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llyfrenfys · 7 months

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Some really good notes from my post courtesy of @margridarnauds about that person accidentally using a white nationalist slogan to support the Welsh language:

I know someone who is doing a PhD on the Far Right and the co-option of cultural movements and these tags are bang on. Its the difference between a healthy nationalism and an unhealthy nationalism. A lot of this goes for Irish nationalism as well as it does for Welsh nationalism.

There's nothing wrong with (and arguably a lot right with) minority language preservation. It can be used for great good (strengthens community ties, preserves culture) but if co-option is not guarded against readily, it can also be used for great evil (see: using minority language struggles as an argument against immigration, for example).

The Far Right sees the cultural preservation of anything (white) and it's like a bat signal. These things are magnets for white supremacists and assorted fascists of all kinds. Which is why it is so goddamn important to be vigilant against people like that hijacking your movement.

I see a worrying amount of Welsh nationalists use (accidentally or not) the language of the far right to argue for Welsh language preservation. It can be as innocuous as advocating for a Welsh Academie Francaise to as obvious as insinuating that Wales must be kept "ethnically" Welsh in order to keep out foreign influence on the language. I see this go unchecked all the time in various Facebook groups for Welsh independence (most of which I've left since admins of these pages either don't know or don't care that people use their groups to share these sentiments).

Nationalism ≠ Fascism - but if you don't keep an eye on the company you're keeping, any well-meaning nationalist/independence or language preservation movement can be hijacked to promote hate. I only know a scant amount because I was only vaguely considering joining Yes Cymru a few years before they all went sideways (but I remember Owen Exie Hurcum talking about this on Twitter at the time) but the leadership of Yes Cymru began to squeeze out minorities from the group- nonwhite folks, gay people, trans people etc. Whole thing put me off from joining. I don't remember the full details but from the testimonies of others, the group was hijacked and steered into a reactionary way of being. Considering a large amount of Welsh nationalists also idolise groups like the FWA (Free Wales Army - a Welsh nationalist group formed in 1963 which tried to emulate the IRA in Ireland, with little success- mostly just playing paramilitary dress up) - whose symbol is this flag:

Even if the flag itself is based on Welsh folklore and is supposedly an entirely innocent, non fash design- it still is like a beacon to the Far Right who will take any amount of symbolic validation as a cue to join your movement and derail it for their own ends.

Which is why Celtic scholars, people with casual interest in Celtic languages and/or their respective cultures and civic nationalists alike need to be vigilant against those who would co-opt the field for their own twisted hate campaign.

So, one final thought,

Returning to my original post responding to that American chiming into Welsh politics from overseas. Please PLEASE be careful when wading into politics that isn't yours. Where the Far Right are involved, it doesn't take much to cause a dumpster fire - if you aren't 'on the ground' with these issues so to speak, you aren't in the firing line if your comments go sideways and enable/provoke the Far Right in this country.

If you have an interest in Celtic languages, countries and politics- you have a duty to be responsible with what you do and say. This isn't to say that you cannot engage with these topics- but that you should exercise caution lest you accidentally worsen an already delicate situation.

This has been your regularly scheduled Celtic anti-fascist tedtalk. Please reblog to make sure more people become aware of how delicate things can be and how to prevent fascists from getting a foothold in this field. Thank you.

#cymraeg #Welsh #Gaelige #Irish #Luke's originals #antifascist #pleass reblog

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bidisastersanji · 5 months

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The Old Guard x One piece AU got my brain going brrr and i'm gonna make it your problem now. Center of the matter is I want Zoro and Sanji to meet kind of like Nicki and Joe did (discovering their immortality by fighting on opposite sides and killing each other over and over and then becoming eternal lovers) so I went and did some research for the entire Straw hat crew. Main thing is I wanted to link them to historical events that will give them the right motivations and backgrounds! so here we GOOO

Sanji and Zoro: Because Japan has an isolationist past, the only battle I could find that would work is the Cagayan battles of 1582 in Jakarta between Spanish-Philippine forces vs Japanese pirates (a.k.a Wokou, which are basically pirate ronin) Sanji would thus be a reluctant "Rodelero" sent to South East Asia by his noble family (jokes on them he loves being in the middle of the spice trade and he hates being part of a noble family funding the conquistadores) who one day finds himself fighting a mysterious Wokou samurai Zoro. They're partly isolated from their respective camps when they first kill each other, and again, and again, until they realise they should by all means be dead but they keep healing. After a couple decades of -against all odds- running into each other everywhere, they reluctantly decide to try and figure out what the heck's happened to them together- struggling to communicate at first, then learning each others' language over the following decade, then falling in love and becoming inseparable. This makes Zoro and Sanji both over 400 years old, and they are the same age. Zoro learns about so many sword techniques and Sanji about different cuisines/ leg-centric fighting styles during this time.

all the other straw hats and their historical periods under the cut!

Robin as an Egyptian scholar who died during the burning of the Library of Alexandria in 48 BC/ was killed for researching something forbidden during the declining years of the Roman Period (early 200s) and found out she was immortal this way, making her around 2 millennia old. She spends her time recording history and traveling the world and encountering new cultures. Her long time enemy is religious obscurantism, and the Catholic church spends a lot of resources trying to kill her. (they have conspiracy boards about this immortal witch in the Vatican)

Brook: so ancient he doesn't remember much, other that he came from Kerma culture (2500 BC), loved music, and that his entire village had died from an illness, but he came back. His memory isn't great but if there's one thing he's loved in his Millennia of existence is discovering and learning how to play all the instruments that he could find. He mostly hangs in Vienna nowadays as a music teacher.

Jinbei is a Samoan chieftain from around 1000 BC who one day died during a battle with a Fijian chieftain. When he came back from death he assumed Tagaloa chose him. He loves navigating, sailing, exploring and going on voyages with his people. In more recent times (post european contact) he was forced to ally with the US Navy to protect his people.

Nami: Irish lass from around 800 who's coastal, tiny village was about to be raided by Vikings from Sweden. She made a deal with their chieftain Arlong to go with them and map out the British isles for them to help their raids be more effective and targeted, in exchange for not killing people in her village, and that she would make back the plunder they did not get from this town for them. She started to join their raids to try and make this money, but she died in battle. She came back and they believed her to be some kind of Valkyrie or Einherjer brought back to midgard. She took over the raider's leadership- also Norsemen always had women handle money, which works great here. During her time as an immortal she travels, seeks treasure, double crosses people etc.

Usopp a young double agent/CIA spy from the Cold War who died on a mission. He tragically could not return to his love Kaya because he was afraid of putting her in danger by revealing he was alive to the spies that killed him. He relocates and starts anew constantly, his entire life a web of lies. He's a great marksman/sniper.

Chopper died young of the Bubonic plague in medieval Europe. He resuscitated, tragically his father is infected as well and he's unable to save him- motivating him to get to the bottom of this disease, he decides to become a doctor. Looking like a 15 year old for centuries doesn't make this task easy and he has to hide a lot.

