithôn (Fiery) Phlogeus (Flaming), Konabos (Clashing Din) and Phobos (Panic Flight). These horses breathed fire and wore golden bridles like Pegasus. Only Ares’ sons Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror) could harness his horses to his golden chariot.
In the Trojan War, Poseidon, Hera and Athena fought on the side of the Achaeans, while Ares fought along Apollo on the side of the Trojans. Homer writes in the Iliad of a scene where Ares saved his siter goddess Aphrodite on the battlefield: “Dropping on one knee before her beloved brother [Ares] in deep supplication she asked for his gold-bridled horses : ‘Beloved brother, rescue me and give me your horses so I may come to Olympos where is the place of the immortals . . .So she spoke, and Ares gave her the gold-bridled horses, and, still grieved in the inward heart, she mounted the chariot and beside her entering Iris gathered the reins up and whipped them into a run, and they winged their way unreluctant. Now as they came to sheer Olympos, the place of the immortals, there swift Iris the wind-footed reined in her horses and slipped them from the yoke and threw fodder immortal before them."
Diomedes Devoured by his Horses by Gustave Moreau (1866) (Public Domain)
The Flesh Eating Horses of Diomedes
Diomedes, King of Thrace, son of Ares and Cyrene who lived on the shores of the Black Sea, had a herd of mares, described as magnificent, wild and uncontrollable, as the savage king had fed his horses on the flesh of strangers and prisoners. They were named Podargos (Swift), Lampon (Shining), Xanthos (Yellow) and Deinos (Terrible) and had to be shackled in irons in their bronze stables. Besides conquering Ellis on the back of Arion, the hero Herakles was sent by King Eurystheus to steal these mares from Diomedes. Herakles broke the chains and herded the mares to the beach, where he left them in the custody of his ward, Abderus, whilst he went on to battle Diomedes. Upon returning to the beach Herakles found that the wild horses had eaten his companion Abderus and he promptly fed Diomedes to his own horses. Being fed flesh calmed the horses and Herakles took the horses to King Eurystheus, who gifted them to Hera, but they offended Zeus, who set the wolves upon them.
Horses Of The Dioskouroi
Castor and Pollydeuces, the twin brothers of Helen of Sparta, shared their mother Leda, but they had different fathers; Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the King of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, as Helen was his daughter. The twins had many adventures, but they were famous for their horsemanship. The twins fell in love with Phoebe and Hilaera, the daughters of Leucippides (White Horse), Prince of Messenia, but the daughters were already betrothed to Lynceus and Idas, the cousins of the Dioskouroi. In a battle between the four cousins all three mortals were killed but Pollydeuces requested Zeus to share his divinity with his twin Castor, and Zeus immortalized both as the constellation of Gemini.
The four colts sired by the West Wind Zephryos; Kyllaros, Xanthos, Harpagos and Phlogeus were the immortal horses of the Dioskouroi gifted to them by the gods Hermes and Hera. They served the twins both during their mortal years and after their elevation to godhood.
The War Horses of Achilles And His Nemesis Hector
The West Wind Zephryos and the harpy Podarge had more colts, namely Balius and Xanthus. Poseidon had given the two horses as a wedding gift to King Peleus of Phthia, when he married the ocean goddess, Thetis, and Peleus gave them to his son Achilles to accompany him to the Trojan War. During the battle of Troy, Achilles’ friend and cousin, Patroclus took care of the horses and when Patroclus was felled by Hector – who had mistaken him for Achilles - both horses stood forlorn on the battlefield and wept. When the mourning Achilles rebuked Xanthos for Patroclus’ death, Hera gave the horse the gift of speech. As Homer writes in the Iliad: “Then from under the yoke the glancing-footed horse Xanthus spoke to him; it had bent its head down, and all its mane was drooping to the ground from the yoke-pad beside the yoke, and the goddess Hera of the white arms had given it speech: ‘We shall surely bring you back safe this time, huge Achilles; but the day of your death is near at hand, and it is not we who will be its cause, but a great god and your powerful destiny. It was not through our sloth or carelessness that the Trojans stripped the armour from the shoulders of Patroclus”. Thereafter his gift of prophesy was removed by the Erinyes (Furies).
Hector, Prince of Troy and firstborn son of King Priam killed Patroclus, and some believe Hector was the son of Apollo. Although Achilles was eventually killed by an arrow fired from Paris’ bow, it is believed the arrow was also directed by the god Apollo, fulfilling Xanthus’ prophesy.
Hector’s wife Andromache tended to his horses, Xanthus, Podargus, Aethon and Lampus. In the Iliad Homer describes a scene where Hector pacifies his horses reminding them of his wife Andromache who had given the horses wine: “o he spoke, and summoned his horses, and said to them: ‘Xanthus and you, Podargus, Aethon and bright Lampus, now is the time when you must repay me for the lavish care that Andromache, daughter of great-hearted Eëtion, gave you, serving you mind-cheering wheat, and mixing it with wine, to drink when the spirit urged you, before she served me, I who am proud to be her tender husband. So come, press on as fast as you can …”
Beholding the magnificence of a proud horse today, one can still hear the neighing of their divine ancestors, the Hippoi Athanatoi on the winds, follow their prints on the Mediterranean beaches, feel their spirits on the plains at Hisarlik and when lightning strikes on Mount Olympus, watch them cross the skies pulling golden chariots of the gods.
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Mythological Islands in Folklore and the Collective Subconscious
To quote the poet John Donne: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”, but every person may also venture to the mythical islands of the collective subconscious where a wounded soul goes to recover and uncover the Hidden Self. Reminiscent of hunter gatherers gathering around their fires in their winter caves, the tradition of storytelling is replete with islands representing places of extremes, and of dreams, and they served in folklore as both Utopias and purgatories.
Athanasius Kircher's map of Atlantis, placing it in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, from Mundus Subterraneus (1669 AD). Published in Amsterdam, oriented with south at the top. (Public Domain)
While much has been written about the Greek Atlantis, which is perhaps the grandfather of the mythological island archetype, there are other legendary land masses and cartographic wonders reported by early explorers that were not based ‘purely’ on myth. These islands are magical, and inhabited by priestesses, witches, wizards, gods and goddesses, but they all have real world islands whence they might or might not have been inspired. While these islands are in a great part imaginary, they all have a very important place in world history, literature, and mythology, even if today they do not have longitude and latitude coordinates on maps and charts.
The Slavic Island of Buyan
Slavs inhabited eastern and south-eastern Europe but extended also across northern Asia to the Pacific Ocean, and Slavic languages belong to the Indo-European family. Slavic paganism describes the religious beliefs, myths and ritual practices of the Slavs before their Christianization, which occurred during various stages between the eighth and the 13th century. It is believed that Slavic mythology can trace its roots back to the Proto-Indo European period, and perhaps as far back as the Neolithic era, and it is from these traditions that the island of Buyan emerged.
Buyan is described as a mysterious island in the ocean with the ability to appear and disappear with tides. According to Mike Dixon-Kennedy in the 1998 Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic myth and legend this is where “all weather in the world originates having been created by the god Perun.” Perun was the supreme god of the Slavic pantheon, governor of the sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, war, fertility and oak trees. Three divine brothers also resided on Buyan, who manifested as the Northern, Western and Eastern Winds. Alongside the three brothers were the Zoryas, Sun goddesses, the daughters or servants of the Sun god, Dazhbog. As the Slavic god of Sun and fire, son of Svarog and chief god of Serbs, Dazhbog was also considered as the ancestor of all Slavs at a time when it was rare for a grandson/granddaughter to meet their grandparents.
‘Koschei the Immortal’, or ‘the Deathless’, is an archetypal male antagonist in Russian folklore who separated his soul from his body to retain his immortality, for his death could only be brought on by killing his soul. The island of Buyan could represent the home of the Hidden Self for it was the place where ‘Koschei the Deathless’ hid his soul inside a needle, which was inside an egg. The egg was inside a duck, which was inside a hare and the hare was locked inside a strong chest buried beneath the island’s Sacred Oak Tree. Like other archetypal cosmic trees, the roots of the Sacred Oak Tree linked the Underworld to the Middle-Earth and its trunk and branches connected the Middle-Earth with the Heavens.
The Tale of Tsar Saltan is a four-act opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, written by Vladimir Belsky, based on the 1831 poem of the same name by Aleksandr Pushkin. The opera was composed in 1899–1900 to coincide with Pushkin's centenary and was first performed in 1900 in Moscow, Russia. The story is partially set in Tmutarakan, and Buyan's city of Ledenets, a magical metropolis named after a Russian word Леденец, meaning ‘sugary’.
Anton Dietrich’s 1857 Russian Popular Tales says Slavic folktales associates the island of Buyan with a mythical stone imbued with magical healing powers, known as the Alatyr (Russian: Алатырь).
Like an omphalos, the Alatyr was believed to be the center of the universe. It has magical properties and the healing rivers flowing beneath it promise the gift of eternal happiness. The powerful stone was guarded by the duet of Garafena, a magical serpent and Gagana, a fabulous bird with a beak of iron and claws of copper. When it comes to the origins of Buyan, some scholars assert that the island was actually a Slavic name for a real island, most likely Rügen, however, most regard Buyan as a purely Otherworld, or imaginary realm, that emerged in folklore without ever having been inspired by a physical location on earth.
The Lady of the Lake by Speed Lancelot (1912) (Public Domain)
Avalon, Britain’s Mythological Isle Of Apples And Arthur
The Isle of Avalon, or the Isle of Apples, is to early British mythology, folklore and legend, what Buyan was to the ancient Slavs. Most scholars agree that this island emerged from a Celtic mythological conception of the Otherworld, wherein the island represents a place in the human psyche, locked in the waves of perception and experience, where a wounded soul retreats to recover. Having begun as a concept representing everything unknown, Geoffrey of Monmouth first made Avalon an ‘island in the waters’ and in Historia Regum Britanniae King Arthur’s famous sword Excalibur came from Insula Avallonis.
This is where Buyan and Avalon show their shared mythological themes. ‘Koschei the Immortal’ hid his soul on Buyan and King Arthur found refuge for his mortally wounded body and soul on Avalon. Both islands were sources of magical healing powers, but deeper still, while King Arthur represented the Sun in British mythology, Buyan was inhabited by the Zoryas, Sun goddesses, who were daughters or servants of the Sun god, Dazhbog. Both islands are therefore connected with the Sun, which in all mythology represents the golden light of universal knowledge, but the Sun also represents the hidden aspects of Self, that island inside every human being, waiting to be uncovered and bringing enlightenment.