Franky is an American veteran of WWI who was heavily disfigured first, and died later (which is why he's not fully healed and needs prosthetics). He's heavily anti-government from having been sent to fight in such a meaningless war that sacrificed young men like cannon fodder. He learned to fix himself up and make prosthetics and masks for veterans, got into making tech stuff

Luffy is a modern, 21st century 20 something year old from Brazil's favelas. He dies in a gun violence incident (maybe linked to a drug war/gang war where he's been trying to protect his neighbourhood) and comes back, experiencing visions of others like him. He's resolute to find them and make a crew, thinking that with all of them together, maybe they can help liberate the world from opressors and inequality

#it's one am #but i couldnt stop #did all the research i could to match each straw hat with a nice historic period #one piece au #zosan au #zosan fic idea #one piece fic idea #zoro x sanji #i just want the star crossed immortal lovers with lots of lore and cool adventures as #new immortal luffy just goes around collecting these people who have no idea there's others like them #and them going around liberating people #like the scariest undying ten people army that they are #the old guard one piece au #the old guard au #immortal straw hats #straw hat crew #zosan

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trans-cuchulainn · 5 months

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the way general medievalists completely ignore irish material drives me round the bend. they'll write entire books surveying a topic across different countries and languages and never even mention ireland once even though it has a bunch of texts on that topic. they'll describe a well-known irish text existing in dozens of manuscripts as "obscure" simply bc it's irish, if they acknowledge it at all. anything a bit weird is "celtic" but they don't bother to actually read the texts they're claiming are influencing their material, or any of the recent articles from celtic scholars, they just cite the same unreliable scholar from 60 years ago and never take it any further

and my favourite: they'll talk about how weird and unusual a feature of a medieval english text is... when it's a standard part of the irish genre that the text derives from... because the text was originally irish and the english one is a translation... but they haven't bothered to read a single other irish text from that genre so they don't know this

#just because it's an island doesn't mean it was fucking isolated!#irish monks were all over the place! can't throw a rock in the middle ages without hitting an irish monk!#they're part of the same goddamn literary traditions and movements and culture! oh my god!#anyway never make me listen to english lecturers and students talking about vision of tundale ever again

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moonlight1237 · 4 days

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RUNES HISTORY AND FACTS

There are many types of rune systems, including Younger Futhark, Anglo-Frisian Futhorc, Medieval runes, and Elder Futhark, which are the ones I’ll be talking about.

The Younger Futhark (long twig) has 16 runes and is typically used in translation with Old Norse. It was used in Scandinavia during the Viking Age, from 800 A.D to 1200 A.D.

Then you have Anglo-Frisian (Frisian being Dutch), which had around 30 runes and was used in Britain. It’s also known as Anglo-Frisian Futhorc.

The latest and closest to us is the Medieval Runes, which fall back into a 24 system (like Elder Futhark) with the Roman/Latin alphabet, which is also used in translation to Old Norse.

Finally, the Rune system we’re talking about is the Elder Futhark used in a 24-rune system and is used to translate proto-European languages (proto-Germanic, high Italic, proto-English, etc, NOT Old Norse!) None of the names of the Elder Futhark have truly been written down; they have come from reconstruction and guesswork from scholars. The names have come from Old English/Gothic sources and the Rune poems that feature names and pieces associated with names.

Norse=Runa English=Rune both meaning “a secret” or “mystery”

Old Norse=Rún Old Irish=Rún Middle Welsh=Rhin “to whisper” “secret” or “mystery”

Scots=Roun “To whisper” or “speak often about one thing”. It’s also associated with the Rowan tree in Scots, which is a very well-known magical tree in many folklores (also known as the “rune tree” or “the whisper tree”).

It was believed the Elder Futhark came from the Rome/Latin alphabet and had ancient Greek relations—due to the closeness of the Germanic tribes there and the mingling of Elder Futhark and High Italic.

The runes were not traditionally used as magical symbols. they were used in divination but were not considered magical themselves until later centuries, far after the Viking Age when they became popular as magical symbols. The furthest back they were found to be used was theorized to be Germania, as typically (but not always) female diviners would “cast lots” which were believed to later influence the Norse people to cast the runes. It was widespread for Norse kings, warlords, and explorers of this time to have a rune caster or diviner with them wherever they traveled. Diviners and Rune Casters at this time were well respected and always welcomed into people's homes.

Then in the myths, we find where Odin discovers the runes and shares them with the other gods. Later the gods share them with humanity. The god Odin stabbed himself with his spear, Gungnir, and hung himself from Yggdrasil for 9 days and nights without food or water sacrificing himself for the runes till they appeared to him in the Well Of Urd. This myth differs depending on the source you found it on. Then in the Havamal 80’ page, 31 of Jackson Crawford's translation of the Poetic Edda (elder edda), it states, “What you ask the runes will prove true; they are gifts of the Aesir, made by the gods and painted by Odin. You’ll learn best with your mouth shut.”

Freyr’s Aett

Fehu Uruz Thurisaz Ansuz Raidho Kenuz Gebo Wunjo

Hagal’s Aett

Halagaz Nauthiz Isa Jera Eihwaz Perthro Algiz Sowulo

Tyr’s Aett

Tiwaz Berkana Ehwaz Mannaz Lagaz Ingwaz Dagaz Othala

24 runes in total for the Elder Futhark

Freyr’s Aett

Everything for your basic human existence, talking with the divine, human social life, and the earth and its bounty, and how to live our lives happily or at least contently.

Hagal’s Aett

shows us how to navigate the difficult parts of life when things take a rough turn and you don’t know what to do. This Aett shows us how to move forward in life and cause change and unexpected luck for ourselves.

Tyr’s Aett

This Aett shows us how to connect with life around us like. We learn to connect with and communicate with Humanity, deities, and nature around us, as well as how to connect our physical worlds to the unseen spiritual worlds we work in.

Getting into the runes themselves and the meanings and associations

Fehu

Letter-F

God/Goddess-Freyja, Freyr

Meaning-Wealth or cattle

Association-Wealth, Livestock/cattle, prosperity, abundance, fulfillment, stability, success, new beginnings, things earned and won, reward, good health, unexpected good luck

Runic poems- Old English, “Wealth provides comfort, but you must share it who hopes to cast lots for judgment before the gods.”

Norwegian, “Money causes strife among kin; the wolf grows up in the woods.” Icelandic, “Money causes strife among kin, and the fire of the flood tide and the path of the serpent.”

Uruz

Letter-U

god/goddess-Ullr, Audhumla (the creation cow), Thor

Meaning-Ox or bull sometimes bison

Association- challenges, endurance, courage, strength, untamed potential, good health, good luck, moving forward after being stuck in stagnation, sudden breakthroughs, overcoming challenges, trials, power, creative forces

Rune poems- Old Norse, “The wild ox has great high horns with which it gores; a fierce fighter who boldly stamps the moors.”

Norwegian, “Slag is cast from bad iron; reindeer cross the hard snow.”

Icelandic, “Drizzle is the weeping of clouds, and blights the harvest and is hated by the herdsmen.”

Thurisaz

Letter-Th

god/goddess-Thor

Meaning-Giant or Thorn

Association-Strength, breaking down barriers, Thor's hammer, defense, reaction, temptations, resisting temptations, disruption, passion, protection, conflict, power

Rune poems- Old Norse, “Thorn is wickedly sharp and causes pain to those who grasp it, hurt to you who rest among them.”

Norwegian, “Giant causes the sickness of women; bad luck pleases nobody.”

Icelandic, “Giant is the torment of women, and the dweller of rocky vales and husband of Varthrun the giantess.”

Ansuz

Letter-A

God/goddess-The aesir, Odin

Meaning-Aesir, the ancestor god

Association-communication with the gods, wisdom, divine power, knowledge, creativity, understanding, passing tests, understanding, communication

Rune Poems- Old Norse, “Mouth is the source of the word, bringing wisdom and counsel to the wise, hope, inspiration, and a blessing to all.”

Norwegian, “Rivermouth opens most journeys; but the sword belongs in it’s sheath.” Icelandic, “Odin is the ancient creator, and Asgards king and lord of Valhalla.”

Raidho

Letter-R

God/goddess-Sol

Meaning-Wagon or chariot

Association-Rythme, journey, travel, personal development, change, evolution, decisions, taking the opportunity, movement

Rune poems- Old Norse, “Riding is easy for heroes inside a hall; it’s much harder astride a strong horse pounding against the great mile.”

Norwegian, “Riding is said to be the worst for horses; reginn forged the best sword.”

Icelandic, “Riding is a sweet sitting and a swift journey and the toil of the horse.”

Kenaz

Letter-K and C

God/goddess-Loki

Meaning- the torch

Association-Knowledge, Light, warm, illumination, visions, enlightenment, intuition, learning, Improvement, creativity, Inner voices, Breakthroughs

Rune poems-Old Norse, “The torch we know by its flame, which brings illumination, and light wherever noble souls encourage.”

Norwegian, “Ulcer is the curse of children; grief turns us pale.”

Icelandic, “Ulcer is the bane of children and a grievous blight and the house of rotting flesh."

Gebo

Letter-G

God/goddess-Odin

Meaning-gift

Association-Love, partnership, giving and receiving gifts, generosity, sacrifice, balance, joy in relationships, talents, abilities

Rune Poem-Old English, “A gift returns to adorn the giver with greatness and honor; it helps and heartens those who have nothing.”

Wunjo

Letter-W

god/goddess-Baldr

Meaning-Joy

Association-happiness, light, perfection, comfort, harmony, recognition of worth, reward, success, good health, prosperity, flourishing, bliss

Rune poem-Old English, “Joy comes to you who know no sorrow, blessed with grain and plenty, content in a strong community.”

Halagaz

Letter-H

God/Goddess-Hel

Meaning-Hail

Association-interference, disruption, corrections, changes for long-term good, change, being tested, nature, overcoming obstacles, wrath, chaos, misfortune, transformation

Rune poem-Old English, “Hail, whitest of grains, whirls down from heaven, is tossed by the wind, and turns water.”

Norwegian, “Hail is the coldest of grains; All-Father shaped the world in ancient times.”

Icelandic, “Hail is cold grain and a shower of sleet, and the bane of snakes.”

Nauthiz

Letter-N

gods/goddess-Skuld

Meaning-Need

Association-resistance, demand, desire, personal development, constraint, willpower, endurance, self-reliance, patience, necessity, kindling passion, recognizing your needs

Rune poems-Old English, “Need constricts the heart but can bring help and healing if heeded in time.”

Norwegian, “Need leaves one little choice; the naked freeze in the frost.”

Icelandic, “Need is the bondmaid’s grief, and a hard condition to suffer, and toilsome work.”

Isa

Letter-I

God/Goddess-Skadi

Meaning-Ice

Association-cold, lack of change, stagnation, challenge, self-control, harsh reality, concentrated self, clarity, watching and waiting, delay, obstacles, danger

Rune poems-Old English, “Ice is cold and slippery; jewel-like and glistening, fair to behold, the frozen field.”

Norwegian, “Ice we call the board bridge; the blind need to be led across.”

Icelandic, “Ice is the rind of the river and roof of the waves, and a mortal danger.”

Jera

Letter-J

God/goddess-Freyr, Idunn

Meaning-Year, Harvest

Association-cycles, harvest, efforts rewarded, plenty, good spirits, change, completion, fertility, growth

Rune poems-Old English, “Harvesttime brings joy when the goddess Earth gifts us with her bright fruits.”

Norwegian, “Harvesttime brings bounty; I say that Frothi is generous.”

Icelandic, “Harevsttime brings profit, and a high summer and a ripened field.”

Eihwaz

Letter-Ei, Y

God/goddess-Ullr, sometimes Skadi

Meaning-Yew tree

Association- strength, endurance, protection, movement, balance, death and life, Yggdrasil, change, magic, rebirth, friendships

Rune poems-Old English, “Yew has rough bark without but holds the flame within; deeply rooted, it graces the land.”

Norwegian, “Yew is winter’s greenest wood; it splutters when it burns.”

Icelandic, “Yew is a taut bow, and brittle iron and the arrow of Farbauti.”

Perthro

Letter-P

God/Goddess-The Norns, Frigga

Meaning-Lot cup/casting cup

Association-fate, gambles, hidden things, unknown outcomes, chance, destiny, pregnancy/birth, luck, common sense, revelation,

Rune poems-Old English, “Gaming means to play and laughter among the high-spirited who sit merry together in the mead hall.”

Algiz (Elhaz)

Letter-Z

God/goddess-All the Aesir, Heimdall

Meaning-Elk, the white elk

Association-Protection, awakening, teachings of the divine, ward off evil, defense, guardianship, opportunity to grow, fulfilling dreams, employment, shelter

Rune poems-Old English, “Elk sedge grows in the fen, waxing in the water, grimly wounding; it burns the blood of those who would lay hands upon it.”

Sowilo

Letter-S

God/Goddess-Sol, Baldr

Meaning-The Sun

Association-motivation, action, the sun, guidance, health, victory, cleansing, life purpose, enlightenment, spiritual will, goals, light, energy, self-confidence

Rune poems-Old English, “The sun guides seafarers who ferry across the fish’s bath until the seahorse brings them to land.”

Norwegian, “Sun is the light of the world; I bow to its holiness.”

Icelandic, “Sun is the sky shield, and a shining radiance, and the nemesis of ice.”

Tiwaz

Letter-T

God/Goddess-Tyr

Meaning-The god Tyr

Association-Courage, victory, peacekeeping, faith, loyalty, leadership, logic, sound judgment, compassion, honor, passion, masculine energy, truth revealed

Rune poems-Old English, “Tiw is a sign that spells confidence to the noble; unfailing, it holds true though the night clouds.”

Norwegian, “Tyr is the one-handed of the aesir; often has the smith to blow.” Icelandic, “Tyr is the one-handed god, and the leavings of the wolf and ruler of the temple.”

Berkano

Letter-B

God/Goddess-Nerthus, Freyja, Frau Holle

Meaning-birch tree

Association-New life, life changes, growth, healing, new beginnings, femininity, birth, regeneration, renewal

Rune poem- Old English, “The birch thought fruitless sends out countless shoots; leafy branches, high crowned, reach to the sky.”

Norwegian, “Birch has the greenest-leafed branches; Loki brought the luck of deceit,”

Icelandic, “Birch is a leafy limb and a little tree and a youthful wood.”

Ehwaz

Letter- E

God/Goddess-Freyja, Gullveig, sleipnir, loki

Meaning-horses

Association-momentum, trust, harmony, change, healthy relationships, progress, transportation, loyalty

Rune poem- Old English, “The horse brings Joy; proud on its hooves, by heroes praised, it is a solace to the restless.”

Mannaz

Letter-M

God/Goddess-Odin, Thor, Heimdall

Meaning-Mankind

Association-Humanity, soul, divine influence, social order, society, friendship, teamwork, self, family, support

Rune poems-Old English, “We are each other’s mirth yet must one day take leave, for the gods will allot our frail bodies to the earth.”

Norwegian, “Man is the waxing of dust; mighty is the hawk’s talon span”

Icelandic, “Man is the joy of man and the increase of dust and the adorner of ships.”

Lagaz

Letter-L

God/Goddess-Loki, Freyja, Hel

Meaning-Water, Lake

Association- Emotion, cleansing, intuition, dreams, flow, guidance, love, memory, feminine, physic abilities, renewal

Rune poems-Old English, “Water to land folk seems never-ending when they set sail on a heaving ship; the huge waves overwhelm them and the seahorse won’t head the bridle.”

Norwegian, “Waterfalls free from the mountain; gold trinkets are so highly prized.” Icelandic. “Water wells from the spring and the great geyser and the land of fish.”

Inguz (Ingwaz)

Letter-Ng

God/Goddess-Freyr, Ing

Meaning-The ancient god

Association-love, peace, internal growth, harmony, approval, agreement, completion, Masculinity, time of rest, goals, common sense, home, channeling force

Rune poem-Old English, “Ing, first seen by the East Danes, later rode his wagon away eastward over the waves; thus was the great god named.”

Dagaz

Letter-D

God/Goddess-Dagr, Baldr, Sol

Meaning-Day, dawn

Association-Dawn, daylight, change of direction, prosperity, clarity, awakening, breakthrough, hope, completion, balance, transformation

Rune poems-Old English, “Day is the gods’ messenger; the light of the gods grants ecstasy, good hope, and a boom to all.”