Further symbolic correlations can be drawn between the two islands, Avalon and Buyan. In Vita Merlini, or The Life of Merlin Geoffrey of Monmouth refers to Avalon as Insula Pomorum, or the Isle of Apples, where plants grow spontaneously without the need for cultivation. Crops, especially apple trees, grew in abundance and could be harvested any time of the agricultural calendar. The apple is a symbol for knowledge, immortality and temptation, while Buyan’s Alatyr stone holds gifts of eternal happiness and healing. All these gifts to the soul are available in the islands of the subconscious mind, if one has the courage to explore it.
Many later versions of the Arthurian legend, including the best-known, Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory have Morgan Le Fay and some other magical queens or enchantresses arrive to accompany the mortally wounded Arthur from the battlefield of Camlann (or Salisbury Plain in the romances) to Avalon in a black boat. Where Buyan was inhabited by the Zoryas, Sun goddesses, Avalon was home to the Lady of the Lake, sometimes called Nimue, Elaine, or Vivien. Furthermore, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, “nine sisters lived on the Isle of Avalon who were skilled in the arts of magic and healing” but Morgan Le Fey was the high priestess of healing, with knowledge of plants to cure different sicknesses and wounds. Finally, while Buyan held the mysterious Alatyr - the center of the universe - Avalon was associated with the Holy Grail which is also symbolic of the umbilical connection between humans and Otherworldly spaces.
Slavic mythologists correlated Buyan with the real-life island Rügen, and in Britain Avalon is believed by many to have been inspired by the historic Glastonbury Tor, which was at one time an island. Therefore, Buyan and Avalon existed binary in the Earthly realm and the Otherworld, separate to both, but connecting both at the same time. The Slavic people gave Buyan magical qualities to protect important esoteric concepts such as the Alytar and the Sacred Oak Tree, and it was safe enough for ‘Koschei the Deathless’ to keep his soul there. The Isle of Avalon holds a special place in the mythology of the British Isles as the place where their King Arthur found refuge and awaits the call to return and save his people.
Ireland as depicted on the 1572 map of Europe by Abraham Ortelius. Interesting are the prominent featuring of St. Patrick's Purgatory and the curious island of Brasil. (Public Domain)
Seeking Hy-Brasil
The archetypes of Buyan and Avalon are also to be traced to another legendary island, Hy-Brasil of Irish mythology, where King Breasal (another version of Arthur the Sun god) ruled the world ensuring the natural order of things was maintained. Stories about an island to the west of Ireland circulated throughout Europe for centuries and Hy-Brasil first appeared on sea charts in 1325 AD by the Genoese cartographer Angelino Dulcert, who identified the island as Bracile, and it remained on some charts up to the 1800s.
In Irish mythology this island was hidden in the mist, except for one day every seven years, when it became visible. It was indicated on maps roughly 321 km (200 miles) off the west coast of Ireland in the North Atlantic Ocean and it was generally drawn as a loose circle with a channel (or river) running east to west across its mass. Hy-Brasil was also called Hy-Breasal, Hy-Brazil, Hy-Breasil, and Brazir which were all derived from Breasal the High Lord of the World in Celtic Irish mythology. In 1436 AD the cartographer Andrea Bianco mentioned Sola De Brasil on his Venetian map and in 1595 AD it appeared on the Ortelius Map of Europe and Europa.
Two centuries later Scottish sea captain, John Nisbet, claimed to have spotted Hy-Brasil on his voyage from France to Ireland in 1674 and his ship’s log recorded four of his crew spent an entire day exploring the island. Where Buyan housed the Sun god, Dazhbog, and King Arthur, the Sun in British mythology, went to Avalon to be healed, Nisbet’s crew claimed to have met a wise old man who provided them with gold and silver. The island was described as being inhabited by giant rabbits and a mysterious black magician who lived in a large stone castle. This sounded like a tall tale to many at the time, but captain Alexander Johnson also later found Hy-Brasil and confirmed Nisbet’s findings, including the giant black rabbits. The last documented sighting of Hy-Brasil was made in 1872 by Robert O’Flaherty and T.J. Westropp, who claimed he visited the island on three previous occasions. He said he was so captivated by the mystery of the island that he brought his family with him to see it in person. It was written that they all witnessed the isle appear out of nowhere, then vanish again before their very eyes.
Many historians claim the island is residual from the collective unconscious, a story passed down through generations from the end of the last Ice Age when sea levels were lower and an island existed there, the so-called Porcupine Bank that was discovered in 1862 about 193 km (120 miles) west of Ireland, that an 1830-chart marked as ‘Brazil Rock’. But this is likely to just be a coincidence. An 1870-paper read to the Geological Society of Ireland also suggested the Porcupine Bank was perhaps the mythological Hy-Brasil.
The Origins of Mythological Islands
Mythological islands are one of the oldest motifs of myth and literature harking back to deep history when stories were being born. In Psychology and Alchemy, Carl Gustav Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist, wrote that “only in the region of danger (watery abyss, cavern, forest, island, castle, etc.) can one find ‘the treasure hard to attain’ (jewel, virgin, life potion, victory over death).” Jung’s quote shows how the mythological island is both alluring and dangerous, incredibly scenic, but at the same time detached from the mainland, therefore it generates a sense of entrapment.
In the real world, it also feels that time flows differently on islands, because they function outside the conventional time-space continuum, and island inhabitants, islanders, have their own unique cosmos in which newcomers are generally perceived as intruders. Jung said that islanders “are away from the land of law and regulations, morality may break loose on them, and people can get tested,” as occurred in William Golding’s famous novel Lord of the Flies (1953).
Deathly Transformation
All three of these mythological islands have deathly overtones, but death brings the promise of transformation. The Island, therefore, functions as a spiritual stopper that contains darkness and evil and prevents it from spreading, as well as being the magical source of life, and the keeper of the cycles of death and rebirth. These three mythological islands change location and flash, popping in and out of this dimension of reality, which again highlights the island’s archetypal theme of existing outside the realms of space and time. The many characters inhabiting these islands of mythology are all inter-dimensional beings, hypothetical entities, of a dimension parallel to human’s reality. As such, these same beings feature on the planets (islands) of modern science fiction and fantasy. Star Trek or any similar science fiction program, features ancient voyagers that boldly go where nobody had gone before and when their starships come upon exoplanets inhabited by strange, yet familiar beings, one is reminded they all started out as gods, goddesses, and even grant black rabbits, on Buyan, Avalon and Hy-Brasil.
Ashley Cowie is a Scottish historian, author and documentary filmmaker presenting original perspectives on historical problems, in accessible and exciting ways. His books, articles and television shows explore lost cultures and kingdoms, ancient crafts and artifacts, symbols and architecture, myths and legends telling thought-provoking stories which together offer insights into our shared social history. www.ashleycowie.com.
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/islands
In his 2016 book, People are Seeing Something: A Survey of Lake Monsters in the United States and Canada, author Denver Michaels examines the myths, legends, folklore, and eyewitness reports of the lake monster phenomenon south of the Mexican border, in Central and South America. This writer asks what parallels could be drawn between the creatures found to the south and their Canadian and American counterparts? One of the phenomena presented in this work is the ‘Monster of Lake Tota’, a giant creature that is as deeply associated with Colombia's largest lagoon, Lake Tota, at over 200 feet (61 meters) deep with a surface area of 21 square miles, (54 square kilometers) as the Loch Ness Monster is entrenched with Scotland’s longest lake at 36 kilometres (22.5 miles) in length with an average depth of 132 meters (433 feet).
Early Indigenous Reports Of Lake Monsters
The earliest report of the Loch Ness monster appears in the Life of St. Columba by the monk, Adomnán, written in the sixth century AD. Writing about a century after the events he described, Adomnán said the legendary Irish monk, Saint Columba, was pilgrimaging in the wild and dangerous pagan Scotland, spreading the word of Christ, when indigenous people told him of an aquatic monster, said to be a demon, which haunted the waters of Loch Ness. Columba witnessed the dead body of a Pictish man whom locals said had been attacked and killed by the water beast and had rendered the waters of the lake impassible. Columba instructed one of his followers, Luigne moccu Min, to swimming across the River Ness to lure the diabolical creature to the surface, and when it approached to attack, Columba “made the sign of the cross and said ‘Go no further. Do not touch the man. Go back at once.’ The creature stopped as if it had been pulled back with ropes and fled, and Columba's men and the Picts gave thanks for what they perceived as a miracle”.
Lake Tota Monster
Leaving Colomba in Scotland for Colombia in South America, the first known written reference to a monster in Lake Tota came almost 1,000 years after the reported aquatic beast in Loch Ness. However, the Scottish report came from a sixth century Christian evangelizer and the Colombian report was made by a 16th century Spanish conquistador and spreader of Christianity, Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada (1509–1579). Furthermore, almost perfectly reflecting the reported monstrous events in Scotland, Quesada recorded that when he was pilgrimaging across the dangerous pagan landscape in Colombia, he had become well acquainted with the beliefs of the indigenous people of the area who spoke of “a black monster, said to be a demon, which haunted the waters of Lake Tota.” In this instance the frightful beast had rendered the waters of the lake impassible, and locals told the Spanish explorers that Lake Tota was entirely unnavigable.
The black monster, or demon, that is said to dwell in Lake Tota is a prominent figure in Muisca (indigenous Colombian) mythology, where it is known as Muyso Akyqake, or el Dragón in Spanish records. Before the Spanish arrived in 1537 this serpent played a central role in the origin legend of Lake Tota. A monstrous black snake lived in a great abyss in the land where the present-day Lake Tota is located and it terrified the local indigenous communities until one day the hero Siramena emerged and hurled golden discs at the serpent, which penetrated its scales, effectively killing it. The powerful priest Monetá removed a sacred emerald from the snake and gave it to the solar deity Bochica who cast it into the vast abyss and it filled with water forming Lake Tota.
Post-Conquest Monster Sightings
After Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada’s sighting of the monster in the 1530s the next written sighting of the Lake Tota Monster was in 1652 when the Colombian priest and respected historian, Lucas Fernandez de Piedrahita (1624–1688), described the monster as “a black fish larger than a whale, with a head similar to an ox.” Piedrahita also wrote: “Quesada says that in his time, trusted persons and the Indians affirmed that it was the devil; and for the year six hundred and fifty-two, when I was at the place, Doña Andrea Vargas, lady of the country, spoke about having seen the Monster of Lake Tota.”
The next recorded sighting of this creature was recorded by French explorer Gaspard Théodore Mollien (1796–1872), who wrote: (translated from French by author) “…Superstition has not stopped people these places of grisly wonders: indeed, the wild aspect of the region; suspended waters, so to speak, to such a height and always agitated by the wind blowing Toxillo, higher than the lake of Tota wilderness; mucilaginous substance, oval, and filled with an insipid water in the sand of its beaches, everything tends to arouse surprise. According to the words of the people of the region, the lake is not navigable, that evil geniuses inhabit its depths. Living in porches, when one moves away from the lakeshore, when you look, occasionally out of its depths a monstrous fish can be seen for a while… In the middle of the lake there are some islands; there has been no more than a man who dared to go to them, the belief that the lake monster prevents visitation…”
There is always something more appealing about monster sightings when the witness is of immense academic standing, and this was the case in 1852 when the Columbian politician, journalist, and writer, Manuel Ancízar, referred to the monster as Diabloballen or the devil whale. Ancízar founded a publishing house and a newspaper before joining the Chorographic Commission in 1850 and he also served as the fourth Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Granadine Confederation, and as the first dean of the National University of Colombia. This pinnacle of logic and reason wrote of an Englishman who “daringly and successfully reached one of the islands on a raft, in the face of all hidden dangers.” Furthermore, the exemplary Colombian botanist and explorer, José Jerónimo Triana (1828–1890), said beliefs pertaining to “…a black monster that lived in the enchanted waters of the lagoon, still persisted among the residents surrounding Lake Tota, in the town of Cuitiva.”
Rise Of The Great American Sea Serpent
The dawn of the 19th century saw an explosion of early scientific explorers and pioneers who believed science could be applied to solve ancient mysteries, and one of the most persistent legends in the Atlantic nations was the idea of a single beast - the great sea serpent. In August 1817 a series of sea serpent reports at Gloucester, Massachusetts, appeared in the Linnaean Society of Massachusetts’ summarized interviews reporting that since so many eyewitnesses claimed to have seen a serpentine sea creature, a new species, Scoliophis atlanticus was created. This beast was described as “a dark sinuous animal that moved vertically up and down in the water like a caterpillar,” resembling “a long line of barrels, riding high in the water” and passing ships reported “a snake that was dark with a head like a horse.”
Only one year later, in May 1818, Captain Joseph Woodward from the schooner Adamant reported that off the coast at Cape Ann, he shot a cannon at the monster. The captain told the British Literary Gazette: “The serpent shook its head and its tail in an extraordinary manner and advanced toward the ship with open jaws; I had caused the cannon to be reloaded, but he had come so near that all the crew were seized with terror, and we thought only of getting out of his way. He almost touched the vessel and, had I not tacked as I did, he would certainly have come on board. He dived, but in a moment, we saw him come up again with his head on one side of the vessel and his tail on the other as if he was going to lift up and upset us. However, we did not feel any shock. He remained five hours near us, only going backward and forward”.
While many believed a long-necked ocean dinosaur, possibly a plesiosaur like the one that is associated with Loch Ness, had survived from prehistory, skeptics explained the Gloucester serpent was a group of migrating whales. It is known today that many ancient sea serpents were miss-identified basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus,) the second-largest living shark after the whale-shark. Swimming with their large mouths open just beneath the surface of the water, with long stretched noses, these giants can easily be mistaken for a serpent's head. When being hunted they have been known to attack ships, lashing and battering like giant snakes. Furthermore, the washed-up decomposing spines of dead basking sharks have often been mistaken for sea serpents.
However, even when this is all accounted for there are cases that defy logic, like for example, what occurred on August 6, 1848, when the entire crew of the HMS Daedalus observed what was recorded as ‘an enormous fish’. The crew said the unidentified beast “swam past the boat with its head four feet out of the water,” while off the coast of Africa south of St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic.
According to Captain Peter McQuahe the creature was “dark with the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of seaweed washed about its back, with a flat and snake-like head” and because so many crew and officers saw this animal it was again proposed that it was a plesiosaur, that had somehow defied extinction. An academic take on the controversial theory of surviving ancient creatures is written by Professor Frederic A. Lucas, Director of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, in Possible Sea Serpents: Prehistoric Monsters that May Not be Extinct. Lucas writes: “there are many discoveries yet to be made in the ocean still, particularly in the deep ocean,” and stirringly, he adds that there may be species of animals “once described as sea serpents that have not been discovered yet.”
Ashley Cowie is a Scottish historian, author and documentary filmmaker presenting original perspectives on historical problems, in accessible and exciting ways. His books, articles and television shows explore lost cultures and kingdoms, ancient crafts and artifacts, symbols and architecture, myths and legends telling thought-provoking stories which together offer insights into our shared social history. www.ashleycowie.com.
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/sea-serpents
The names Thessalia, Hippolyta, Antiope, and even Princess Diana of Themyscira, better known as Wonder Woman are not unknown, even though up until recently only the romantics believed in their existence. They are Amazons, women warriors who were given mythological immortality by the Greeks. Every Greek warrior, from Hercules on down, had to prove his mettle by going up against an Amazon and emerging victorious from the battle. It was a rite of passage. But no one really believed they ever really existed. Until now.
Adrienne Mayor, in her book, The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World, has drawn attention to recent archaeological discoveries that seem to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that something like Amazons existed and may have been every bit as fierce as their reputations suggested. “As Princess Diana of Themyscira, Wonder Woman is of Amazonian blue-blood. Formed from clay by her mother, Queen Hippolyta, and given life by the breath of Aphrodite, she is a demi-god. The gifts she receives from the gods of the Greek pantheon explain her superhero powers, which become evident when she transforms into Wonder Woman…Overwhelming evidence now shows that the Amazon traditions of the Greeks and other ancient societies derived in part from historical facts.”
Scythian Burial Mounds
While excavating Scythian burial mounds, archaeologists routinely uncovered evidence of Kurgans—nomadic, horse-centered warriors—including human bones found from the Black Sea to the steppes of Mongolia. To be able to fight from horseback, a unique weapon technology is required. Bows have to be shorter and more powerful in order to shoot arrows on the run over the head of one’s mount. Such bows and arrows are regularly found in burial mounds. It was just assumed that their owners were male warriors. But now the science of DNA testing has become a regular tool in the archaeologist's arsenal, and, as it turns out, at least one third of the bodies found were those of women warriors.
On horseback, a trained female warrior can be just as deadly as a male warrior, and maybe even prove to be a little faster and more maneuverable, due to the lighter weight the horse has to carry. Along with bows and arrows were found knives and daggers. Again, speed is more important than physical bulk when using weapons such as these. Archaeologists call them Scythian burial sites because that is what the Greeks called them. Scythians roamed the area north and east of the Mediterranean Sea and were a feared and respected people. But history prefers the name Amazon for reasons which have nothing to do with geography.
Mutilated Breasts?
The Greek historian Hellanikos, in the fifth century BC, made a linguistic mistake that has been repeated innumerable times since. It is now so common that no one really thinks about it. The word mazon sounds like a Greek word meaning ‘breast’. The prefix a signifies ‘lack’. Therefore, at least according to popular history, Amazon means ‘without breast’. This was a reference to the fact that Hellanikos thought Amazon warriors cut off their left breast so it would not interfere with the act of drawing and firing a bow and arrow. This is patently ridiculous, of course. Female archers today have no problem shooting a bow. And the word Amazon probably is not even Greek in the first place. It is most likely Iranian, or even Caucasian. But once a titillating concept takes hold in popular imagination it is hard to shake it. To be sure, Linda Carter, the actress who portrayed Wonder Woman, the Amazon princess, on the television series, and Gal Gadot, who recently took over the role on the big screen, are probably both glad the producers did not take the legend too literally.
Another popular misconception, no doubt fueled by modern sexual mores, was that Amazons were lesbians who only captured men so as to produce the next generation of warriors. Here again, history just does not stand up to legend. The Greeks had no trouble at all when it came to conducting open and honest discussions about sexuality, and there is absolutely no suggestion in antiquity that Scythian warriors were anti-male or male-hating lesbians, as popular mythology asserts. Adrienne Mayor points out that she did discover: “... a vase that shows a Thracian huntress giving a love gift to the Queen of the Amazons, Penthesilea. That is a strong indication that at least someone thought of the idea of a love affair between Amazons. But just because we do not have any written evidence, and only that one unique vase, does not preclude that Amazons might have had relations with each other. It is just that it has nothing to do with the ancient idea of Amazons”.
Apparently, the whole lesbian-Amazon connection began with Marina Tsvetaeva, a Russian poet. She believed that Amazons were symbolic of lesbianism in antiquity. The idea grew from there, perhaps because it peaked male interest.
Pot Smoking Amazons
The Greek historian Herodotus told the story of Scythian warriors sitting around a fire and throwing plants or seeds unto the flames. Everyone became intoxicated when they inhaled the smoke. This sounds a lot like a pot party and may actually have some verifiable archaeological evidence. Apparently, every Scythian burial discovered so far, both male and female, contains a hemp-smoking kit, complete with small charcoal brazier. Herodotus says the people would build a small sauna tepee, go inside, light a fire, and get high. They also drank fermented mare's milk. Mayor includes a recipe in her book but warns people not to attempt to make it at home. Tattoos seem to be big in Amazon circles. Both men and women sported them in abundance, usually geometric shapes or animal images. Tattoo kits are also often found in Scythian burial sites.
Who Wore The Trousers?
Surprisingly, it was probably women who invented trousers. The idea of wearing pants can be traced in mythology back to Medea, either a sorceress or princess, maybe even both, from the Caucasus region. Both the Scythians and the Personas later adopted the concept. When one stops to think about it, it makes sense. Trousers work better than robes when it comes to riding a horse. If these stories are true, men must henceforth credit the idea of wearing the pants in the family to women warriors. The Greeks thought trousers were an abomination, worn only by barbarians.
When one adds up all these archaeological indications, it would appear that, as is so often the case, there is a kernel of history at the core of the mythology surrounding Amazons. This is not a new concept, either. Amanda Formen, in the April 2014 edition of Smithsonian magazine, points out that in 1861, a Swiss law professor and classical scholar named Johann Jakob Bachofen published what was then a radical theory that the Amazons were not a myth, but a historical fact. He wrote that humanity started out under the concept of matriarchy and switched to patriarchy at the beginning of civilization. Bachofen believed, however, that world domination by men was a necessary step toward progress. Women only understood what he called ‘the physical life’. In his words: “The triumph of patriarchy brings with it the liberation of the spirit from the manifestations of nature.” For a someone who started out with a good idea, Bachofen really went off the rails very quickly. In his defense, he lived back in 1861, but still.
Wagner’s Valkyries
The composer Richard Wagner was fascinated with legends about Amazon warriors. Brünnhilde and her Valkyries are classic examples. So, it does not come as a surprise that Wagner was a student of Jakob Bachofen. So was Friedrich Engels. Bachofen was required reading for a whole generation of Marxist and feminist theorists. They wrote about a pre-patriarchal age when "the evils of class, property and war were unknown." In Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State Engels wrote: “The overthrow of mother-right was the world historical defeat of the female sex. The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude; she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children.”