Othala

Letter-O

God/Goddess-Odin, Hel

Meaning-Home, Ancestors

Association-Family, inheritance, Home, Knowledge from the past, heritage, experience, value, group prosperity, positive mental state, good health, good financials

Rune poem-Old English, “Home is loved by all who prosper there in peace and enjoy a frequent harvest.”

Bind runes

Bind runes are 2 or more runes combined to make one bigger Bindrune. Used historically as a way to shorten up writing or just as a fun way to write, we now use them as stronger versions of runes, or as a way to have many runes together without having to write them all out.

Famous ones, Vegvisir and Aegishjalmaur (Helm of Awe) aren’t runes or bind runes, but instead Sigils that came around centuries after the Viking Age, and were found to be from the 1800s. Vegvisir is a path finder, not a compass. The Helm of Awe is used as a warding symbol but historically wasn’t actually used for anything as far as our sources note.

Resources

https://oreamnosoddities.com/blogs/news/how-to-make-a-bindrune-Bindrune explaining

https://oreamnosoddities.com/blogs/news/rune-meanings-the-elder-futhark-elder futhark source

http://www.shieldmaidenssanctum.com/blog/2019/3/12/the-elder-futhark-runes-and-their-meanings- elder futhark sources

https://youtu.be/nK51UmwJxRU-bindrune source from witches view with a little misinfo on Helm of Awe and Vegvisir

https://youtu.be/wG9d95vJibk-Bindrune source from Jackson Crawford

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLATNGYBQ-TjrPCf9YGy0qzqca1ypcGs50-Jackson Crawfords videos on runes through historical source

https://youtu.be/IROvre0w6hc-Vegvisir info

https://youtu.be/kW9KbtjyHN4-intro to runes

https://youtu.be/Gjmxu7z04kk-explaining the connection between the runic writing and languages

“Runes For Beginners” Lisa Chamberlain

“A Little Bit Of Runes” Cassandra Eason

“Nordic Runes” Paul Rhys Mountfort

“The Poetic Edda” Translated by Jackson Crawford

“Tales Of Norse Mythology” Helen A. Guerber

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F5INHBpAeUZ8Ux632760FbNQ0SUHDUGX/view?usp=drivesdk-Reading Past Runes book

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p5L1BFpUFRte-BVq7XgBdXLjAqqZKKkI/view?usp=drivesdk-Nine Doors Of Midgard book

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EGtRedzunDGtUYkAbtdDrOQS0ppBBH9t/view?usp=drivesdk-The Big Book Of Runes book

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ancientorigins · 10 months

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What’s the hardest language to read and write in? Ogham, an ancient Irish language written by carving notches into stones, is a strong contender.

#Linguistics #Ireland #Ogham #Irish #Alphabet #Language #ancient #history #ancient origins

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saiyukiitaliaandinternational · 5 months

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Monthly Minekura Christmas edition

Day 11 “Elf”

I know this might seem strange but the background is actually linked to the theme of 'elf' because that's Alden Valley, based on this photo that inspired me with the subject. Alden derives from Old English ælf ('elf') + denu ('valley'), thus meaning 'elf-valley'. I didn't want to use the Christmas version nor the Tolkien-based elves, and I couldn't find an equivalent in Chinese mythology. I prefer to stick with old traditions but it is complex and sometimes even confusing, so I preferred to use a place in England that was once associated with elves. Elves appear in some place names, though it is difficult to be sure how many of other words, including personal names, can appear similar to elf. The clearest English examples are Elveden ("elves' hill", Suffolk) and Elvendon ("elves' valley", Oxfordshire); other examples may be Eldon Hill ("Elves' hill", Derbyshire); and Alden Valley ("elves' valley", Lancashire). These seem to associate elves fairly consistently with woods and valleys. In Old English, elves are most often mentioned in medical texts which attest to the belief that elves might afflict humans and livestock with illnesses: apparently mostly sharp, internal pains and mental disorders. The most famous of the medical texts is the metrical charm Wið færstice ("against a stabbing pain"), from the tenth-century compilation Lacnunga, but most of the attestations are in the tenth-century Bald's Leechbook and Leechbook III. This tradition continues into later English-language traditions too.

Because of elves' association with illness, in the twentieth century, most scholars imagined that elves in the Anglo-Saxon tradition were small, invisible, demonic beings, causing illnesses with arrows. This was encouraged by the idea that "elf-shot" is depicted in the Eadwine Psalter, in an image which became well known in this connection. However, this is now thought to be a misunderstanding: the image proves to be a conventional illustration of God's arrows and Christian demons. Rather, twenty-first century scholarship suggests that Anglo-Saxon elves, like elves in Scandinavia or the Irish Aos Sí, were regarded as people. Keep in mind that like words for gods and men, the word elf is used in personal names where words for monsters and demons are not, so elves are people. In Old English, the plural ylfe (attested in Beowulf) is grammatically an ethnonym (a word for an ethnic group), suggesting that elves were seen as people.

Elves are known in Norse tradition, notably in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, which talks about svartálfar, dökkálfar and ljósálfar, but these terms are attested only in the Prose Edda and texts based on and it is now agreed that they reflect traditions of dwarves, demons, and angels, partly showing Snorri's "paganisation" of a Christian cosmology learned from the Elucidarius, a popular digest of Christian thought (this is why I take with a grain of salt Prose Edda when I want to learn about Norse religion). I prefer to focus in Old Norse poetry, particularly the Elder Edda. Elves are frequently mentioned in the alliterating phrase Æsir ok Álfar ('Æsir and elves') and its variants. This was a well-established poetic formula, indicating a strong tradition of associating elves with the group of gods known as the Æsir, or even suggesting that the elves and Æsir were one and the same. There are other sources that talk about elves such as Sagas of Icelanders, Bishops' sagas, and contemporary sagas. In Kormáks saga there is the mention of álfablót ("elves' sacrifice"), and in Eyrbyggja saga we can find the existence of the euphemism ganga álfrek ('go to drive away the elves') for "going to the toilet".

Fun fact: by the end of the medieval period, elf was increasingly being supplanted by the French loan-word fairy. An example is Geoffrey Chaucer's satirical tale Sir Thopas, where the title character sets out in a quest for the "elf-queen", who dwells in the "countree of the Faerie".

I imagined Gojyo (I find him the best for these kind of works) being alone in this place, pondering about his life and letting thoughts roam freely before maybe elves try to steal them. Here you can see two versions, a black and white version which resemble a manga page and another one where Gojyo chromatically stands out. I was unsure which posting, so asked a dear friend of mine and she liked both and eventually I decided to post both. Gojyo's pose was partially inspired by the famous painting of Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. Ok again sorry for long post.

Credits:

Saiyuki Reload Blast © Kazuya Minekura, Platinum Vision, 2017-present

#saiyuki #minekura kazuya #kazuya minekura #saiyuki fanart #monthlyminekura

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juniper-divination-and-witchery · 2 years

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Ogham: An Introduction

What is ogham?

Ogham (pronounced OH-mm) is a writing system that dates from the 4th century CE that was used to write Primitive Irish and is used today as both a writing and magical and divinatory system. Each letter in the Ogham alphabet is called a fid (pronounced fee) and a group of letters is called a feda (pronounced fed-ah).

Stones with ogham inscriptions are found all around Ireland and areas surrounding the Irish Sea.

You may also see it spelled ogham spelled as ogam, which is the Old Irish spelling (the version of Irish that came after Primitive Irish).

The original alphabet has 20 letters and is divided into four groups of five letters called aicme (hear pronuncation). An additional five letters were added to the ogham in the Old Irish period (600CE to 900CE) and these are known as the forfeda and are less commonly used today.

Each letter has many associated lists that may have been used as mnemonic devices as well as bríatharogaim or kennings which are phrases that are associated with each letter which we can date back to the Old Irish period.