Many today would agree with this sentiment, but unfortunately there is very little evidence that such a utopian matriarchy ever existed. There are hints, found in various archaeological sites around the world, that societies did exist which demonstrated a much more balanced gender relationship than is usually the case. But as of now, the verdict is still out. So, the idea of matriarchy still awaits historic reality, but the quest for gender balance might explain history's fascination for Amazon mythology.
Antianeirai
One would like to think the Amazons were more than just Scythian warriors who could ride and shoot a bow. At the same time, male titillation with female dominance adds another layer to a legend that goes back all the way in time to Homer's first mention of the Amazons in the Illiad. He called them antianeirai, which can be translated from the Greek as meaning anything from ‘antagonistic to men’ to ‘the equal of men’. No one knows for sure what he meant.
However, the legend took on an identity of its own. Amazon warriors were said to have fought in the battle for Troy on the side of the Trojans. The Greek hero, Achilles, took on Penthesilea, an Amazon queen, and killed her in single combat. He fell in love with her the moment she died. Hercules' ninth task was to steal a magic girdle from the Amazon queen Hippolyta. Athens could not arise until the brave Greek warriors had defeated the Amazon hoards, a result, by the way, that thereafter justified the subjugation of women in Greek society. Plutarch, a Greek historian, later recorded these words: The Amazons “… were no trivial nor womanish enterprise for Theseus. For they would not have pitched their camp within the city, nor fought hand-to-hand battles in the neighborhood of the Pynx and the Museum, had they not mastered the surrounding country and approached the city with impunity. As ever, though, Athenian bravery saved the day”.
It is probably no accident that Greek depictions of heavily armored Greek warriors fighting scantily clad Amazon warriors was repeated down through history. In an epic battle scene from the 2004 movie King Arthur, Arthur, played by Clive Owen, and his knights of the Round Table, go to battle against the invading Saxon hoards. They are dressed head to foot in heavy metal armor. Guinevere, played by Keira Knightley, fights right alongside them—a personification of the prototypical Amazon warrior. She, however, is wearing a bikini. Even Wonder Woman wore more clothes than that.
So, the legend of the Amazon Warriors has to be listed alongside mythologies of lost civilizations. Did they ever exist as a separate civilization, set apart and in opposition to other ancient civilizations? Probably not.
Ancient Women Warriors and Hunters
But is there evidence that women once fought alongside men and even contributed to a wealth of technology such as wearing pants, being tattooed, and maybe even getting high once in a while, instead of simply inventing agriculture, minding the home fires, and watching the children? Most definitely, but as is usually the case, interpreting history is never a simple task.
Recent archaeological discoveries add more layers to the mystery. It now appears that woman warriors, or at least big-game hunters, were not confined to the Middle East. In an article for the New York Times, “What New Science Techniques Tell Us About Ancient Women Warriors,” published on January 1, 2021, author Annalee Newitz points to evidence that as far away as the Americas, “women have been leaders, warriors and hunters for thousands of years.”
In November 2020, a paper published in the journal Science Advances described recent studies conducted on the skeletal remains of a big-game hunter who lived in the Andes some 9,000 years ago. Found with the grave remains was a specialized tool kit that anthropologists have long identified with the hunting of large animals. There were projectile points, scrapers for tanning large hides, and a hunting knife. All this was fairly typical for the period. But then scientists decided to analyze tooth enamel using forensic methods that reveal whether the body carried a protein called amelogenin. It turned out that the hunter was a female. This piqued their curiosity enough to cause the examination of other bodies that had been all diagnosed as coming from this same period. Of 26 graves containing similar tool kits, 10 were determined to be women.
Bonnie Pitblado is an archaeologist working out of the University of Oklahoma in Normon. She made clear to Science Magazine that “women have always been able to hunt and have, in fact, hunted.” All this new data completely upends the long-held anthropological dictum that, in the past, men hunted while women stayed home to gather and tend the children. It now seems as though this dogma is rooted in gender bias, not solid archaeology.
This new material is not confined to the Andes, either. It does not indicate a purely local bias. When examined with fresh eyes, freed from historical blinders, the remains of a tenth-century Viking warrior discovered in Sweden by Hjalmar Stolpe, buried with a sword, two shields, some arrows, and two horses, was, in fact, that of a woman warrior. Skeptics immediately issued accusations of revisionist history, but it is hard to argue with facts, even though they fly in the face of such ensconced prejudice. The bones of the body carried, unequivocally, two X chromosomes. Armed with this evidence, more skeletons were examined and re-labeled. And the hunt was just beginning.
Returning to the Americas, this time to southwestern Illinois, the mound city of Cahokia, dated to more than a thousand years ago, revealed more evidence. The burial of what was thought to be two high-status males, complete with a treasure trove of valuable grave goods, has recently revealed that one of them was male, the other female. Both skeletons, along with others nearby, seem to have been given equal status. Perhaps Thomas Emerson, working with the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, said it best: “We don’t have a system in which males are dominant figures and females are playing bit parts.”
Modern Bias
It is a romantic notion to think that Amazons and Valkyries once ruled tightly knit peaceful matriarchal societies. The recent Wonder Woman movies inspire these dreams. But new findings do not imply such fantasies. They do, however, point out a fallacy equally as strong. Modern ideas about gender roles are not to be found in the archaeological record. They represent, rather, a present-day bias that has been superimposed over the historical narrative. It may be a bias that, in some cases, is thousands of years old, but even that amount of time is merely a small parenthesis in the great sweep of history. It is entirely possible that the vast amount of human time on earth was spent free of such bias. If the new data teaches anything, it is that prejudices are harmful and misguiding when one assumes things have always been as they are now. Given this point of view. Maybe Wonder Woman can teach us something after all.
Jim Willis is author of several books on religion and spirituality, he has been an ordained minister for over forty years while working part-time as a carpenter, the host of his own drive-time radio show, an arts council director and adjunct college professor in the fields of World Religions and Instrumental Music. He is the author of Hidden Histories: Ancient Aliens and the Secret Origins of Civilization.
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/amazons,
In normal times (and the year 2020 is definitely not normal times) the Christmas holiday season is the point in the year when, in the United Kingdom, the annual pantomime theatre shows get underway. Two of the perennial favorite pantos (given a further boost in recent years by the Disney live-action remakes) are Cinderella, complete with the Fairy Godmother, and Aladdin, which features the Genie of the Lamp. But are the Fairy Godmother and the Genie related? A look at the background to these two creatures of folklore and legend is warranted …
The Faeries
Regular visitors to Ancient Origins will be aware of the nature of fairies, also known as the Fae or faeries. They have been an established part of Western culture since at least the Early Middle Ages (from around 500-1000 AD – also known as the Dark Ages) although confusingly in Saxon/Germanic lands they were also called elves, whereas is in Norman/Romance lands they were faeries. It was not until the Victorian era that the modern image of fairies as tiny, cutesy, little insect-winged creatures became established but before that the Fae/elves were broadly human-like in size but with supernatural or magical powers.
As to just exactly what the Fae were (or still are) that remains a subject of debate. Theories include they are relicts of some ancient species of hominin – distant relatives of modern-day humans, rather like the now extinct Denisovans; that they are elementals – magical, spirit-like beings living a parallel existence to humans; and even that they are the ghosts of unbaptized Christian children.
What they are is not so important as what they are not. The Fae are not gods, nor are they angels or demons. They are something else. They do however, like humans, possess free will so they are masters of their own destiny and can make their own choice as to whether to be good or evil. In fact, one of the traditional divisions of the Fae is the split between members of the Unseelie Court, who are generally hostile towards humans, and the Seelie Court who are more tolerant.
The Jinn
Then there is the Genie, which is an Anglicization of the Arabic Jinn or Djinn (the singular is djinni or jinni). The Western Europe’s first encounter with the jinn can be traced back to the early years of the 18th century when Antoine Galland, a French archaeologist and orientalist, published the first European translation of the One Thousand and One Nights. He published the stories in 12 volumes over a period of just over a decade. The collection contains a number of what are called ‘orphan tales’ – stories that do not appear in the original Arabic version but are clearly Middle Eastern in origin. One of these is the tale of Aladdin, complete with not one but two jinn – the Genie of the Ring and the Genie of the Lamp, which Galland apparently heard from a Syrian storyteller called Yusuf Hanna Diyab, who was in Paris in 1709. Diyab was also the source of the tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Since then, and particularly in recent years, the jinn or genies have become a regular feature of novels, theatrical productions, movies, television series and even computer games. But from where did Hanna Diyab draw his inspiration.
Bronze statuette of Pazuzu, circa eighth century BC, Louvre (PHGCOM/ CC BY-SA 3.0)
Travelling back in time into what in the West is now call the Middle East, the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) one of the oldest civilizations in the world, dating back 6,000 years, had a class of demons called utukku or udug – of which the best known is Pazuzu – who were believed to haunt remote wildernesses, graveyards, mountains, and the sea, all locations where jinn were later said to reside. And, in the first of the similarities with the Fae, reflecting the Seelie and Unseelie courts, there were ‘good’ udugs and ‘bad’ udugs.
Moving forward several thousand years, the people of pre-Islamic Arabia believed in a type of supernatural or elemental being called the jinn who lived in deserts and other desolate or dark places that humans avoided. Once again, another similarity with the Fae, who live in a place variously named the Otherworld, Fairy, Fairyland, Elfhame and Elfland which is simultaneously both of this world but also separate from it, reached through portals such as fairy rings and fairy hills that humans know to avoid.
Glamorous Shapeshifters
Yet another similarity: the jinn could assume different shapes, appearing sometimes as humans whereas at other times they might take the form of animals or even become invisible. Once again, the Fae can shapeshift – some can supposedly change into crows, wolves, hares, hedgehogs and, on the Isle of Man at least, even into little black pigs. And, one should not forget that the Fae are also said to possess a magical power call ‘Glamour’ which allows them to fool the senses, so humans see, hear and feel what the faeries want them to see, hear or feel – or not, as the case may be, if they wish to pass invisibly among humans.
The 72nd chapter of the Qur'an entitled Al-Jinn (The Jinn), as well as the heading and introductory bismillah of the next chapter entitled al-Muzzammil (The Enshrouded One) (Public Domain)
However, it is with the writings of the Prophet Muhammad and the rise of Islam in the seventh century that the nature of the jinn as they are now known becomes firmly established. The jinn are mentioned approximately 30 times in the Holy Quran and, among other things it tells that the jinn were created out of a ‘smokeless fire’ (in contrast to humans who were made of water and earth) and roamed the Earth before the time of Adam. Elsewhere it is stated that angels were created on a Wednesday, the jinn on a Thursday, and humans on a Friday, but not the very next day, rather more than 1,000 years later, respectively. This makes the jinn an older race than people – another aspect in common with the Fae, who are also traditionally described as an Elder Race who occupied the Earth before humans.
Also, in common with the Fae, the jinn are not supernatural in the sense of being purely spiritual and transcendent to nature such as, for example, ghosts. They also eat, drink, sleep, breed with the opposite sex, beget offspring that resemble their parents – and it is possible for them to take humans as lovers. They are also stronger and much faster than humans, but they can be killed, albeit with some difficulty. They also live for much longer than humans. Once again, all features associated with the Fae.
Then there is their association with magic and working with soothsayers and sorcerers. Once again another overlap with the Fae, as Scottish witches in particular would attribute their powers to the assistances of faeries. Also, again like the Fae, the jinn are afraid of iron and can be controlled through its use by people. For example, it is said that if one were to insert a needle into the skin or clothing of a jinn, they will be powerless to remove it.
Faerie Blasts and Jinn Attacks
Another area of similarity is both the Fae and the jinn are said to be capable of causing ill health among humans. With the Fae it is the ‘fairy stroke’ or ‘fairy blast’ where a person is struck down with a sudden and apparently inexplicable illness that causes them to suffer a change in behavior and/or health. Today one can now explain these conditions because they are recognized as cerebral haemorrhages and aneurysms (more commonly termed strokes and seizures) which can result in temporary and often permanent damage to the victims’ mental and physical health, but 130 years ago it would have been blamed on ‘a sudden touch of the fairies’, as the Irish poet William Butler Yeats once wrote in 1888.
As for the jinn, the ailment most frequently attributed to the jinn is sleep paralysis or a ‘jinn attack’. A survey conducted by Cambridge neuroscientist Baland Jalal in 2013 found that 48% of Egyptian sleep paralysis sufferers believed the condition to be caused by the jinn, with almost all sufferers (95%) saying they recited verses from the Quran to prevent further attacks.
Jinn As Taqalan Accountable Ones
Although belief in the jinn is not included among the six articles of Islamic faith, many Muslim scholars believe it is still essential. The reason is in Islamic tradition it is held that the Prophet Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both the human and jinn communities, while the Quran goes on to describe humans and jinn as taqalan (accountable ones) meaning both races have free will and will ultimately be judged according to their deeds. Not only is this another trait jinn share with faeries but echoing the Seelie/Unseelie Court and the much earlier tradition of good and bad udugs, the jinn are split between the believers (those who accept the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad) and unbelievers.
Islamic teaching holds that the jinn are (like humans) neither innately evil nor innately good – their free will again – which distinguishes them from both angels and demons whose destiny is prescribed, with angels being exclusively good and demons exclusively evil. All of which brings one back to comparison with the Fae. The jinn are not human, but they are also not gods, nor are they angels or demons. They are something else.
Islamic Angel in a Mughal miniature, in the style of Bukhara, 16th century (Public Domain) and depiction of an evil Shaitan made by Siyah Qalam between the 14th and the 15th century (Public Domain)
Angels, Jinn And Ghosts
But just how strong is the belief in jinn in modern times? The most recent research is a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2012. This found that at least 86% in Morocco, 84% in Bangladesh, 63% in Turkey, 55% in Iraq, and 53% of Muslims in Indonesia believed in the existence of jinn.
This is in contrast to Christianity where a Gallup poll conducted in 2004 found that 78% of Americans said they believed in angels, followed by 56% of Canadians, and 36% of Britons. In fact, in the UK, according to a 2016 YouGov survey, more people believe in ghosts than in a god, while a 2018 survey conducted by Dr Simon Young and Dr. Ceri Houlbrook their book Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies 500 AD to the Present, said that 44% of British people claimed to have seen faeries.
Now appreciative that one is heading into the realms of the old saying: “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics” (attributed to Mark Twain among others), it is quite clear that even in the 21st century there remains a very strong belief in these ‘something else’ beings, be they faeries in the West or jinn in Islamic countries.
It is also worth mentioning that of the ‘People of the Book’ – the followers of the Christian, Islamic and Jewish religions – all three have similar beings in their traditions. Besides the Fae and the jinn, in Jewish mythology there are the shedim who share characteristics of both the Fae and the jinn. For example, they eat and drink like humans, they multiply like humans, and they die like humans. They can shapeshift and assume a human form. They can cause sickness and misfortune for people but the shedim are not always seen as malicious creatures and are also considered to sometimes be helpful to humans. Once again echoes of the Seelie/Unseelie court division.
So, are the jinn and the Fae (and even the shedim) related to each other?
Wishful Thinking?
One is referring to a cross-cultural paranormal phenomenon here, but it does seem to be more than a coincidence that people in the West and people in the Middle East have beings in their mythologies who share so many similar traits but are not human, yet at the same time they are neither divine nor demonic. This author firmly believes they do belong to the same broad family of elementals and the differences are merely a reflection of culture and geography – in the same way modern Western Europeans might at first appear to be totally different to the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, despite them all being members of the same human race. Whether a belief in the djinn (or the Fae) is truth or superstition is not a question it is possible to answer although the persistence of apparent paranormal phenomenon throughout the modern world attests to the fact there are still many things that are beyond human understanding. In the meantime, enjoy reading about the jinn and remember if you do meet ever meet one and it grants you three wishes… be very careful what you wish for!
Charles Christian is a UK-based journalist, author, and radio show host who writes and talks about folklore and the occult. He blogs at www.UrbanFantasist.com, his Weird Tales Radio Show is at www.WeirdTalesRadio.com, and he is on Twitter at @ChristianUncut
By Charles Christian
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/jinn
The Legend of Lugalbanda, The First Sumerian Shaman
According to the Sumerian King List, Lugalbanda was one of the kings who belonged to the First Dynasty of Uruk in Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia. What is particularly striking about Lugalbanda is the way in which he is portrayed as a great shaman in the legends told about him. In fact, the stories about Lugalbanda, which date back to the Ur III Period in ancient Sumer (about 2100 BC), constitute the earliest account of shamanistic travelling or journeying in world literature.
The story of Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, Old-Babylonian period, from southern Iraq. Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan. (Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP/ CC BY-S A 4.0)
Legend Of Lugalbanda
Lugalbanda’s narrative is told in two parts, namely Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave and Lugalbanda and the Thunderbird. The first part tells how Enmerkar, named as Lugalbanda’s predecessor as king of Uruk in Sumer in the Sumerian King List, devised a campaign against the land of Aratta in the north. He called on the people to take up arms and placed them under the command of eight warrior-leaders, including Lugalbanda together with seven other young men. On the road to Aratta, Lugalbanda fell ill and his companions left him behind in a cave high up in a mountain. His companions “made him a bower like a bird’s nest” and left some food to serve as a funeral meal in case he died.
When Lugalbanda recovered and left the cave, he noticed the ‘plant of life’ and ate thereof. He also noticed the ‘water of life’ and drank thereof. The legend relates: “Holy Lugalbanda came out of the mountain cave. There upon the fertile one [the soil], who appeases Enlil’s heart, begot the plant of life. The rolling river, the mother of the hills brought down the water of life. Lugalbanda nibbled at the plant of life, he sipped of the water of life…” Lugalbanda then gained envigorating energy, “like a wild ass of Sakkan [the god of wild animals] he races over the hills”. He is described in animalistic terms with ‘hoofs’ roaming in the mountains. He was then instructed in a dream to bring an offering to the great gods.
Male deity pouring a life-giving water from a vessel. Facade of Inanna Temple at Uruk, Iraq. 15th century BC. The Pergamon Museum (Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
In the next part of the narrative, Lugalbanda found himself in the nest of the Thunderbird, the embodiment of storm clouds, also called the Anzu-bird, which is already in the first part of the narrative said to have kept high up in Enki’s ‘eagle’ tree. Along with him in the nest was the Thunderbird’s chick. Lugalbanda prepared a meal for the Thunderbird and its family, which might be a reference to the offering he had earlier prepared for the gods. Lugalbanda says: “I shall treat the bird as befits him; I shall embrace his wife. Anzu’s wife and child I shall seat at a banquet… when the bird has drunk beer, he will be happy; when Anzu has drunk beer he will be happy.”
The Thunderbird was delighted to find Lugalbanda in its nest and he was now regarded as being part of the Thunderbird’s family with the bird becoming his father, its wife his mother and its offspring his siblings. He says: “Yesterday I put my life in your hands, entrusted my being to you. Saying ‘May your wife become my mother.’ And saying, ‘May you become my father.’ I shall treat your little ones as my brothers.”
The bird then gave him a present which confirmed his place in the family. He received speed and endurance. As a consequence, he would in future be capable to move to any place of his choice as fast as the Thunderbird itself. Now, he was a ‘princeling’, which might indicate that he became a god because the gods were called Anunnaki, meaning ‘seed of the prince’ or ‘seed of princes’ or simply ‘princes.
When Lugalbanda reunited with his friends, he felt as if he had only been away for three days even though a long period of time had expired. The Sumerian scholar, Herman Vanstiphout, writes the following about the hero’s strange experience: “These regions [where the hero’s wanderings take place] may therefore be regarded as another kind of space… Lugalbanda seems to have stepped out of this world for three otherworldly days before returning to the world we and his companions know.”
High In the Eagle Tree
One finds a beautiful description of the shamanistic tree in Lugalbanda’s story:
“Now there was a splendid eagle-tree of Enki,
On top of the many-hued carnelian hill of Inana, it stood –
fixed in the earth like a flower it was…
Its shade covers the highest peak in the highlands like a cloth,
spreads over them like a linen sheet,
its roots, like sagkal-snakes,
repose in the Sun’s seven-mouthed river…
In the midst thereof only the buru-az bird
built its nest and lays its eggs.
There the bird Anzu had made his nest and settled his young...
The nest was made of juniper and boxhood.
The bird had woven their bright twigs into a shade.
At daybreak, when the bird stretches himself at sunrise,
when Anzu cries out,
the earth in the Lulubi Mountains shakes at his cry.”
The eagle’s nest in the top of the tree where Lugalbanda was miraculously taken to, has an exact parallel in typical shamanistic experiences. In these experiences, shamans see such nests in the cosmic tree. One documented description by a shaman reads as follows: “On the different branches of the tree were large nests with thick twigs and an eagle sitting quietly and peacefully in each one.” Here, the soul of the future shaman is typically envisioned as a chick in the eagle’s nest. This agrees with Lugalbanda’s experience, which implies that his experience should be viewed as a shamanistic rebirth.
Plant Of Life
This rendition of Lugalbanda’s journey is the earliest known description of the otherworldly shamanistic journey. There cannot be any doubt that this story recounts Lugalbanda’s visit to the otherworldly realm in which the nest of the Thunderbird is to be found. All aspects of this story should be viewed in this light. The cave, for example, may be taken as a “concrete symbol of passage into another world”. Lugalbanda’s roaming in the northern mountains, recalls the stories of ‘rustic hermits’ who once roamed the northern mountainous areas of ancient India. According to the Rig Veda, one of the Sanskrit books that forms the oldest and most sacred literature corpus of the Hindus, these early sages walked around naked and with long unkempt hair. They are, intriguingly enough, also said to have become gods.