As a quick aside: Often when people have heard of ogham it’s through Robert Graves’ The White Goddess and his “Celtic tree calendar” or “Celtic astrology.” Ogham is not a calendar or time-keeping system and has many associations beyond just trees.

What do the ogham letters look like?

The ogham letters are formed by tally marks that come off of a central line. They are generally read from bottom to top when the text is arranged vertically (as it often is on stone inscriptions) or from left to right if it is arranged horizontally. The rightmost line of this images is the forfeda who's characters are more complex than the original alphabet.

Where did ogham come from?

There are 2 main theories on where ogham comes from. The first is that ogham was created by the Irish to be a written language that could not be understood by Latin speakers (primarily for political. religious, and military purposes).

The other mainstream theory is that the ogham was invented by early Irish Christians because the Irish language was difficult to write in the Latin alphabet.

There is also an older theory that ogham was invented by Druids in Gaul which has since been discredited as it has since been shown that ogham was almost certainly created for writing primitive Irish.

What are ogham's mythical origins?

The Book of Invasions and The Scholar’s Primer both have similar stories about the invention of ogham that relate to the Tower of Babel (see this episode of The Constant podcast for more context around this).

In this version of the story, a (fictional) Irish king sends out a group of scholars shortly after the fall of the Tower of Babel to try and reconstruct our previously shared language that the Christian God had destroyed. Those scholars take the best part of each new language that they find and mix them all together and create the Irish language/recreate the original language before the fall of the Tower of Babel and the ogham writing system with each fed being named after one of the scholars who helped reconstruct the language.

However The Scholar's Primer contains a second creation story and it tells us that the god Ogma, a God known for his skills in speech and poetry, invented the ogham to warn the God Lugh that his wife would be stolen away to the Otherworld unless he protected her with birch.

What are ogham's uses today?

Today ogham is primarily used in Pagan circles as a writing and divinatory system. The bríatharogaim and associated lists for each letter are generally used as a guide to the letter’s divinatory meaning. The main reference cited for ogham as a divinatory tool is a brief mention in The Wooing of Etaine but not much information is given on how exactly the ogham was used other than it involving yew wands with the ogham written on them, but reading methods tend to vary from practitioner to practitioner.

Where can I learn more about ogham?

Books

Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom by Erynn Rowan Laurie

Ogham: The Secret Language of the Druids by Robert Lee Ellison

Courses

3 Truths About Ogham (Free!)

Primary Sources

The Ogham Tract

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dduane · 2 years

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can I ask why in a Wizard Abroad, Nita's irish name is Shonaiula ni Cealoidhean? I understand Aoine ni Cealoidhean for aunt Annie, but what's the derivation for Shonaiula? phonetically it doesn't seem similar to Nita or Juanita. (of course, Annie and Aoine don't, either...)

Yeah, I could see where it would be confusing, as they don't look close. ...But this is Irish we’re talking about. :)

Nita is of course short for Juanita, and Juanita is a diminutive-inflected variant of Juana, which is the female-gendered version of Juan, the Spanish version of John. So Nita's Irish-version name is derived forwards from Séan, which is the Irish version of John.

One of numerous “Séan” variants (though, admittedly, surprisingly few feminine-gendered ones) is a very old formation for a girl’s name: Sionnuala. Probably its considerable age contributes to its rarity these days. (The “-nuala” suffix has itself become something of a diminutive form for another (better known and still-seen) name, Fionnuala [who was one of the Children of Lír: the word means “fair-” or “pale-shouldered”]. ...But as a diminutive, it doesn’t work as such. The conventional Irish language diminutive suffix is -ín, which has been extensively adopted into Anglicized Irish words: colleen, boreen, smithereen*.)

In any case, when I went looking for Irish-language versions of Juanita—ideally, variations of a diminutive-inflected version of Séan—I came up annoyingly empty. I could have coined something, but I didn’t want to. I wanted an verifiable, extremely old Irish formation that one might reasonably expect one of the local Gentry to use. I kept coming back to Sionnuala, but the derivation (or the unclarity about it) kept bothering me.

Somewhere along the line, though, while I was doing research up at the Trinity College library, I came across one linguistic scholar’s suggestion for the construction of the name that gave me just what I needed. (And don’t ask me for a cite at this end of time. I just made a note of the potential explanation, said to myself “Thank GOD now I can get on with things!...”, and moved on.)

As you may already know, Ireland is where the Latin language was preserved by Irish monks during the post-Roman Empire period during which Latin fell out of European usage. (And they later re-introduced it to the Continent, which is why we even know about Latin at all.) As a result of having been made into a sort of linguistic safe haven, Irish has incorporated a truly astonishing number of Latin words. For example, when you’re in some bars or restaurants here and you head for the (gender-labeled) restrooms, you may find them labeled FÍR and MNA, and not have the slightest idea which door to use. But if you know any Latin at all, you’ll have a hint: because “fír” is an altered version of Latin vir, “man”, and “mna” is an abbreviation of Latin fem(i)na, “woman.”

The scholar in whose work this discussion came up suggested that it was possible that the diminutive hooked onto that variant of Séan was, rather than the Irish one, a Latin one: the -ola or -ula diminutive that one finds hooked onto all kinds of words, and which has seeped even into English (in weird usages like “pianola” and so forth). The respelling of “Séan” as “Sion-” could also have been an attempt at Latinizing the name. (Or an additional alteration via Welsh, which has Sîan.)

I looked at that and thought, “...okay, yeah! I’ll buy that for a dollar.” And did. (...And this explanation also makes the translation/structure of Fionnuala seem a little more likely—to me anyway. I mean, who names their kid after what their shoulder looks like?...)

Only one thing remained to take care of: making the name a little tiny bit easier for the reader to handle. Fortunately Irish orthography is a dumpster fire*** at the best of times, and has shifted a double handful of times just in the last couple of centuries. (You haven’t lived until you’ve fetched up at a crossroads over here and found the same town or village name spelled three different ways on three different generations of signage.) So changing a letter or two for the sake of euphony isn’t going to cause most scholars to cut up cranky: they’ll have seen lots worse.** As has been accepted as permissible in other parts of the language, I tweaked the consonants just a little and swapped the initial vowel for an “h”, just to give the non-Irish readership a hint about how to pronounce the word in their heads. And then I stepped the hell away from the issue and got busy with other problems.

So now you know. :)

(Also, just in passing: one other note here, since we’re talking names—not on the Irish but on the [kinda] English side: There’s a misapprehension that crops up from time to time regarding the name Juanita, which (applied to our protagonist) has caused some people to think that both she and Kit are Hispanic. ...What these people are missing is that in the 1950s, the name “Juanita” had a period of being a fairly popular name given to girl babies whether they were of Latinx descent or not. It’s also the name of a good friend of mine with whom I worked as a nurse, back in the day... and when I got around to writing SYWTBAW, I named Nita for my friend. So now everybody knows.) :)

Anyway: HTH!

*Why do we never see “smithereens” in the singular? A question for another day...

**Cf. the Anglicization of the name of the biggest in-city park in Europe. Its Irish name is Fionnuisce: bright/clear + water, for the springs and fountains that were there. This got turned unceremoniously into “Phoenix.” (eyeroll) Bloody colonizers...

***”And I mean that in a very caring way.” :))))

#A Wizard Abroad #derivations #names #etymology

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stairnaheireann · 1 month

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#OTD in 1948 – Death of Gearóid O’Sullivan. He had the honour of raising the Tricolour over the GPO as fighting raged the streets of Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising.