While roaming in the mountains, Lugalbanda, according to the story, found the fountain of life. This may refer to a magical fountain. He, however, also found the ‘plant of life’, which begs the question as to what this mysterious plant could have been? In order to explore the nature of this plant, one should first consider the effects it had on the hero. After he partook of it, he is described in animalistic terms, with ‘hoofs’ for instance. This clearly suggests a kind of transformation, similar to that found in shamanistic experiences all around the world. The remarkable speed he received as a gift from the Thunderbird should also be viewed in this light.
All these things suggest that the ‘plant of life’ may have been a consciousness-altering drug. The most likely plant found in these parts and used by shamans in the far northern regions to this day, is the fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria), growing in symbiotic association with the birch tree. Not only does this mushroom “confer on him [the shaman]… miraculous powers of mobility” which transports him to otherworldly places of his choice, it also grows in exactly the northern mountains where Lugalbanda roamed.
The association of the ‘plant of life’ with the shamanistic experience is also found in the Vedic tradition. Here, they associated an intoxicating drink, called Soma, with the ancient sages. This drink was made from a plant that grew in the northern mountains and was closely linked with storm clouds. The Soma was a ‘storm cloud imbued with life’. One of its names in the Avesta, the most ancient scriptures of Zoroastrianism, is varesaji, meaning ‘plant of life’, the exact same name as Lugalbanda’s plant! Those who consumed this brew, either by eating or drinking it, saw the gods and even became immortal themselves. This indicates that the Soma was nothing but a drink prepared from the fly agaric mushroom.
One can argue that the sages of the Rig Veda belonged to the very same North Asian shamanistic tradition one now associates with Lugalbanda. The ‘plant of life’ might have been a general name for the fly agaric mushroom growing under the birch trees in these northern parts.
Detail of the Sumerian statue of Lugal-dalu, King of Adab - as stated in the inscription of circa mid-third millennium BC, inscription including the Sumerian cuneiform sign of lugal (Ficatus / CC BY-SA 3.0)
Shamanic Flight
In the Sumerian tradition about Lugalbanda, he was remembered not only as an early king of Uruk, but also as a great shaman. Moreover, in the stories told about him one encounters the earliest account of the shamanistic flight. There is also a beautiful description of the shamanistic tree, with the powerful Thunderbird sitting in its top and a snake keeping amongst its roots. This narrative clearly indicates that shamanism was extremely old in these northern mountains. What is also quite significant is that the legend told about Lugalbanda shows such a close agreement with similar tales told about the earliest sages of Hindu tradition, where one encounters a very similar shamanistic tradition associated with these northern parts.
Dr Willem McLoud is an independent South African scholar whose main interests are ancient Middle Eastern studies, Kantian philosophy and philosophy of science. Willem’s main areas of study regarding the ancient Middle East are the Sumerian, Akkadian and early Egyptian civilizations, with special focus on the Uruk and Akkadian Periods in Mesopotamian history as well as the Old Kingdom Period in Egyptian history. He is the author of Secrets and Enigmas of the Sumerians and Akkadians.
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/lugalbanda
The God-Gifted Weapons of Norse Mythology
The Vikings were warriors and therefore weaponry was at the forefront of their culture, and this is why the heroes and gods of Norse religion and folklore were armed with a range of awesome weapons that were used to control and alter the natural course of things, including the physical laws of the Norse universe.
Norse mythology encompasses the supernatural beliefs of the Northern Germanic pagans around the time of the Viking Age (c. 790 - c. 1100 AD). The Viking world begins with a creation myth about the premier gods slaying a giant and turning its body parts into places in the Norse universe. Various dimensions of existence, known as realms, extended from the World Tree, Yggdrasil at the beginning of creation, yet the Nordic mythological world ended with the battle of Ragnarök. A selection of characters from the rich Nordic pantheon of entities, monsters, deities and heroes mentioned in medieval Nordic sagas, are each associated with a magical, god-gifted weapon.
Odin and the Völva prophetess - Odin holding the spear Gungir, by Lorenz Frølich (1885) Published in Karl Gjellerup’s Den ældre Eddas Gudesange. (Public Domain)
While the Nordic mythological corpus is woven together with gods and all sorts of malevolent energies, underpinning almost every story is the application of a particular, always god-given weapon. Looking closer at these divine tools of war, one can access hitherto hidden dimensions of understanding Norse myths, and the role they played in early Scandinavian societies.
Sigurd And His Sword Gram
Sigurd was a legendary 11th-century hero of Germanic mythology who features on Swedish rune stones and on British stone crosses, as well as in the Volsungs, in the Volsunga Saga. Sigurd used a magic sword called Gram, to slay the great dragon Fafnir. Reflecting descriptions of the Greek hero Hercules, some historians have drawn parallels between the dragon-slayer of myth, Sigurd, and the real life Sigebert I from the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, but most believe Sigurd had purely mythological origins. However, in both Norse and Germanic mythological traditions Sigurd dies in a violent quarrel between his wife Gudrun and his lover Brunhild, after he persuaded her to marry the Burgundian king Gunner/Gunther.
Sigurd slaying the dragon Fafnir in Hylestad Stave Church (12th century) (Jeblad/CC BY-SA 3.0)
In the Volsunga Saga Sigurd receives the sword Gram from a strange old man during the wedding feast of his sister, Signy. Unbeknown to Sigurd at the time, the old man was god Odin in disguise. Similarly to the story told in British mythology about the future King Arthur and the sword Excalibur being locked in a stone until it gave away to the rightful king, Odin thrusted the sword Gram into the Barnstokkr tree that grew in the middle of the grand hall, and he declared: “The man to pull out this sword from the trunk shall receive it from me as a gift and he will find out for himself that he never bore in hand a better sword than this.”
When the old man (Odin) left the hall, every man attending the wedding attempted to pull the sword from the wood and all failed, except Sigurd, who effortlessly released its hold. When he refused King Siggeir’s offer of ‘three times its weight in gold’ the evil king slaughtered Sigurd’s father and arrested his brothers. Sigurd avenged his family and went on to wield the sword Gram in several battles before Odin eventually broke the weapon during Sigurd's final battle with the King Lyngvi. According to both Norse and Germanic traditions, Hjördis, Sigurd's wife, recovered the two halves of the broken blade and kept them hidden until she passed them onto her son.
While the sword Gram is mentioned in the Volsunga Saga, the writer failed to describe what it looked like, but when referring to Sigurd's weapons in general – Gram being included in that arsenal- they are described as being ‘all decked with gold and gleaming bright’ and depending on how one interprets the text there stands a chance that the sword had a dragon emblazoned on it. Sigurd’s slaying of Fafnir and his alleged possession of the hoard of the Nibelungen also appears in both Norse and Germanic mythological systems. In The Nibelungenlied, the sword Gram is named Balmung, and in Richard Wagner's, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), Gram is referred to as Nothung.
Odin’s Spear Gungnir
Another weapon that was said to have been given to mankind by the god Odin was Gungnir, the Swaying One, the origins of which are laid out in the saga Skáldskaparmál, which says that this perfectly balanced spear was fashioned by the dwarfs known as the Sons of Ivaldi under the mastery of the blacksmith Dvalin. Thor’s mischievous brother Loki schemed the spear as a partial reparation for his cutting of the goddess Sif's hair and the dwarfs told him that the spear was so well balanced that it could strike any target, no matter the skill or strength of the wielder.
According to author Jackson Crawford in his 2015 book, The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes, the spear Gungnir was fashioned by the dwarfs with magical runic symbols on its tip which assured the one bearing it would have great accuracy and improved strength in battle. This was the spear used by Odin at the beginning of the Aesir-Vanir War, that resulted in these two groups of supernatural entities uniting in a single pantheon. In the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá, the Æsir-Vanir War is described as officially starting when Odin throws this spear over the heads of an assembly of Vanir gods, and in Sigrdrífumál, the valkyrie Sigrdrífa advises Sigurd on the magical application of runes during war, including how to activate the magic inherent within the runes carved on the tip of Gungnir.
According to author John Lindlow in his 2002 book, Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs, the god Odin would ride in front of the Einherjar while traveling to the battlefield at Ragnarök, at the end of time, wearing a gold helmet, a cloak of mail, and carrying only one weapon - Gungnir - with which he would slay the dire-wolf. In Richard Wagner's opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Odin's (Wotan's) spear was crafted from the wood of Yggdrasil, the world tree, and it was embedded with the supernatural contracts from which the god’s power emanated. This was the weapon Odin used to smash the sword Gram, bringing Sigurd’s life to an end.
The Böksta Runestone, a Viking Age memorial runestone depicting Odin carrying the spear Gungnir. Ramstalund, Uppsala County, Sweden. (Berig/ CC BY-SA 3.0)
King Hrolfr’s Skofnung
The sword Skofnung belonged to the legendary Danish king Hrólfr Kraki who featured in the Viking epic, Beowulf. According to Eid of Ás, of the Laxdœla saga, the sun must never shine on the sword's hilt and the sword should never be drawn in the presence of women. Eid also said that any wound inflicted, no matter how small, by the sword Skofnung, will not heal unless rubbed with the Skofnung Stone - a magical amulet which Eid gave to Thorkel Eyjólfsson along with the sword Skofnung.
This sword Skofnung was described in sagas as having surfaced after an Icelander named Skeggi of Midfirth plundered it from King Hrólfr Kraki’s grave. It was described as the best of all swords ever carried in the northern lands and it was renowned for its supernatural sharpness and hardness, as well as for being imbued with the spirits of the king's 12 faithful berserker bodyguards, whose very souls were bound to serving the holder of the magic blade.
In the Laxdœla saga, Eid is the son of Midfjardar-Skeggi, who had originally stolen Skofnung from Hrólfr Kraki's grave, and the prized weapon was handed down from Eid to his friend, Thorkel Eyjólfsson, who used it to kill the outlaw, Grim, who had killed Eid's son. However, Thorkel befriended Grim and never returned the sword to Eid. While sailing around Iceland, Thorkel's ship capsized, drowning all that were on board, but the sword Skofnung was lodged between the ship’s timbers and was washed ashore. The sword was eventually recovered by Thorkel's son, Gellir, who died in Denmark after returning from a pilgrimage to Rome. According to the sagas the sword Skofnung was buried with him in a mound in the western part of the Danish town of Roskilde, west of Copenhagen, where the Gothic, twin-spired Roskilde Cathedral holds the tombs of many Danish kings and queens.