Gearóid O’Sullivan, then 25, was the youngest IRB officer fighting in the GPO (three months younger than his cousin Michael Collins). He had been personally chosen by leader Seán Mac Diarmada to serve as his aide-de-camp. He was an Irish teacher, Irish language scholar, army officer, barrister and Sinn Féin and Fine Gael politician. Following the Rising, he was interned in Frongoch in Wales with…

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#1916 Easter Rising #26 March #Aide-de-camp #Army Officer #Barrister #Dublin #Gearóid O&039;Sullivan #GPO #IRB #Irish language scholar #Michael Collins #Séan Mac Diarmada #TD #Teacher

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covenofom · 11 months

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The Druids : Brahmins of Ancient Europe

The Celtic people spread from their homeland in what is now Germany across Europe in the first millennium bce. Iron tools and weapons rendered them superior to their neighbors. They were also skilled farmers, road builders, traders and inventors of a fast two-wheeled chariot. They declined in the face of Roman, Germanic and Slavic ascendency by the second centuries BCE.

Here Peter Berresford Ellis, one of Europe’s foremost experts of the Celts, explains how modern research has revealed the amazing similarities between ancient Celt and Vedic culture. The Celt’s priestly caste, the Druids, has become a part of modern folklore. Their identity is claimed by New Age enthusiasts likely to appear at annual solstice gatherings around the ancient megaliths of northwest Europe. While sincerely motivated by a desire to resurrect Europe’s ancient spiritual ways, Ellis says these modern Druids draw more upon fanciful reconstructions of the 18th century than actual scholarship.

The Druids of the ancient Celtic world have a startling kinship with the brahmins of the Hindu religion and were, indeed, a parallel development from their common Indo-European cultural root which began to branch out probably five thousand years ago. It has been only in recent decades that Celtic scholars have begun to reveal the full extent of the parallels and cognates between ancient Celtic society and Vedic culture.

The Celts were the first civilization north of the European Alps to emerge into recorded history. At the time of their greatest expansion, in the 3rd century bce, the Celts stretched from Ireland in the west, through to the central plain of Turkey in the east; north from Belgium, down to Cadiz in southern Spain and across the Alps into the Po Valley of Italy. They even impinged on areas of Poland and the Ukraine and, if the amazing recent discoveries of mummies in China’s province of Xinjiang are linked with the Tocharian texts, they even moved as far east as the area north of Tibet.

The once great Celtic civilization is today represented only by the modern Irish, Manx and Scots, and the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. Today on the northwest fringes of Europe cling the survivors of centuries of attempted conquest and “ethnic cleansing” by Rome and its imperial descendants. But of the sixteen million people who make up those populations, only 2.5 million now speak a Celtic language as their mother tongue.

The Druids were not simply priesthood. They were the intellectual caste of ancient Celtic society, incorporating all the professions: judges, lawyers, medical doctors, ambassadors, historians and so forth, just as does the brahmin caste. In fact, other names designate the specific role of the “priests.” Only Roman and later Christian propaganda turned them into “shamans,” “wizards” and “magicians.” The scholars of the Greek Alexandrian school clearly described them as a parallel caste to the brahmins of Vedic society.

The very name Druid is composed of two Celtic word roots which have parallels in Sanskrit. Indeed, the root vid for knowledge, which also emerges in the Sanskrit word Veda, demonstrates the similarity. The Celtic root dru which means “immersion” also appears in Sanskrit. So a Druid was one “immersed in knowledge.”

Because Ireland was one of the few areas of the Celtic world that was not conquered by Rome and therefore not influenced by Latin culture until the time of its Christianization in the 5th century ce, its ancient Irish culture has retained the most clear and startling parallels to Hindu society.

Professor Calvert Watkins of Harvard, one of the leading linguistic experts in his field, has pointed out that of all the Celtic linguistic remains, Old Irish represents an extraordinarily archaic and conservative tradition within the Indo-European family. Its nominal and verbal systems are a far truer reflection of the hypothesized parent tongue, from which all Indo-European languages developed, than are Classical Greek or Latin. The structure of Old Irish, says Professor Watkins, can be compared only with that of Vedic Sanskrit or Hittite of the Old Kingdom.

The vocabulary is amazingly similar. The following are just a few examples:

Old Irish – arya (freeman),Sanskrit – aire (noble) Old Irish – naib (good), Sanskrit – noeib (holy) Old Irish – badhira (deaf), Sanskrit – bodhar (deaf) Old Irish – names (respect), Sanskrit – nemed (respect) Old Irish – righ (king), Sanskrit – raja (king)

This applies not only in the field of linguistics but in law and social custom, in mythology, in folk custom and in traditional musical form. The ancient Irish law system, the Laws of the Fénechus, is closely parallel to the Laws of Manu. Many surviving Irish myths, and some Welsh ones, show remarkable resemblances to the themes, stories and even names in the sagas of the Indian Vedas.

Comparisons are almost endless. Among the ancient Celts, Danu was regarded as the “Mother Goddess.” The Irish Gods and Goddesses were the Tuatha De Danaan (“Children of Danu”). Danu was the “divine waters” falling from heaven and nurturing Bíle, the sacred oak from whose acorns their children sprang. Moreover, the waters of Danu went on to create the great Celtic sacred river–Danuvius, today called the Danube. Many European rivers bear the name of Danu–the Rhône (ro- Dhanu, “Great Danu”) and several rivers called Don. Rivers were sacred in the Celtic world, and places where votive offerings were deposited and burials often conducted. The Thames, which flows through London, still bears its Celtic name, from Tamesis, the dark river, which is the same name as Tamesa, a tributary of the Ganges.

Not only is the story of Danu and the Danube a parallel to that of Ganga and the Ganges but a Hindu Danu appears in the Vedic story “The Churning of the Oceans,” a story with parallels in Irish and Welsh mytholgy. Danu in Sanskrit also means “divine waters” and “moisture.”

In ancient Ireland, as in ancient Hindu society, there was a class of poets who acted as charioteers to the warriors They were also their intimates and friends. In Irish sagas these charioteers extolled the prowess of the warriors. The Sanskrit Satapatha Brahmana says that on the evening of the first day of the horse sacrifice (and horse sacrifice was known in ancient Irish kingship rituals, recorded as late as the 12th century) the poets had to chant a praise poem in honor of the king or his warriors, usually extolling their genealogy and deeds.

Such praise poems are found in the Rig Veda and are called narasamsi. The earliest surviving poems in old Irish are also praise poems, called fursundud, which trace back the genealogy of the kings of Ireland to Golamh or Mile Easpain, whose sons landed in Ireland at the end of the second millennium bce. When Amairgen, Golamh’s son, who later traditions hail as the “first Druid,” set foot in Ireland, he cried out an extraordinary incantation that could have come from the Bhagavad Gita, subsuming all things into his being

Celtic cosmology is a parallel to Vedic cosmology. Ancient Celtic astrologers used a similar system based on twenty-seven lunar mansions, called nakshatras in Vedic Sanskrit. Like the Hindu Soma, King Ailill of Connacht, Ireland, had a circular palace constructed with twenty-seven windows through which he could gaze on his twenty-seven “star wives.”

There survives the famous first century bce Celtic calendar (the Coligny Calendar) which, as soon as it was first discovered in 1897, was seen to have parallels to Vedic calendrical computations. In the most recent study of it, Dr. Garret Olmsted, an astronomer as well as Celtic scholar, points out the startling fact that while the surviving calendar was manufactured in the first century bce, astronomical calculus shows that it must have been computed in 1100 bce.

One fascinating parallel is that the ancient Irish and Hindus used the name Budh for the planet Mercury. The stem budh appears in all the Celtic languages, as it does in Sanskrit, as meaning “all victorious,” “gift of teaching,” “accomplished,” “enlightened,” “exalted” and so on. The names of the famous Celtic queen Boudicca, of ancient Britain (1st century ce), and of Jim Bowie (1796-1836), of the Texas Alamo fame, contain the same root. Buddha is the past participle of the same Sanskrit word–“one who is enlightened.”