Loki’s Laevateinn
According to the Poetic Edda poem, Fjölsvinnsmál, the Laevateinn (or Hævateinn) is said to be housed in Hel, the Norse underworld, and this mysterious supernatural weapon is said to have been crafted by Loki, Thor’s trickster brother. Lævateinn has been interpreted as a magical wand, a projectile weapon, most often a dart, by various translators of Norse sagas, but they all agree it was required to slay the rooster (cockerel), Viðofnir, at the top of the Mímameiðr tree, as was explained by Fiölsvith the very wise in the poem Fjölsvinnsmál.
Thor’s brother Loki is depicted with a fishing net in this 16th-century Icelandic manuscript. (Public Domain)
According to historian Kevin J. Wanner, in his 2009 book, Cunning Intelligence in Norse Myth: Loki, Óðinn, and the Limits of Sovereignty, the word Laeva refers to the stem or shaft of the weapon, and comes from the genitive form of Lae-, as occurs in Loki's nickname Lægjarn, in which Lae means deceit, fraud and bane. However, in Henrik Schück's Bellows 1923 work, Svipdagsmol II: Fjolsvinnsmol, the researcher concluded the weapon being described was actually the flaming sword of the giant Surtr. In the late 19th and early 20th century scholar Henry Adams Bellows translated the word Lævateinn as ‘wounding wand’, referring to the magic mistletoe with which Baldr was killed. Researcher Leszek Gardeła was convinced that the weapon was a magic staff, called teinn, meaning twig, which she noted was part of the ancient Norse word for a magic staff gambanteinn. To correctly perceive what this weapon was, one must bear in mind that Norse magic wands were not classic black sticks with white tips, but more along the lines of Gandalf’s, or Odin’s magical staffs, and as such they were conduits serving the destructive energies of the gods.
Ashley Cowie is a Scottish historian, author and documentary filmmaker presenting original perspectives on historical problems, in accessible and exciting ways. His books, articles and television shows explore lost cultures and kingdoms, ancient crafts and artifacts, symbols and architecture, myths and legends telling thought-provoking stories which together offer insights into our shared social history. www.ashleycowie.com.
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/nordic-swords
Chronicling British and Irish Faerie Folklore From The Middle Ages To Modern Day
Faerie-type entities have always been an important component of British and Irish folklore. In the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Motif Index of Folk Literature (ATU) there are over 500 motifs within folktales that include the faeries, many of which are from Britain and Ireland. Whatever the true ontology of these supernatural entities, it is evident they have had an intrinsic cultural role throughout recorded history and played a part in the storytelling of every generation since the Middle Ages, and perhaps even earlier. The folklore collected by Medieval chroniclers was almost certainly the culmination of centuries of oral tradition, and by the time it was recorded in earnest from the 19th century, it represented belief systems stretching back at least a thousand years.
The captive robin by John Anster Fitzgerald (1864) (Public Domain)
Despite the continuation through history of the oral tradition, one is reliant, primarily, on the written record for an understanding of the faeries’ cultural representation. And the faeries can be found in a range of sources as a consistent folkloric taxonomy; their roles and appearance may change through time, but they are always recognizable in their phenomenology. Whoever is collecting the folklore – and this can sometimes be an accidental collection - there is a concession and awareness of what they represent. Although framing their research in different ways, the folklorists of the 19th-21st centuries would recognize the faeries of Medieval chroniclers or Early-Modern commentators as being of the same category of beings they were investigating. It is in Britain and Ireland that some of the first folkloric testimonies of the faeries found their way into the written record.
Chronicling Medieval Faeries
During the Medieval period the faeries were incorporated into what later became called ‘The Matter of Britain’, an Arthurian mythos, which was consumed by the small proportion of literate population and were codified accordingly to suit their social expectations. The appearance of characters with supernatural qualities within these stories had, therefore, to adhere to certain doctrines, which would be acceptable to their social mores and belief systems. Subsequently, the cast of characters specifically ascribed faerie qualities in the Arthurian mythos were invariably given the attributes of nobility. Much Medieval and later folklore includes facets of a royal hierarchical organization within the metaphysical faerie realm, but in the Arthurian cycle of stories the quality of ‘faerie’ is subsumed into an unique set of players whose nobility ensured their respect and credence among the aristocratic audiences listening to or reading the stories.
However, the embedded supernatural elements of the Medieval Arthurian landscape, most especially the faerie motifs, contain the footprints of an older, Celtic tradition, most especially from the Welsh Mabinogion story cycle, and Irish narratives such as Togail Bruidne Dá Derga and the mythological cycles describing the exploits of the Tuatha Dé Danann, which demonstrates that the faeries who found their way into The Matter of Britain represent a deeper cultural legacy than their plot-line actors may suggest.
The Riders of the Sidhe by John Duncan (1911) McManus Galleries, Dundee. (Sevenseaocean/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
By the 12th century there were different types of stories being told about the faeries, most often recorded by chroniclers. The historian Michael Clanchy has described the 12th century as a period when memory (i.e., oral tradition) turned into the written record in a comprehensive manner. It is certainly true that there was an upsurge of historical chronicles written at this time, most often produced within monasteries. While these chronicles were most often concerned with recording historical events, they frequently diverted to folklore, usually under the moniker of ‘marvels. Medieval sensibilities, even among educated members of religious orders, seem to have made little differentiation between pure history and folklore.
Three of the most prominent chroniclers in England during the second half of the 12th century were Walter Map, Ralph de Coggeshall and William de Newburgh. All three made frequent interjections of folkloric stories amid their narratives of political events, usually with the insinuation that the stories were true accounts. Many of these accounts contained faerie folklore. Perhaps most famous is the story of The Green Children, recounted by both Coggeshall and Newburgh, where two mysterious children turn up in the Suffolk village of Woolpit via a cave, apparently from an otherworld: “where all the inhabitants had green skin, ate only green food, and that there was perpetual twilight. Moreover, a certain luminous country is seen, not far distant… and divided from it by a very considerable river”. But this strange story is rather atypical of the usual short anecdotes about faeries recorded by the chroniclers.
A more representative example is given by Newburgh, who recounts a story told to him by ‘a reliable person’, where a somewhat inebriated horseman comes upon a prehistoric burial mound, known as Willy Howe (Humberside), at night only to be drawn into it via an opening, where he finds a band of faeries in the midst of a revel. He joins in, but when handed a silver goblet to drink from he remembers the warnings against consuming faerie food or drink (evidently a well-established tradition as early as the 12th century), and threw out the contents before making off with the goblet. Interestingly, the goblet was said to have eventually made its way to the household of King Henry II, where it circulated as a curiosity among his court.
Two trolls with a human child they have raised by John Bauer (1913) (Public Domain)
These chroniclers included many motifs that have become mainstays in subsequent faerie folklore, such as the concept of changelings, the idea of faerie retribution for human follies, their dancing in rings, and living in hollow hills (prehistoric burial mounds). They were evidently recording genuine folk beliefs, which appear to have been around for a long time before the 12th century. While later Medieval chroniclers moved away from recording this type of folklore, and writers such as Chaucer and Gower made light of it for literary effect, by the Early-Modern period the faeries resurfaced as essential constituents of a cultural folk belief system.
Early-Modern Faeries – Accidental Folklore
From the 16th to the 18th centuries faerie folklore continued to be recorded in popular culture, primarily in chapbooks (cheap pamphlets, usually of less than 50 pages), which often contained stories about the faeries designed to be read aloud. This populist belief also surfaced in various theatrical plays, most famously in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1596). But perhaps the most decisive recording of folkloric faeries during this time was generated accidentally and implicitly, through legal transcripts produced during the trials of witches. From the late 16th century thousands of witches were prosecuted in Britain and Ireland (although the numbers of Irish witch trials were much lower), many of them being burnt, drowned or hung if found guilty.
Emma Wilby’s penetrative analyses of the witch trial records from this time finds (as with the records from the continent) much evidence for the hypothesis that the accused witches were practicing an adapted form of pre-Christian shamanism, where faerie familiars and zoomorphism played an essential and consistent role in the tradition they were following. There are certainly many faerie-type entities recorded in the trial transcripts, which would most often be termed ‘familiars’, who would assist the witches during their trips to Sabbaths. While the familiars could sometimes take the form of animals, they also appear in the proceedings as traditional folkloric humanoid faeries, as in the 1576 trial of Bessie Dunlop in Edinburgh, where she described the familiar who assisted her, both in everyday tasks and during her journeys to Sabbaths. He went by the name of Tom Reid, and she described him as a diminutive being who would appear to her only when she was alone. He was: “… an elderly man, grey bearded, and had a grey coat with Lombard sleeves of the old fashion, a pair of grey breeches and white stockings gartered above the knee, a black bonnet on his head… with silken laces drawn through the edges thereof, and a white wand in his hand”.
There are many more such examples of this type, best recorded in late 17th-century trials in Scotland and England, such as those of Isobel Gowdie and Anne Armstrong, where the faeries morphed between animal and humanoid. These trials were conducted and recorded by the persecuting cultural elite, and much caution is required in taking confessions extorted under duress as evidence of the actual words of the accused. But the consistency, over long periods of time, in descriptions of faerie familiars confirm that one is being handed down testimonies of a genuine visionary tradition. It is a tradition with an overt metaphysical component, where the faeries seem to be perceived and interacted with during altered states of consciousness. These types of interactions were registered by another 17th-century source, far removed from the testimonies of witch trials.
Robert Kirk was the church minister at Aberfoyle in the southern Highlands of Scotland from 1685 to his death at age 48 in 1692. In his 1691 manuscript, subsequently known as The Secret Commonwealth, he described the faeries of Aberfoyle, who he terms the ‘Subterraneans’, and how people were able to perceive them and interact with them. Much of the discussion in his text centers around people with the ‘second sight’, An Dà Shealladh in Gaelic, and their ability to sense the faerie world, which was apparently occupying the same space as consensus reality, but would only interact with it under special circumstances. Kirk’s description of the faeries is complex, and while conforming to certain folkloric generics, they are given many attributes, depending on Kirk’s source. He describes them as having: “Light and fluid bodies much as a condensed cloud or congealed air, which are mostly visible at dusk. They can appear and vanish at will, and their ‘chameleon-like’ bodies swim in the air near the earth with bag and baggage… They live in the earth, either in small hillocks or in subterranean caves. Their dwellings are large and beautiful, but usually invisible to human eyes. These houses are lit by lamps that burn continuously without the need for fuel”.
Kirk was, to all effect, a folklorist collecting data about the belief in faeries. But he was evidently a true believer in what he was being told about supernatural entities by people claiming the second sight. By the 19th century the collection of data had taken a different turn as folklore became drawn into the new scientific methodological approach, and the faeries began to be studied as cultural attributes rather than metaphysical realities.
19th- and 20th-Century Reinvention of Faerie Folklore
From the mid-19th century there was a reinvigorated effort to collect folklore in Britain and Ireland. This was primarily due to a realization that modernization (and the mass movement of rural populations to urban areas) was stripping away traditional cultural belief systems and the stories that made up those systems. This was particularly true for faerie folklore. The faeries held a special place in folklore, somewhat disconnected from many of the other traditions. This may have been due to the faeries, and their well-developed supernatural societies, being so close to current culture, and the sense their stories may have been able to tell people more about themselves. Either way, the concerted efforts to collect faerie folklore during this time led to an extensive corpus of data, which still forms the bedrock of folkloric study of faeries to this day.
In the mid-19th century, much of the folklore was collected by antiquarians acting on their own behalf. One of the primary examples from Scotland was Alexander Carmichael, who spent most of his life collecting folklore from the Highlands and Islands, much of which contained stories of the faeries from these remote districts, little affected (at that time) by the processes of modernization. His Carmina Gadelica was not published until the 20th century but includes a definitive collection of faerie folklore from the mid-19th century. Likewise, John Campbell travelled extensively in the Scottish Highlands in the 1850s collecting folklore, and his Popular Tales of the West Highlands (published in four volumes between 1860-62) remains one of the primary sources for Highland faerie-lore. While Campbell had been educated at Eton and the University of Edinburgh, he was typical of folklorists of this time in taking on the task of recording the data with no institutional backing.
Likewise, in England, independent folklorists such as Robert Hunt and Edwin Sidney Hartland brought together testimonies of faerie folklore, which have fossilized rural traditions that are regularly drawn upon by folklorists to the present day. In Ireland the collection and dissemination of faerie folklore took on a more mystical bent, as it was used as one facet of an acceptable counterpoint to British Imperialism. Lady Jane Wilde and WB Yeats not only collected the Irish folklore but attempted to Mould it into a more metaphysical belief system, where Irish faeries became an essential element of nationalism - they existed as genuine supernatural entities that in some ways represented Irishness, and its spiritual superiority to the crass materialism of British Empiricism.
There were dozens of similar folklorists collecting the data during the latter part of the 19th century, coalesced somewhat by the formation of ‘The Folklore Society’ in 1878. But it was left to an American to draw together the strands of 19th-century faerie folklore, and to produce what has become the most influential volume on the subject. Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz (1878-1965) is probably best known for bringing the first translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead (the Bardo Thodol) to the West. But prior to his travels in Tibet, Nepal and India, he was a self-styled American gentleman (i.e., independently funded) polymath, and between 1907-11 his incarnation was as a folklorist, who travelled around the Celtic bastions of Ireland, Brittany, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and the Isle of Man, collecting, analyzing and interpreting the ‘faerie faith’ in these places. His work was published as The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries in 1911, and it remains one of the most important and influential testimonies of the belief in faeries amongst the Celtic peoples. Evans-Wentz went further than most 19th-century folklorists and included an anthropological assessment of the beliefs, coming to the conclusion that the faerie folklore was far more than a collection of fireside tales, but which rather represented deep connections between the Celtic peoples and their past, environments and spirituality. In many ways, his approach had more in common with Robert Kirk than his 19th-century predecessors, and there is a sense that his work marked a watershed in the study of faerie folklore, which continues to reverberate to this day.
Modern Faerie Folklore
The legacy of the 19th- and early 20th-century faerie folklore collectors is fundamental to modern studies. The motifs and story types were codified in the Aarne-Thompson publications between 1928 and 1961 (further updated by Hans-Jörg Uther in 2004), and subsequent works have been able to utilize the categorization to build a more rounded picture of how the faeries might fit into the contemporary cultural zeitgeist. One of the most important late 20th-century folklorists to pull the threads together was Katherine Briggs, whose Encyclopaedia of Fairies drew on a range of sources to produce a vast compendium of faerie folklore, which remains a base reference. Briggs was willing to apply interpretations to the folklore, which allowed the faeries to remain real ontological entities, and this was taken up by the artists Brian Froud and Alan Lee in their highly influential publication Faeries in 1978. This book, perhaps single-handedly, transformed the faeries from Disneyfied Tinkerbells back into their folkloric roots as ambiguous metaphysical entities in popular imagination.
This trend has been amplified via several routes. Leslie Grinsell’s authoritative 1976 book Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain contained much data about faerie folklore, and was among the first works to codify the tight relationship between testimonies about the faeries and prehistoric monuments. And after its rehabilitation in 2013, ‘The Fairy Investigation Society’ has taken on the mantle of the most important organization collecting first-hand testimonies about faerie encounters. Their 2017 survey contains over 500 reports and carries on the tradition of 19th-century collection.
Death of a Faery by John Anster Fitzgerald (1860) (Public Domain)
But what has reinvigorated the study of faerie folklore in the modern period the most is the internet. In the last decade especially, there has been a great burgeoning of information, which has helped to disseminate the data to a wider audience than ever before. This comes in many forms — from online publishing of classic studies and databases of testimonies, through to new reevaluations of what the faeries represent within modern culture. This can take some left-field turns, so that, for instance, studies into experiences of non-human intelligent entities reported by people under the influence of psychotropic substances such as N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), begin to be included as a type of modern folklore collection. After all, the testimony of a 21st-century person encountering faerie-type beings while under the influence of a psychedelic is as valid to the recorded experience as any of Evans-Wentz’s or Robert Kirk’s seers. But it is clear that after many centuries of faerie folklore collection, the phenomenon itself remains persistent. From Medieval chroniclers to internet bloggers, the interest in faeries, and their place in our cultural zeitgeist, has been sustained. Perhaps this suggests that at whatever metaphysical level the faeries exist, they are a fundamental part of the human experience, and are likely to remain so.
Neil Rushton is an archaeologist and freelance writer who has published on a wide variety of topics from castle fortifications to folklore. His latest book is Dead but Dreaming
https://members.ancient-origins.net/articles/faerie-folklore-0
Folk Magic: The Hex Signs of Pennsylvania
IN 1952, A BERKS COUNTY folk artist named Johnny Ott started painting and selling colorful, stylized discs inspired by the large, decorative stars that commonly adorned the barns across Pennsylvania German Country (still colloquially known as Pennsylvania Dutch Country). Unlike barn stars, which were painted directly on the sides of structures, the wooden hex signs, a term likely derived from the Pennsylvania German word “hexafoo” or “witch’s foot,” could be ported around and hung not just on barns, but anywhere. Ott marketed hex signs as objects of folk magic, ascribing specific meaning and power to the symbolism on the signs.
If you believe in that kind of thing, four- and five-pointed stars conjure good luck. Eight-pointed stars conjure fertility or abundance. Two distelfinks — the Pennsylvania German word for goldfinches — conjure love and happiness in marriage. Sixteen points bring prosperity. A bird of paradise means welcome. The rosettes and stars of a “Daddy Hex” ward off famine. Oaks and acorns bring strength.
While Ott wasn’t the first person to make the barn star designs portable — that probably happened in 1950 when Kutztown Folk Festival director Dr. Alfred Shoemaker and artist Milton Hall responded to festival-goers desire to purchase barn stars — Ott’s emphasis on magical properties popularized the signs to such an extent that they have become emblematic of Pennsylvania German Culture. Today, hand-painted hex signs appear not just on barns but homes and businesses all over Southeastern Pennsylvania, and mass-produced versions can be had at pretty much every gift shop and decorate tourist attractions like Crystal Cave and Roadside America. Each year, the Kutztown Folk Festival brings together the best hex sign artists in celebration and commerce. Additionally, local convention and visitors centers in Berks and Lancaster counties offer maps and self-guided tours of authentic hex sign locations, and local artists continue the tradition of hand painting and restoring the signs.
Fractur with birds, star, and flowers (via Brooklyn Museum)
Although the aesthetic of the region, with its clapboard churches, Amish buggies, antique stores, and bucolic farms, leans toward the quaint rather than the creepy, artistic expressions of folk magic and nature symbolism have a long history among the Pennsylvania German. As an agrarian community dependent on the cycle of nature, artists incorporated geometric designs associated with the circle of life and divinity into elaborate, illuminated documents, such as birth and marriage certificates. This folk art form, known as Fractur, was practiced primarily between 1740 and 1860 and often contained images and symbols that would later appear in hex signs.
The artistic tradition of decorating barns with folk symbols began as early as the late 1700s and became even more popular as paint became less and less expensive. The original barn stars were found mostly in Berks County, and also in Lancaster, Montgomery, and Bucks counties, and pre-20th century examples can still be found there today. One of the earliest known examples, located two miles north of Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania, dates back to 1819, though the paint has faded and it’s only left the “ghost” of the design etched in the barn wood.Because they are so heavily associated with Pennsylvania German Country, many people incorrectly assume the Amish developed and use hex sign iconography. “Plain Dutch,” such as Amish and Mennonites, reject the hex signs as superstitious or pagan. Barn stars and hex signs are rather used by the more secular “Fancy Dutch” community of Pennsylvania Germans, which exists alongside the Amish and Mennonites.
Still, the signs remain controversial. Many in the Fancy Dutch community embrace the hex signs for their beauty and tradition, but insist that the signs have no magical powers and were never legitimately used as such. Artist Milton Hill disagreed with Johnny Ott’s assertions that the signs were magic and coined the phrase “chust for nice” with respect to the signs, meaning they are simply decorative. Other hex sign painters argue that while the symbols are powerful, they are Christian symbols and therefor acceptable for use by Christians. That, however, has not stopped neopagans from enthusiastically adopting hex signs as part of their own religious practices and believing the symbols and their ascribed meanings to be ancient.
Hex signs on a red barn in Lehigh County (photograph by Nicholas A. Tonelli)
The pagan aspect is partially correct since some of the symbolism used in hexing has its roots in Teutonic Paganism, including pentagrams, hexagrams, and octagrams. Yet, in the same way that Christmas trees and Easter eggs were appropriated by Christians, so was star symbolism.
Medieval Christians used the pentagram to symbolize the feast of the epiphany, which commemorates the three Magi arriving to visit the Christ child. The seat of the Lutheran Church in Hanover, Germany, which dates back to the 1400s, still has a pentagram emblazoned on its tower — a bit of iconography that provokes much comment by visitors unaware that the pentagram, which is now primarily associated with neopaganism, was once used by Christians.
It’s now widely accepted that it was via the folk traditions of medieval German Christians, brought to Pennsylvania by their Lutheran ancestors, that eventually gave rise to hex signs and barn stars. Whether their magic is literal or figurative, they remain a powerful symbol of Pennsylvania’s distinct and complex German heritage.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hex-signs-of-pennsylvania
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