For Celtic scholars, the world of the Druids of reality is far more revealing and exciting, and showing of the amazingly close common bond with its sister Vedic culture, than the inventions of those who have now taken on the mantle of modern “Druids,” even when done so with great sincerity.

If we are all truly wedded to living in harmony with one another, with nature, and seeking to protect endangered species of animal and plant life, let us remember that language and culture can also be in ecological danger. The Celtic languages and cultures today stand on the verge of extinction. That is no natural phenomenon but the result of centuries of politically directed ethnocide. What price a “spiritual awareness” with the ancient Celts when their culture is in the process of being destroyed or reinvented? Far better we seek to understand and preserve intact the Celt’s ancient wisdom. In this, Hindus may prove good allies.

The Song of Amairgen the Druid I am the wind that blows across the sea; I am the wave of the ocean; I am the murmur of the billows; I am the bull of the seven combats; I am the vulture on the rock; I am a ray of the sun; I am the fairest of flowers; I am a wild boar in valor; I am a salmon in the pool; I am a lake on the plain; I am the skill of the craftsman; I am a word of science; I am the spearpoint that gives battle; I am the God who creates in the head of man the fire of thought. Who is it that enlightens the assembly upon the mountain, if not I? Who tells the ages of the moon, if not I? Who shows the place where the sun goes to rest, if not I? Who is the God that fashions enchantments– The enchantment of battle and the wind of change?

Amairgen was the first Druid to arrive in Ireland. Ellis states, “In this song Amairgen subsumes everything into his own being with a philosophic outlook that parallels the declaration of Krishna in the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita.” It also is quite similar in style and content to the more ancient Sri Rudra chant of the Yajur Veda.

(From Hindu Human Rights)

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mannazandwyrd · 2 years

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On a possible lost name of Loki:

I have speculated previously that, in order to incorporate new ideas into heathenry, we not only need to be reading current scholars’ work and revising our ideas to fit the currently available evidence into the Religion With Homework(™); we also need to find ways to evaluate unverified personal gnosis (UPG) and shared gnosis (SPG) from devotees for possible incorporation into new theology. With this blog post, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is.

I have a longstanding UPG (from multiple pendulum-and-alphabet-board conversations with Loki over the course of months, confirmed by other divination methods) that Loki was once also named ‘Aceilon’. Loki tells me it’s pronounced with a hard C, Ah-Keel-on. (Yes, I have very enthusiastic permission from the aspect of Loki who I interact with to share this ‘lost name’.)

There doesn’t appear to be a shred of independent evidence for that name ever being used (although perhaps I’m not looking in the right places). So, how does one evaluate this new piece of information?

Well, we could discard it immediately based on it being UPG. We could ask for independent confirmation from other devotees, which would make it SPG, still a fairly tenuous status.

Or we could measure it against what we do know about Loki. My last post looked at a number of possible etymologies of Old Norse ‘Loki’. (Probably not all those etymologies are completely sound. I am Not A Linguist and not able to evaluate them myself.) William Sayers, in “Norse ‘Loki’ As A Praxonym”, notes that many of the names of deities and other entities in Old Norse myths give us information about those who bear them.

So, if ‘Aceilon’ is a lost name for Loki, it should reflect Loki’s personality and other qualities in its etymology.

I’m not sure what language ‘Aceilon’ would be. It may have the form of a Continental Celtic god name, or one from an even earlier bronze- or stone-age culture. We do know that Norse mythology probably resulted from the meeting of multiple belief systems during the Migration Age or earlier, so a non-Germanic etymology isn’t out of the question, but it would still likely have a Proto-Indo-European root.

(‘Aceilon’ may be related in some way to the Greek mythical figure Achilles, but Old Norse ‘Loki’ likely predates Achilles’ stories, given that some of the proposed roots of ‘Loki’ are proto-Germanic… so I’m treating Achilles as a distraction.)

Let’s start with the suffix of ‘Aceilon’: -on as a suffix meaning “one who [preceding verb]” is currently found in French and was also used in Old French - possibly, via Ancient Greek, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *-os (creates nouns from verb stems)) or a diminutive (in French, Old French); some of the French words with this suffix derive from *-onos, the corresponding Celtic singulative suffix (seen in some pre-Roman Continental Celtic male deity names, with -ona as the female form), which probably has the same PIE root.

Okay, so using that gives us a working hypothesis that ‘Aceilon’ means “One Who [Verb]s”, where the verb was ‘aceil’ or ‘akeil’ or ‘ceil’ or ‘keil’, or the root words that became those sounds. What survivals of such a verb could exist?

1. It could have survived in Gaelic as ceilidh, a party of neighbours with music or stories, which comes from an Old Irish word céile meaning companion, follower, or servant [fitting for the travel companion of Odin, Hoenir, and Thor, and for the plot-driver of so many stories]. The Old Irish word in turn comes from proto-Celtic *kelyos, further etymology uncertain but possibly from PIE *ḱey- ‘to lie down, to settle’ [which ties in with Sayers’ notes on Old Norse lúka as a root of Loki], which is related to PIE *tḱey- ‘to cultivate, to settle, to live’ and PG *haimaz ‘settlement, village, house, home’ [interesting in light of Eldar Heide’s discussion of Loki as a house/hearth wight or vätte].

2. It may have survived into modern German as keil ‘wedge, (heraldry) pile’, from protoWestGermanic *kinan, protoGermanic *kinana (split, crack open, germinate), from PIE *ǵeyH- (“to break open, germinate”). [Loki as a fertility deity, or the one who breaks open situations where there is an impasse?]

Keil is also a city in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, established as a Danish village on Kieler Förde (German) and Kiel Bugt (Danish, ‘Keil Bay’), a harbour on the Baltic sea, not far from Hedeby/Haithabu where worship of Sirius/Lokabrenna was recorded.

3. English ceil (as in conceal or ceiling) could be another survival, and things get quite interesting with its PIE root: *ḱel- (verb) to cover or (noun) incline, with the sense of a hill. [Loki as a chthonic deity, consistent with Liberman’s etymology of Loki.]

The following words all come from PIE *ḱel-:

- Ceil (English, Irish, verb) ‘to hide, conceal’ , from Old Irish ceilid, from Proto-Celtic *keleti; compare Welsh celu, Latin cēlō, Old English helan. [In Loka Tattur, Loki is the only deity who succeeds in concealing the boy to protect him. In addition to its meaning, Ceil is a homophone with seal, one of the animals Loki transforms into.

- Hel (Old Norse, Loki’s daughter and her realm) from *haljo (Proto-Germanic) ‘netherworld’

- Hella (Frisian), Hylja (Old Norse), and Hill (modern English) from *huljaną (Proto-Germanic) ‘to cover, veil’

- Holda (Old Swedish), Hallen (and thus Frau Halle?)(Low German), Halda (Old Norse) from *haldaną (Proto-Germanic) ‘to hold, to keep’ [Holda/Holle/Halle might be be related to Loki’s mother Laufey or daughter Hel, and a disguised Loki says “Let Hel hold what she has.”]

- Proto-Germanic: *helmô (handle or boat helm) [Loki steers/helms the ship in Loka Tattur and at Ragnarok]

- Modern English Hall (as in house) from PG *hallo [Loki as a hearth deity]

- Proto-Germanic *hēliz ‘deceitful, treacherous’ [Loki’s main attribute in Snorri’s Eddas]

- Proto-Germanic *huliso ‘case, covering, pod’ [the acorn Loki carries Idunn home in] and cognates in Italic languages meaning ‘outside, aspect, color’ [the gift Loki-as-Lodurr gives to humanity in the creation myth]

- Middle English helen (to conceal, clothe, shelter, protect, etc) from OE helan from Proto-Germanic *helana (“to conceal, stash, receive stolen goods” [Loki as thief of Freya’s necklace]

- Old Saxon helian ‘to heal, to cure, to save’ [Loki saves a child in Loka Tattur; there are some UPGs in the community of Loki as a healer but that’s not an attested description.]

- Old High German helen ‘to brighten’ [or illuminate, as with a (pine) torch - kenaz.]

- Proto-Germanic *hul(th)az ‘gracious, loyal, devoted, inclined toward’ [This could be Loki’s wife Sigyn’s description.]

- Old Norse kyllir (sack, scrotum), Latin coleus (testicles), via Greek [...and then Loki tied his balls to the goat.]

For transparency, I discarded modern English keel as a survival of the root of ‘Aceilon’ because its’ PIE root isn’t a verb, and modern French echelon because the sk- sounds in its linguistic roots didn’t match the sounds we need to find.

Without any cherry-picking I have found three possible Proto-Indo-European root words for ‘Aceilon’ that are verbs, with descendant words that can be used to describe Loki, and in one case a family member. Which suggests that ‘Aceilon’ may indeed be a lost name of Loki, and the UPG is worth sharing for further evaluation.

Hey mutuals who are linguists, please feel free to tear this to shreds. As I said, I am Not A Linguist, and I welcome your critiques. I’m really curious if any of these three proposed roots stand up to academic scrutiny, despite the weird circumstances around the proposed name’s emergence.

I do hope this exercise points toward ways that pagan monastics can evaluate and discuss the validity of devotees’ personal gnosis for inclusion in new theological writings.

#lokean #seven days of lokabrenna #post 3 of 7 #long post #Aceilon?#evaluating UPG #norse pagan theology #etymology #linguistics #norse polytheism #going out on a limb with this one #devotional polytheism #upg #pagan gnosticism

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finnlongman · 3 months

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Hello, I'm the anon that asked about the Diarmuid and Grainne tale before and you gave such a great answer that I felt like it was safe to maybe send you an ask again? I've read more into the Ulster and Fenian tales and also came across the comparison between Diarmuid/ Grainne and Tristan/Isolde (a lot actually). Does that hold any evidence? Did the Tristan take evolve from Diarmuids story? I was thinking about maybe it up on JSTOR but you're definitely the less intimidating option. Have a great day

So, with the huge caveat that I am not a specialist in fíanaigecht material and also not an expert on Tristan material, this question did come at the only time when I might be able to answer it, because I literally read an article today about this topic. Having said that, I am still extremely not an expert!

First of all, I will say that this has definitely been a topic of discussion in academic scholarship on these texts. What the current consensus is on whether one text is drawing on the other, I can be less confident asserting, because I haven't read a lot of the scholarship on this topic. Although I'm not working on this topic directly, I'm currently looking substantially at the relationship between Arthurian romances and Early Modern* Irish texts (a category to which Diarmait & Gráinne belongs, although I'm working on the Ulster Cycle, so it's not in my corpus), so it's probably something I'll find myself coming back to. It's a very muddy area though -- although Arthurian scholars are often very ready to attribute details to the "Celtic" origins of a story and therefore imply that any similarities mean an Irish or Welsh text is the original blueprint, in this case, the surviving texts are late enough that you get a lot of influence coming back in from French and English sources via the Anglo-Normans and Ireland's general literary contact with the outside world.

When looking for articles on this kind of topic, JSTOR may be able to help, but I tend to find it's a bit limited for Irish material because so many articles and chapters in our field haven't been digitised. Which is a huge disadvantage. However, there are a few ways around this, at least in terms of identifying material (not so much getting access to it). I ran a search for tristan on BILL, the Bibliography of Irish Language & Literature, to see what had been published on the topic recently (but not super recently because BILL tends to be a few years behind with recent publications).

From there, I found Marie-Luise Theuerkauf's 2017 article in The Matter of Britain in Medieval Ireland: reassessments (Irish Texts Society Subsidiary Series 29, ed. John Carey): 'Tristan and early modern Irish romances: James Carney’s Ur-Tristan revisited.' This is a useful place to start. At least, it's where I started while reading today!

In this article, she discusses James Carney's controversial attempts (in the 1950s) to reconstruct an insular "ur-text" of the Tristan story that would have served as the source for later texts. In this study, Carney identifies a number of Irish texts that share motifs with Tristan stories, among them Tóruigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne. TDG probably dates to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, although the earliest manuscript of the text is from the seventeenth century. However, Carney believed that the original story underlying it dated to around 900, and therefore he can count it among his early, pre-Tristan texts.

It's true that there were definitely earlier versions of the story, since the (descriptive) title of one is found in tale lists: "The Elopement of Gráinne with Diarmaid". The text itself is lost, though, so we only have the title. Theuerkauf notes that "this proves that the love triangle story of Diarmaid, Gráinne and Fionn was known at a date anterior to the earliest Continental Tristan texts, we cannot automatically assume that the Aithed Gráinne story in exactly the same way as the Tóruigheacht does." In other words, a lot of the very specific motifs and similarities that the two texts share might be later, so which direction the influence is in becomes very muddy -- does Tristan get it from Diarmaid, or the other way around? Or do they both draw on a shared source? Or are they coincidental/more general folklore motifs from a common stock?

Theuerkauf cautions: "While it may be tempting to focus on the similarities which exist between the Tóruigheacht and Tristan, this focus has tended to lead to an over-simplification of the nature of the source material" and comments that although they're "very much alike in theme, they are often very different in execution or intent". She finishes by concluding that Carney is wrong about most things, if not everything, and introduces for consideration another 15th-century Irish text with close correspondences to the Tristan stories.

Another scholar who has worked on the relationship between the Tristan stories and the Irish material is Raymond J. Cormier. His article "Open Contrast: Tristan and Diarmaid" in Speculum 51/4 is available on JSTOR. I haven't read this one myself yet, but it looks based on Theuerkauf's citations that he tends to be quite critical of the connections between the two; among his criticisms is the fact that the late date of the surviving Irish texts means influences can enter directly from the French material, so shared motifs don't necessarily mean shared sources or Irish origins for those details.

He's also written about connections between Tristan narratives and the Naoise/Deirdre story, so looking at the love triangle motif in another Irish text. I haven't read this article yet, but it's here, if it's of interest (not sure if paywalled or not, sorry, I'm on institutional WiFi right now so it's bypassing all of that!)

Another article that looks valuable on this topic is Joseph Falaky Nagy, "Tristanic, Fenian, and lovers’ leaps" in Diasa díograise: aistí i gcuimhne ar Mháirtín Ó Briain (2009). Unfortunately, I can tell you nothing about this article because this book is not available to me. I have actually just requested that my library buy it because a couple of the other articles in there are relevant to me, but that means I can't advise on its contents yet!

Nagy has another article on the topic, 'The Celtic "Love Triangle" Revisited', in An XIV Comhdháil Idirnáisiúnta sa Léann Ceilteach, Maigh Nuad 2011: Imeachtaí (Dublin, 2015). Again, I have not read this one (although it looks like my library does actually have it), but it's also cited in Theuerkauf's article and sounds like it could be helpful.

I don't know if this answered your question at all, as I feel like the general vibe of what I just gave you was "ehh well they're definitely similar but the question is Why they're similar and that's more complicated" (ain't that always the way). But hopefully it might give you some sources to follow up on. I'm sorry I can't provide direct links to more of these -- the lack of open access and digitised scholarship in this field is a challenge.

*A point of terminology just to clarify in case anyone was confused: 13th-14th century may not sound "Early Modern" if you're used to thinking in purely historical terms, but linguistically, when it comes to Irish material this label tends to start from about 1300 (and obviously, being found in 17th century manuscripts positions this tale more solidly in the early modern period anyway).

#toruigheacht dhiarmada agus grainne #tristan and isolde #answered #anon good sir #fianaigecht #finn cycle #long post #medieval irish #early modern irish #ps i honestly don't remember the previous ask and I can't find it on my blog #but I'm glad whatever i said was useful!#I'm sorry I can't remember what it was!

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